Whenever something mysterious happens with an automobile, it’s often an unnerving situation that sometimes raises more questions than answers. If the car is found in a body of water, the creepiness factor has the potential to intensify, and while there’s not necessarily any evidence to support that a crime occurred here, the circumstances regarding this 1974 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 resting at the bottom of a lake are inexplicable, at least as of yet. Additional information can be found here on the WGME news site, whose studio is located in Portland, Maine, about an hour southeast of where this poor Chevy was found sunk in Sebago Lake. Thanks, Richard M, for making us aware of this baffling situation!
Interestingly, this happens to be the deepest lake and one of the largest in Maine, with its lowest point around 300 feet below the surface. The story goes that a man named Jason Smith, an underwater explorer whose hobby is using drones to scan bodies of water in search of whatever he can find, is responsible for this discovery. A recent initial spotting of a snowmobile that had been underwater for some 35 years brought him back to this same location, an area near the center of the channel, and that’s when he noticed the Z car.
The Camaro was far enough out in the water that authorities have all but ruled out the possibility that it was accidentally driven into Sebago Lake, and a subsequent search of records found no report that it ever fell off a ferry that frequently transported vehicles across the water. One theory is that someone may have been driving on the lake when it was iced over in winter, and that it could have broken through a thin spot in the frozen area and sunk to the bottom. The strangest thing is that no one seems to have any positive leads on what happened here or when the event may have occurred, with some believing it could have been as long as half a century ago.
Sadly, when the rescue crew arrived, the Z28 had been submerged for so long that it didn’t surface intact, and much of the car crumbled before it reached the top. However, a detective was able to retrieve part of a VIN, which was apparently enough for the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to reconstruct what they believe may be the actual Vehicle Identification Number. With all the decades that have passed, there’s always the chance that the original owner is deceased, and that most other recollections about this Z28 have been lost to time. Do you have any theories to share about what might have happened here?
The owner couldn’t afford the payments anymore so he reported the car as stolen and received an insurance payout.
Wow, that was funny.
True, it is possible he could have been underwater on the payments.
Ahh, you’re all wet!
If he’d only bought a VW bug instead he’d have paid it off no problem.
Or it’d still be floating on top of the lake.
If Ted Kennedy had driven a VW, he would have been elected President
Maybe Ocean Gate can make it to this depth.
Wow, that was funny.
Curious, do you come here for the jokes?
Wow, that was funny.
Thanks Mike and Richard for a find/ article that’s a lot more interesting than the run of the mill 74 Z28 story. I’ll be waiting for the follow up!
Firm. No BS. No tire kickers. Don’t need help selling. I know what I got.
Could use a tune-up.
and possibly a wax jjob?
Ran when submerged.
A/C needs a recharge 🙂
It’ll buff out
What’s the reserve?
Put it back!
I’m most curious about how many miles this poor girl got to spend on the road before going searching for Nemo and figuring out she couldn’t swim.
I wonder how much it cost to retrieve it and who paid for that? Seems to me, it was a big waste of time and resources, dragging it back onto the hard.
Paid for because of investigation for possible body.
Well, at lest the gasoline and oil won’t be leaking into the lake anymore, so there’s that.
I like the parked on the ice Idea because of not able to make payments. So a combo theory.
No license plate says it wasn’t an accident.
Who’s the U-boat commander?
I reeled that one in once with a zebco rod and reel and threw it back as I wanted a 1970-1973 model.
I also wasn’t sure if it was only a catch and release lake. 🤠
202 or 404??
Bet it was a 33 lol
Man, what a hangover… I woke up this morning after a heavy night of partying on the ice with my buddies and now I can’t find my effing car.
Could be a movie: Dude
Where’s My Car? 🤣😂😅
No plates should tell part of the story
Why is this rusted out? Piece of junk even featured? There’s nothing here. This vehicle is beyond salvage. It’s a rusted heap of metal. Raise the Titanic!
Because it’s an interesting find that many of us enjoyed reading about. Take your ignorant attitude somewhere else!
and 47 sided with John ?!?
welll thats a lil science aint it..
Dave, yes, good point, fair to express and yes, its not a barn find. However, i think that fiberglass spoiler might be salvagable.
As far as cars, welll i dont see Z28s from that era often, so ya
‘ Lake Find ‘
If it were a mopar, someone would fix it =D
Insurance claim or stolen car
Dave, you have the same first name and another John is my brother. I had to give you your only thumb up because the raise Titanic was funny and I think John’s reaction was extreme. He was correct about the interest. I had a friend long ago with your name. That Dave and I shared a home in CA before we both returned to PA. So there is that memory whenever I see your posts.
Told you the engine was flooded….
You know, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils put out an album entitled: “Car Over the Lake.” Maybe they got together again to produce the sequel, “Car IN The Lake.”
An amphibious Camaro. I’m dam near 70. Never seen one before now. Take a wet vac to it. Just too funny.
It’ll buff out? Asking for a friend.
Patina.
This was Boomhauer’s car “Miss Sally” that Hank, Dale and Bill accidently let roll into the quarry and then kept quite about till it was discovered.
Was Jimmy Hoffa inside?
Stolen…No plates No joke.
There’s something fishy about this
I’ve been on that lake many times whether it’s on the ice or in a boat. They had to have fallen through during a snowstorm or something where it wasn’t witnessed. I suspect somebody just wanted to get rid of the car or some nefarious reason. There’s no way it would end up there by accident.
