A Rare 1980 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 – $1,550 USD

This 1980 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 was discovered sitting in a farmer’s field, it’s now being sold on eBay with a price of $1,550 USD, however it should be noted that it’s going to require a lot of work to get back on the road.

The high-performance Z/28 package was first offered on the Camaro in 1966, it was a homologation special to get the Camaro into SCCA Trans Am racing and it was developed by taking various parts from other vehicles in the Chevrolet catalogue.

Fast Facts – Chevrolet Camaro Z28

• The Chevrolet Camaro was developed in the mid-1960s as a GM answer to the successful Ford Mustang – the car that had established the “pony car” genre when it was released in 1964.
• The Z/28 package was developed to allow the Camaro to compete in SCCA Trans Am competition, it featured a special 302 cubic inch V8 and a slew of performance upgrades over the stock car. The Z/28 name came from its RPO code – RPO28 was the Special Performance Package.
• The Camaro began competing in Trans Am in 1967, winning three races. They would go on to win the championship outright in 1968 and 1969, firmly cementing the Camaro’s race credentials in the minds of American motorsport fans.

How To Kill The Mustang

The Camaro had been developed with a single purpose in mind, killing, or at least seriously challenging, the Ford Mustang and its runaway success. The Z/28 version of the Camaro had the same goal but it was focussed on one Mustang in particular – the Boss 302.

This page from the brochure for the 1980 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 displays the performance enhancements fitted to the model.

Chevrolet didn’t have a suitable engine in production that would meet SCCA trans Am rules requiring a displacement of under 305 cubic inches (5.0 liters). Chevrolet engineer Vince Piggins set to work on the problem and came up with an ingenious solution.

Piggins took the 327 cubic inch Chevrolet V8 that was used in cars like the Corvette and swapped out the crankshaft for a crank from a 283 cubic inch V8, this reduced the stroke and gave the engine a displacement of 302.4 cubic inches.

A wide range of performance enhancements were added to this new chimera of an engine, in street trim it was said to be capable of 290 bhp but real figures were believed to be closer to 360 bhp.

The first generation Z/28 remained in production for just three years until 1969, it was then replaced by the second generation Camaro for 1970. There was also a new Z/28 for the second generation Camaro, without the “/” from 1972 onwards.

Due to the fact that Trans Am regulations were no longer a concern the 350 cubic inch V8 was used. As a result of ever increasing safety and emissions regulations the Z28 was discontinued in 1975, only to then be reintroduced in 1977 as a competitor for the popular Pontiac Firebird series.

It’s clear that this car will require a full rebuild including plenty of bodywork, but the asking price of just $1,550 will appeal to some.

These later Z28s would have significantly less power than their 1960s-era forbears, as little as 180 bhp from the factory. Owners and the aftermarket soon turned this around, and returned power levels to more impressive levels.

The “Field Find” Camaro Z/28 Shown Here

The rather brief eBay listing for this 1980 Camaro Z28 notes that it’s “been sitting for a few years” which does seem to be backed up by the images. “A few years” may be a slight understatement in fact.

It’s clear that this car has been sitting in a field for a long time, and the few images that have been uploaded, five at the time of writing, show a car that needed a full nut-and-bolt restoration.

The seller does say that it’s a complete car, but it would be worth ensuring that it has the correct numbers-matching engine before any negotiations begin.

If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can visit the listing here, it’s being offered for sale out of Miami, Florida. As always, it’s important to take any seller’s word with a grain of salt and do your own research and thorough due diligence before any money changes hands.

– Editor’s Note: Unfortunately the eBay listing on this car ended between the time we wrote the story and published it, this does happen sometimes when sales are agreed privately.

Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.

Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.