Thanks again Joe.
It's a Norwood built X33 with white deluxe houndstooth. Original exterior color is Frost Green. I believe the car has spent it's life in the desert Southwest simply due to the fact that the car is exceptionally clean underneath, factory overspray and paint dabs still present throughout the car, and has zero rot anywhere. Even still sporting it's born with exhaust system with only the muffler being changed.
In the mid 1980's the previous owner bought it from someone working at an auto parts store in the Glendale area. The car was just sitting in the parking lot and the owner was using it as daily transportation. Once purchased he drove it a bit around the Glendale area. He decided to park it permanently in his back yard where he lived around 43rd and Greenway area. Registration expired in 1989.
One day coming home from work someone was scaling his brick wall. Went out to investigate and found the shift linkage disconnected and laying on the ground. Apparently someone was trying to steal the shifter or transmission. This is when he also found a puncture hole in the bottom of the gas tank, someone stole the gas out of it.
It was at this point he decided to store the car inside, and moved it to his property in Yarnell where the car was parked inside a rickety garage and here starts it's long hibernation, and where I came into the picture. I bought the car and left it stored in Yarnell.
Fast forward to the spring of 2013, the Yarnell property was sold so I had to move the car. Brought it back to my place in Prescott and stored it in my trailer. That was pure luck, as that following summer just 2 months later in June, we had the Yarnell hill fire that killed 19 firefighters. The shack the Z was stored in burned to the ground.
I decided at that point I was tired of the car sitting and it belonged on the road. I had planned a rotisserie restoration as classic restoration is what I do for a living. I have collected many NOS and new parts for it over the years. My wife at this time also wanted a classic daily driver so for the time being it was decided to just clean the car up and put her in it. She's now been daily driving the car close to 3 years and I don't see an end to it, lol. So for now restoration plans are on hold.
As for the car itself, it's largely unrestored. It's originally a flat hood and no spoiler car. At some point before the mid 1980's (before the previous owner bought it) someone stuck a GM ZL2 hood on it from a Garnet Red Z/28, spoilers, and very quickly sprayed a thin coat of grey primer on the outside of the car only. All the jambs and trunk still retain the original Frost Green paint. This is how the previous owner found the car, and how it's sat for more than 30 years, and is just how you see it in the pictures above that Joe graciously helped me with, complete with nearly 30 years of Yarnell dust.
I removed the grey primer only to find that the original Frost Green underneath had been sanded and scuffed to the point it couldn't be saved. My wife didn't want the car painted since she's driving it so it was decided to reapply some grey primer sealer, clean it up, and enjoy the car. I left the jambs in their original paint and was careful not to disturb some unique features found on the car so they could be duplicated during the restoration, when that day comes.
The DMV was no help in tracing any history. When a car has not been registered in more than 10 years, the state of Arizona purges the vehicle from the system. So when I registered the car a few years back, it no longer existed. I currently have a friend of mine, retired police officer, checking his contacts to see if anything turns up.
The Z, also being built the last week of Dec 68, means it's among the lost vins with the NCRS so that is also a dead end. I've only recently gotten interested in trying to trace some history. Thought it would be cool to possibly meet a previous owner and share stories. A friend of mine suggested this site full of great people and a wealth of information and contacts.
I'm not much of a social media person. I don't face book or tweet or any of those things. Shucks I just got a smart phone last week (wife made me
) I visit a couple of websites, now this one thanks to Bill, and that's about it. So I'll do my best to update if anything new occurs.
Thanks,
Larry