Following on from Oddball's post, today i celebrate the 7 year anniversary of owning my '79 Camaro.
It was a Saturday morning and i had convinced my mate to drive me up to Market Harborough. It was a bit of an anxious morning as the seller said he had someone viewing in the early afternoon. I was hyped up for my first V8 so really didn't want to lose out. Luckily it was a trader who offered silly money. I got the call saying it was still available so I had made a mad dash around town to get the cash out of the bank and made it just about half an hour before they closed (12:30). My mate was on his way over and him being from Teeside laughed when i said we'd be going up North.
We fuelled up and got there just after 4pm. I hadn't done much research into Camaro's, ownership etc. so it was all new to me and so far the biggest engined car i had was a 1.6 litre front wheel drive. I didn't know how many gens there were, when the body shape changed, anything about the engines, transmission etc. Definitely went with my heart on this one. How i got to this stage was that I had recently been looking through pistonheads and saw the advert and sent it to a couple friends, as in "how cool" is this car. No intention of actually buying. They both came back the same thing - get it! I'm sure they were joking but i took it seriously and called the guy arranged for a viewing on the weekend. The advert said '78 and i only found out after the V5 arrived that it was a '79.
Anyway, by the time we got to the home address of the seller, it was dark and of course, you should never buy a car in the dark
It was parked in the guys garage and had a chat and a look around. It looked good (i didn't really have a clue what i was looking for, mainly just looking out for dents!). It was pretty cool and then he fired it up 
Basically, think of the moment in Mad Max when the guy fires up the v v v 8 that sucks nitro. That was my reaction and at that point, there was no question, i had to have it! Took it for a test drive, all seemed ok. We talked a bit more, most of it went over my head and didn't understand anything he was talking about with the engine, which is annoying as i'd love to remember. He mentioned he was going through a divorce so it all had to go, so there were quite a few spares and we loaded up the Camaro and my mates car with wheels, fenders, random parts. He said that everything was going to the scrappy tomorrow that was left so we managed to get everything but the spare hood. It was about 8pm now and we'd exchanged cash and paperwork. And that was it - the Camaro was mine, scary! First thing was we drove to a petrol station and i hadn't figured my way around the dash, somehow managed to figure out the light switch location on the way. Whilst there, i had to ask my mate to help open the door as when getting back in, as i couldn't figure out which key it was and they all kind of spun. He figured it out thankfully. So off we went and i asked him to go ahead and a bit slow on the motorway, judging my distance and keeping pace based on me. The speedo was out and the lights on the dash were very dim and kept switching off. Whilst i thought we were doing 65, turned out we were doing 55
It was the winter where we had that really bad snow so there was lots of it about and it must have been about 0-2celsius. I had my window down the whole way as i wanted to be able to listen out for things and it was the adrenaline was keeping me warm. I had no idea where the heater controls were and they weren't on! So we made it back about 10:30, unloaded the cars and then drove to his place so his parents could take a look too, his dad being an ex mechanic. So we drove the 30 minutes to his place, got told off by his mum for revving the engine as it was gone 11pm and the exhaust was true duals with cherry bombs
I then drove home, making it back about midnight and just locked the gate as the hot girl next door got home. Caught a hi but missed my chance to impress her with the cool car! Totally pysched that night and luckily the adrenaline rush all day meant i was exhausted and could fall asleep.
Next day i went out and admired the car, took some pics and then had a quick look at what kind of work needed to be done. I was starting to get into American Hot Rod, Overhaulin' etc. at the time so had all these ideas. A couple of days later on the Tuesday I joined this forum. The following weekend i started to take the interior apart for it's "quick" interior only restoration. Well. 7 years later and it's done a whopping 6 miles. Yes, things went very badly. That quick resto turned into interior, exterior, custom stuff, a whole respray, and then, as i didn't go fully in 2 years later i found i had to go all in and redo everything. Then life, work, health came up and it turned into a 6 year 10 month job. It has been a big part of my life. It's stuck with me through girlfriends that have come and gone and taught me a thing or two about life, in it's strange ways. I've met some great people and continue to do so. We've had our tough moments, long nights, exhaustion, feelings of giving up, anxiety etc. but it was worth it
Was getting a bit crowded at home and i didn't have the space or time to work on it. As a second car it would have been ok (as in having a normal car for a daily and not having the 2nd gen) but it got a bit stressful with it being my only form of transport and needing attention here and there whilst trying to get to work etc. and taking longer to get hold of parts vs. having a normal car which would mean just going to local eurocarparts type place. So ye, it was a fun couple of years and the car did excellent, shame i had to sell. 
