Motion export Camaros

[bbdon]

I thought I'd share this article with you all, kind of a Christmas special. This is an article about export Camaros, built by Motion performance in the years after the feds cracked down on their US activities. The article is short on text, but has lots of photographs. The car in front is really the main subject of the magazine article, but take a second look at the car in back. Its a Motion Trans AM. Possibly the same car that was mentioned in another thread here recently. Click on the links to see the four pages of the article.


http://www.sonic.net/bbdon/free/export-1.jpg
http://www.sonic.net/bbdon/free/export-2.jpg
http://www.sonic.net/bbdon/free/export-3.jpg
http://www.sonic.net/bbdon/free/export-4.jpg
Hope you all like it.

[mahoy78spyder]

Yep, that's the same Trans Am that was in the other thread recently that I found written up in the Nov. 75 issue of CARS. And it was headed for Iran as well. I'm not surprised that there was not much written about them as I know both cars were sent out for a quick photo op. as there was very little time between their completion and when they were loaded up for shipment to Iran. I wonder where these cars are today?? Thanks for posting those pics....

Ken

[COPO]

Having lived in the middle east, I would suspect these cars were abused and then abandoned. The Saudis at least didn't seem to take care of their cars and would have trashed it in a year then bought another toy with Daddy's money. Perhaps I am generalizing, but that is what I observed. I have a brother-in-law stationed in Kuwait who travels throughout the middle east and have asked him to look around for older American cars. Nothing of interest yet.

[whitetop]

Were these cars really exported??? When you read these magazine articles in one issue the car was going to Iran in another issue (another magazine) the same exact car is going to South America. Did Joel just use this "export" biz as a ruse to get the feds off his back or was it just sloppy journalism by the magazines? I have a hunch some of these cars were just sold out the back door to US buyers.
whitetop

[sixtiesmuscle]

I don't know about the export claim being a ruse, but, on my '78 Motion Trans Am conversion, Joel had the owner sign a very explicit "for off road use only" statement.

[bbdon]

I spent a couple of years in Saudi Arabia in the early 80s, and I can verify that I saw at least one Motion Camaro and one Macho T/A on the road there. Having seen one of each, there were probably plenty more there as well. The wealthier Saudis seemed to prefer specialty vehicles. Mostly this translated into AMG and other modifiers of Mercedes Benz, often with ugly gold wheelwell moldings and hood ornaments. But there were musclecars too, and lots of exotic Italian sports cars as well. I remember one particular Countach that was sitting neglected. It was two or three years old, probably much abused, and needed a bath badly. Looking back, I can see that I should have been shopping for cars, but I wasnt. Another missed opportunity.