Hi Guys,

This is my first post on this forum and I just wanted to say hello. I have a 1974 Camaro Sport Coupe. The car is completely original with matching numbers. The motor, trans and rear end have all been rebuilt, but are the original castings. Everything works, including the A/C. It has been in my family for 30+ years.

Here is my quandary. The car has the original factory light gold paint and as you can imagine, by now it is looking a little dull. It actually isn’t in too bad a condition overall as the car has been garaged it’s entire life. One of the doors was repainted 20 years ago and it doesn’t really match very well and in some areas the paint is checking. I plan to have it painted, but here’s the real question. Should I do a color change? I really like black and think the car would look great in that color. I also realize that the car is an unmolested survivor and keeping the factory light gold color would stay true to the last 30+ years worth of preservation.

So what do you think?

 

What do you mean by "sport coupe"? The SS was done away with in 72 and the RS at the end of 73. The LT replaced the SS at the beginning of 73. The 74 was the last year for Z28 also but all these options returned in later years. By "sport coupe" do you mean a no badged standard V8?

Also, you can go here to look at colors:

http://www.nastyz28.com/camaro/camaro74.php#paint

Personally, if the paint is still in alright condition I would keep it. Here's a really good example of restoring a fairly bad paint job to factory finish. Granted, it took him a week of 8 hr or more days to do it:

http://www.autopia.org/forum/pro-det...-rickrack.html

He was able to restore that paint back to really nice condition. If that's the case with your car you could go that distance and just redo the door. It would probably save you some money and allow you to keep the original paint for the majority and thus its value a little higher.

 

Thanks for the reply. I beleive the "Sport Coupe" was designated as the "base" model of the Camaro in 1974. The car actualy has a number of options on it like the spoiler, gauges, and rally wheels, but it is the low line base model.

As for the paint, there are a number of door dings and it is starting to laquer check in a number of areas, so I think a strip and repaint may be the only long term option at this point. I looked at the web page you recommended, but did not see black as a factory option. Was black a standard color for 1974?

Jim