Close your ears, children of the 1980s: The Camaro IROC-Z will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year, and it has finally completed the used car cycle. Starting out as the coolest car in the high school parking lot, it was soon the innocent victim of fourth-owner hooning and mullet jokes. But now, it’s the center of attention once again, as low-mileage originals like this first-year 1985 model are finally achieving the collector esteem you’d have expected they would back when they were new.
As a kid, I grew up in a Mustang family, so I had to keep my Camaro and Firebird admiration a secret from my dad (and sometimes from myself – it took me a while to admit that I was an F-Body fan all along). There’s no denying that a red IROC was in the 90th percentile when it came to red-blooded rides in the rust belt.
Still, my family’s home team still had the performance edge with its trusty five-point-oh Mustangs throughout most of the ’80s. Sure, the 350 IROCs and GTAs were close, but the Ford fans could always counter with the fact that it took 48 more cubic inches to run with one. Nonetheless, this 305 cranked out a respectable 215 horsepower, enough for a 7.2 second zero-to-60 run according to Chevy. Additionally, the Camaro handled better than the Mustang, according to most of the road tests.
The current owner bought this car from a previous owner’s widow, and it had been sitting for nine years. It has had “paint correction and a ceramic coating completed” recently, and by the looks of things, the interior was also professionally detailed. First, red is the perfect interior color for a red IROC. Second, nothing looks faded, which is blow-me-over shocking for a red ’80s anything. Third…there is no third, but look at how immaculate it is.
Even the luggage compartment is virtually perfect. The owner has a stack of receipts for all fluid changes and flushes, new exhaust, an AC recharge, and a tune up. Aside from an occasional phantom scanning of the radio, it’s fundamentally a new car.
It doesn’t hurt that it only has 42,000 miles on it, which averages out to about 1,000 miles a year. There is no way I could buy a new Camaro and drive it so little, but that’s also why my cars are not this nice.
It’s not really a huge surprise that the owner put so few miles on this car; it’s almost as satisfying to look at as it must be to drive. A few people will wince, but I think the third-generation Camaro still looks great: It’s one of the best-looking cars of the ’80s. This one is located in Georgia and is currently for sale on eBay; it already has a high bid of $17,300. The auction doesn’t end until Saturday – how high can this pristine Camaro go?
There should be an elaboration: the street IROC-Zs will turn 40 next year, but the racing IROC Camaros are celebrating 50 years this year
Major league car here. One of GM’s finest designs with power trains to match.
Having put around 1/4 million miles on my iroc convertible over the last 30 years, I’m not as wide-eyed about it as many have recently become, but I still dig the fantastic profile, and it’s still my hands down favorite for bustin down twisty southern backroads.
I hated Camaros especially the IROC when I was a teenager. My first car was a 1987 Mustang LX 5.0 that my dad bought new when I was in 7th grade, and he gave to me when I got my driver’s license. There was such a big rivalry between us with Mustangs and the Chevy guys.
Now that I’m getting ready to turn 50, boy do I have nostalgia and a bit of an affinity for the IROC. My teenage self would hate me saying it, but I wouldn’t mind having this car!!
Handle like on rails. Stiff is what i remember. One of the best looking cars ever from the General.
Wow, even at that mileage, how do you keep it this nice? Beautiful car.
The ones made at the Van Nuys factory were pretty bad. My dad bought one new and after a couple of months he brought it back and made them give him his money back. The only worse GM factory was Fremont.
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/403/transcript
“Van Nuys made Firebirds and Camaros, and its reputation wasn’t much better than GM Fremont’s had been. Defective cars coming off the line, battles with the union, sabotage. So Ernie Schaefer enlisted the same UAW leader who got the union on board at NUMMI, Bruce Lee, to help him win over the Van Nuys workforce.”
Mark, thanks for the link. That the Van Nuys quality was so poor they shipped production to Saint Therese says everything. They told the Quebecois “Sink or swim. Last chance.” They sunk.
My father worked for GM early in his career and remained loyal – he always bought GM cars. As the quality of the cars got worse and he started to experience issues, especially in the ’70’s, he was frustrated, thinking it was just a fluke that he bought problematical cars. The last GM car he owned, a 1980-something Buick, kept suffering from a dead battery and couldn’t be started and he just let it sit in the garage until he passed away and my mother got rid of it.
Just wanted to thank you for sharing that link, Mark. I read the whole thing cover to cover — absolutely fascinating!
It’s funny, my Pappa said the” only car worth buying was MOPAR” which I grew up believing, now as I’m grown up I still found and incredible infinity to the late eighties version of these cars.
I like the smaller body style of these versions as I was never very found of the over bloated version of the seventies cars.
Just my opinion of course.
Just bought my dad’s 85 IROC that he bought new off the showroom floor. 39 years ago. My senior year of high school. Loved that car. Now I own it. Blaaaack. T tops. Red interior, red badges. 305 TPI. 163k miles. Runs like a hungry hog still. Get a looooooot of head turns and thumbs up when it rumbles. Fun as hell.