I was very disappointed to see what appeared to be a pretty nice 1971 Camaro ruined in an episode of the tv series LA's Finest. Being as it was filmed in California it was propbably a nice rust free car. They picked it up at an auto wreckers with jaws that crushed the roof and then dumped it in a car crusher machine. They did not show the whole car bing crushed in the machine, so hopefully they pulled it back out and maybe were able to salvage some of the Camaro. They could have filmed at an auto wreckers that had an electro margnet to pick the car up and put it into the auto crushing machine with the same effect for the tv show without ruining a nice almost 50 year old survivor Camaro. These older muscle cars are getting very hard to find and I think it is sad to see them get destroyed for no real reason. Needless to say I will not be watching that tv program any more. Any thoughts?

 

Keep in mind this could be a car with a title issue or some in correct repairs done to making it un-salvageable.

It was not that uncommon to dedicate these cars to drag racing or circle track cars. Yes even the street stock class, Some never got started. In many cases the cars have changed hands many times with no title. Some of the early cars on Roadkill you will not see on the road due to title problems. I know there is a lot of 1969 SS drag car owners that would love to sell their car if only they had the titles.

I have seen several cars that have put together wrong and would require the car to be carefully disassembled and reassembled. This is way more hours and more technical then fixing a rust bucket because the car need assembled and checked on a full size jig. If it is not a rare car like a RS or a SS it would be real hard to justify that much work/money.

I do agree that trashing survivors is not right but if its 30 ft from the crusher anyways why not film it. The “Duke boys” trashed a lot of 69 Chargers (around 300) BUT how many have been saved due to the show? I see people on you tube spending 20k turning rusty field finds into solid cars.

I liked the way the "A" team used to do it. They used a nice 80's GMC van for the close ups but you may see a old 60's Dodge van with the "correct" paint flying through the air.

 

Hi: Thank you for your input, but you should really watch that episode ( S1 E8 ) for yourself and you will see what I mean. I have owned Camaros for over 50 years and have been a used Camaro dealer for over 45 years and have had well over 1000 Camaros over the years. I also drag raced Camaros semi professionally for over 30 years and this definitely did not look like an ex race car or a salvage car. It sat up nice, looked very complete and straight and it ran and drove very well with no smoke and a night shot showed all the lights working properly etc. The car drove up next to the auto crusher where they picked it up with the big jaws which crushed in the roof. They did not swap it out for another car. I also used to buy stunt cars and feature cars etc. for film studios, and have helped them get cars prepped for crach sceens, where they have to install role cages etc. This definitely appeared to be just a nice straight California Camaro done up like a Z28. The 350 emblem on the front fender made me think this was not an actual Z28 but still looked like a nice car. Even if it had some kind of a title issue, it would have made a great drag car for a street, bracket or stock class, or could have made a good doner body for a restoration project of a rusty or damaged real Z28 or SS Camaro. Camaros have been passion of mine, a way of life and profession for over a half century and I just think it is a shame to lose another nice almost 50 year old survivor Camaro when they could have filmed at an auto wreckers with an electro magnet to pick the car up and set it in the crusher, for the same effect and then remove it. There are a lot of people, including many on this site, that would have loved to get that Camaro before they ruined it. We need to save and preserve as many of these cars as we can.

 

Amazing that I found your post. I was searching the internet looking for who ever provided the Camaro for that episode and whether or not it was actually destroyed in the crusher. I called my husband in from another room and ran the footage back and I said it's a 71 and he said how do you know, and I said the bumper. I think it had an SS emblem. I was looking to see if it was a Z.
I just have to say that it ran and sounded stock, a beautiful sound. When I met my husband in 1972, he had just bought a Flame Orange Z28. He was sorry that he didn't get a 71, but only found out later about the difference in horsepower. I've always been sorry that we traded the Z in and have always wanted to buy a junker 71 or 72 Camaro to build from the ground up but I just hope that pretty car wasn't demolished for any reason.

 

I still do not see how you can look at any car and tell its not a flood car or that the paper work is clean. I have seen higher end car worth a lot more then that camaro go through the auction that are sold as is due to title issues. Even some super cars. Many of those go to different countries where they can just pay to get a title made.

A lot of times after a major flood the insurance companies get so over loaded with work they miss filing the parts only title request. Those cars ends up sold as clean cars. Detailers are capable of hiding the tells of a flooded car from professional car buyers A lot of dealers got burned to flood cars they bough at auction. There is no way you would see an issue on camera.

It is still a shame cause it would be a nice parts car and in the case of a flood car it would be with pulling it all a part and getting the mud out of the crevasses and add some drain holes to areas you can not get to.

 

I just watched the episode tonight. After I saw the car get destroyed in the crusher I too did a Google search for LA's Finest and Camaro destroyed and found this thread. Certainly I was disappointed to see it get crushed. And then I realized sometimes they take a bad car's shell and paint them up the same that go into the crusher. That's what I'm going to keep telling myself. Seeing the car and some of the earlier scenes there was some badging that didn't make it seem quite like a real Z28. It had the hood stripes and just the regular Camaro 350 emblem on the front fender like my car. I noticed an emblem on the b-pillar on the driver side. Couldn't quite make it out. Could it be "Type LT"?

 

Type LT start in 73.