The Z-28 Accident:

    If you're anything like me, these pics make you wanna cry.  On January 5th of 1999, I had some bad luck driving one winter night.  A bad slip on some black ice, turned my beautiful '84 Z-28 into what most people consider a junk yard special.  Since I only had liability coverage on the car, my family and I decided it best to tow it home and decide how to address it later.   So with that, a tow truck came by and took my once proud Z to rest in the driveway, where my father and I tarped it off to protect from the snow fall, and then I was left with some decisions to make.  I'll admit, things didn't look good.  I had people that said junk it, I had others that said fix it.  I voted for fix (and as we know, since this Web site is here, it was success in repairs).

    In about one month's time, my father and I (more my father then anyone) repaired the mechanics of the car (new rear axle, rear breaks and a new rim).   It was a great success to have the car back on all fours and drivin' again (even if it had plastic for a rear hatch).  For various reasons, it was many months later until the car was taken to a body shop to make it beautiful again.  Those details (and many others) can be found on the TimeLine page.  As a matter of fact, the pics above were actually taken the day before my father and I took the car to the body shop!  At that point I had stripped off the ground effects to inspect the rest of the body for rust (and maybe work I can do myself, since earlier I didn't have any body shops lined up).  

    It took roughly six months from the night of my accident until it was lookin' sharp again.  I got it back on June 29th, 1999.  The pics below were actually taken a few days after I got the car back from the body shop (first Saturday I had it back).  Since I got such a good price on having the work done and a paint job, that didn't include cleaning of the interior.  I spent a good part of the Saturday afternoon vacuuming, scrubbing, washing, etc of the interior.  But it was worth it!