How is this 2002 Trans Am even possible?? How can it switch hands three times with not one person driving it?? I'm in shock this morning that this car exists. I'm actually happy they are asking so much because I can't even think about it, plus it's a 6 speed which my left knee won't let me drive anymore.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/19620325850...Bk9SR6jyy-WmYw

 

That one isn’t a “driver” anyway. It’s to sit and look at. If you started driving it it’d be worth the same as any other “low mile” ‘02 TA which is no where near $80k.

 

Cars like this are possible, and real. Here's an even lower mileage one (with a much more collectible pedigree) that's been for sale at a specialty dealer near me for a LONG time now:

https://www.volocars.com/auto-sales/...let-camaro-z28

Just 27 miles on that one, and it has a very special distinction of being the last 'saleable' 4th gen Camaro off the assembly line, with full documentation. This is obviously a collector's item and wouldn't be bought by anyone planning to actually drive it. Even still, no takers at $64k (I think they started up around $70k originally). I could see it selling maybe for $50k to JUST the right buyer, but it's been (and will continue to be) a tough sell for this dealer at that price.

As for the 2002 WS6 that started this thread, it has almost no hope of selling for $90k. Only the mileage makes it special; it's not a Blackbird/GMMG type car, or even a CETA, 30th Anniversary or Firehawk, in fact it's not even a special color with more demand than supply (such as SOM). They are dreaming with that price, especially in the current market of waning prices for most special interest cars. But even in 2021-22 I don't think they would have gotten that kind of money. Their only hope is that Jay Leno needs to replace his current WS6 with an equally nice example...haha.

 

^^^ That Z28 is so sweet!!! Even if it is the last one I would be driving it if I bought it. I don't have the willpower to let it sit.

 

It should be noted though, that the Z28 linked above isn't actually the *very* last one; they were mindful in the ad (and presumably the original documentation) to indicate that it was the last 'saleable' 4th gen Camaro. It's listed as car #4,062,811, but the very last one was actually #4,062,813 which was a bright red Z28 convertible. Here is an image of it rolling off the assembly line on 8-27-02:



I don't know what happened to #4,062,813 for it to never have been considered as 'saleable', perhaps it was earmarked to go directly to the GM heritage museum? In any event, #4,062,811 is still a significant collector's item since it received special documentation and unique consideration on the assembly line at the tail end of production. But I think a great deal of its value would be lost if someone actually started driving it.

 

Thanks a lot!! All these gorgeous red Camaros made me want to make mine 'pop' like at the car shows. Even though it is the dead of winter, it was 60 degrees today, so I spent 4 hours on my beast giving it the Mother's treatment which went on top of the existing Meguiar's ceramic. LOL!! Man, it came out good but my body is killing me.

 

Absolutely. It’d be just another old car at that point. It wouldn’t even be considered a “classic” to the layperson. The non car person doesn’t spot a 25-40 year old vehicle and say “wow, look at that classic,” the same way they do cars from the 70’s and older. As a matter of fact they probably wouldn’t/don’t spot or notice them at all really unless it was some sort of Italian looking exotic. Not just old F-body’s but cars from mid the mid ‘80’s, ‘90’s, and early ‘00 in general. A Lumina is old enough to be classic and it’s technically a successor to the Bel Air but it’ll never be a classic like the Bel Air. The ‘57 Chebby and the likes (even 70’s era) were already “classics” in the 80’s. Will we ever turn the page? Will the 95’s ever be “classics” to the layperson and a ‘69 becomes “old timey” like the Modle T has been all our lives?

 

There was a 2002 CE TA M6 with 19 Original Miles that sold for $65k on BAT like 3 weeks ago, a bargain compared to eBay listing....

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/20...am-coupe-18-2/

 

 

I definitely agree with your line of thinking. It seems like various eras of cars are frozen in time, never really seeming any older than they have been for the last several decades, at least to me.

I think about my '98 Camaro being 26 years old now, but it seems like it's still a 'new' (or at least late model) car for the most part. Even though it has AV plates I don't really think of it as any kind of classic/antique or anything such as that. On the other hand, I bought a '71 Cutlass back in 1997 - which was also 26 years old at that time - and that car seemed OLD...way older than my '98 seems today. Maybe part of it has to do with the fact that I bought a couple of 4th gen F-bodies brand new, so they just won't ever seem that old to me? Either way, that same '71 Cutlass would now be 53 years old which, in 1997, would have been the age of a car from the mid-'40s...haha, stuff that old seemed like "horse & buggy" era to me even back then. But today? Current 53 year old cars still feel more like 26 year old cars.

 

I feel the same exact way and I’m only 41.
We went for a walk in the neighborhood the other day and I spotted a classic Pontiac. 😂

 

I'm only a bit older, but I live so far in the past that most folks think I just popped out of a time machine.

I used to daily drive a Pontiac of that era...now it would be another "classic"... (honestly, it was a great car and I would probably still have it today if it'd been an SSEi model with the L67 supercharged engine).

 

My mom had a Bonneville too for a little. I was in junior high or a little before so it was like a ‘96 or there arounds. It was a pretty nice car for our lil po-dunk area at the time. People were amazed by it displaying the outside ambient temperature. Technology ha.
One day a little while back I was think about the old supercharged 3.8’s and how come the blower only added like 30-40 horsepower. Were they oniy making like 3 psi? Or were they underrated? The n/a 3.8 was rated at 205 and I think the supercharged variants were rated at 235 or so if I remember correctly. Ford’s 4.6 V8 in the T-Bird was a 205 horse monster too at the time haha. My folks test drove both and ended up with the Pontiac.

 

My Bonneville was also a '96. I bought it used in 2000 with just over 17k miles on it, so it was still like new, and I had it until the end of 2008. It originally had the SSEi chrome wheels on it, which I really loved, but they started leaking air around the bead (stupid Chicago winters) so I had to replace the wheels with what you see above.

Part of the reason for the L67 variants not having more power stock was the low compression ratio. My NA L36 was either 9.4 or 9.5 compression, while the supercharged L67 was only 8.5:1. Even still, the rating for my L36 was 205hp/230tq while the L67 was 240hp/280tq - so the toque difference was significant. Back in the early-mid '00s, the L67 W-bodies (GP GTP, Regal GS, later MC SS) were popular choices as daily drivers among my local F-body group, so I had a lot of exposure to them. I would say that they were probably a little underrated as they often ran very low 14s stock...some might have gone even faster. In fact, stock for stock, they were comparable to (if not faster than) my old '89 Formula 350 (which wasn't a heavy car) with a 235hp/340tq rating. The [relatively] low compression of the L67 made them happy to accept more boost, so it was very common to drop pulley diameter (I think the usual choices back then ranged from like 2.9" to 3.3" or so?) to increase boost without any worries of hurting the engine. Doing that plus a CAI/exhaust upgrade usually got them to high 12s/low 13s. I think the blower needed porting to really see any gains from going any smaller than about 2.9" (if I remember correctly) on the pulley size.

Not many folks were modding the lager/heavier H-body L67 (like the Bonneville SSEi), but I do remember one guy who got his SSEi into GMHTP magazine for running 11s like 20 years ago. I don't remember what all was done to it, but it was still an L67 engine.