A lady in Arizona went missing for several months. She was found in her car, in 12 feet of water near a golf course, by a golf ball diver. The plate came back as the missing person.
I thought someone would be asking $20K for this “in need of restoration.”
I live 45 minutes from Sebago Lake, there’s chat in the WGME comments section about a local party animal that may be the owner of record. State detectives I’m sure have been investigating, it’s kind of a big deal because the lake is a drinking water source for Portland, they try to keep it clean. Surprising that no one ever came forward to tell about it. Fell through the ice is most logical, but probably not by accident.
Was that SpongeBob ‘s z28
Nope, he never passed the DL testing
As the former owner of a 74 Z28 that I bought nearly new, I found one aspect of this car interesting. The pseudo-chrome strips between the taillights, which are part of the body trim that shows it is a Type LT Z28, are actually just plastic secured by adhesive.Those strips on my car started peeling away after just a few years, to the point that I had to re-glue them. I think it’s pretty amazing that they’ve stayed attached to this car! I hope we get to find out the who, what, and why to this story; inquiring minds want to know!
That car new $4676.00 ,with tac I had one seeet
No lowballers, I know what I’ve got.
He sank it because he could never get the tires balanced.
Curious of how many miles it had when it went for a swim…
Dukes of Hazzard screen test before they settled on the Charger..
The original Lake pipes but on a lowrider!
Most interesting 74 Z28 I’ve ever read about.
Hey you can’t park there!!🤪🤪😁
Anything is plausible, but the most likely scenario is the one mentioned: they were driving on the frozen lake in a stolen car in the middle of the night. I lived in Coos in NH, running on frozen lakes is common practice, albeit very dangerous! The deeper the lake, the more hazardous! I ran on frozen lakes many times, a nice experience, but… insurance will not cover damage and the retrieval costs will bankrupt the owner! Then one has to deal with the steep EPA fines on top of all else! After I witnessed a nice truck go through the ice on South Pond in Milan NH and heard about the financial impact the owner incurred, I never drove my vehicles on a frozen lake again!
I’d like some undercarriage pics just to make sure there isn’t too much rust.
I did a lot of ice racing in Wisconsin when I lived in northern Illinois. “Supposedly 10” is enough to support a locomotive. And we usually ran on 3-4 feet thick. There was one place we always “coned off” as there was an underground/under lake bottom stream that fed the lake some of its water. The ice was always thin there. One idiot decided to park there. Even after warnings. About an hour later the car was at the bottom of the lake. He was a friend of someone who was competing with us and was given his keys at the awards dinner in a block of ice.
Seeing the lead pic I thought, there sure are terrible photographers out there. Nevertheless, there’s still a lot of terrible photographers out there.
There was a story from OK a couple of years back where they hauled out a couple of cars, and low and behold, also found some bodies. Apparently it was proven that the deaths were purely accidental. I thought that would’ve been quite a story if there was foul play behind it. Of course my imagination took over and I wrote a story…
After seeing this post th8s morning I thought about that incident you are talking about. Wasn’t the boy in the ’69 Camaro out on a date or something?
There were (3) in the Camaro, 2 boys and a girl, all about the same age, headed for a post Football Season party. They never showed up. The older one was a guy and his lady headed for a rodeo. Again, they never made it to the rodeo.
There was another interesting, yet very disturbing, story came right after that one. I believe it was ND. An irrigation region was rerouting a creek bed that ran along a secondary road. As the water began to drop a car began to appear. A couple of (then) 18 year old girls in a Studebaker drove off the road and flipped over into a pond, and were missing for 40 years.
Search parties drove along that road several times but the girls allegedly never drove that way so search efforts were conducted elsewhere.
I think of incidents like these and my heart goes out to the families. You never know so you can’t get any closure…
Correction: The girls’ crash was in Clay County, SD, Brule Creek, to be more exact. The car was discovered as the water level in the creek dropped due to a drought, not a reroute as I mentioned earlier. Apologies for not getting my facts straight…
Hmm, the windows were down when found.
The owner was probably already on thin ice…
This may sound too simple, but… Stolen. Taken out for doing donuts on the lake in winter. The tires heated up the ice and it started to sink to the axles. Bail out time. Before the next morning, the heat from the engine, trans., rear-end and tires heated all the ice under it , and it went down. If no one was reported missing, a dive team wasn’t dispatched. The Fire Departments in the Sebago Lake are mostly Volunteers, so there wouldn’t be a lot of funding for boats and teams. Get a full VIN and you can find out if an insurance claim was paid, it’s public knowledge.
Original paint & no leaky t-tops to worry about!
Here’s more on the story. Another article says it was 55 ft of water. https://youtu.be/kH3b36ap6lA?si=Cy6qDXJytpdjpsr0
A very sad incident happened a few days ago. A friends mother and her boyfriend (both in their 80s) were out driving around in the evening and somehow backed into a lake and drowned. There were no alcohol or drugs in their systems. They found the windows up, the ignition on and seat belts fastened. Vehicles and deep water don’t mix!
The radiator holds water, not to mention every part of the car.
Thanks for picking this one up, Mike.
When I submitted it, I wasn’t sure if it would be selected since it wasn’t something that was for sale. I thought it was an interesting story and never thought it would garner so many humorous comments.
A Plymouth Barracuda in the water would be more interesting.
Those are some Fred Flintstone tires right there! Can’t sink enough $$ in that restoration that’s for sure.
Das Boot