I appreciate this thread because its a little like an archiological dig - though I owned the car far longer than the original owner, some of it is uncovering areas of the car I never seen. Other areas are layers of the onion that go right to some of my very personal memories. This car is a time capsule to my youth, and though I always new this car was special, there is still evidence of the typical abuse of ANY 20+ year old car.
On that note, I bought this car in 1987, and as a 16 year old car, it was pretty typical of the half dozen or so muscle cars I'd owned up to this point - in other words it was beat to hell. I look at my 19 year old Yukon and my 12 year old Corvette (both purchased new off the lot), and note that both still appear new despite far more miles than the GT-37 or almost any other musclecar of my youth. The GT was 16 years old when I bought it and looked like a wreck (though it was "tight" and drove great)... Looking at the corollary, a 2004 model car today often looks much better than the 16 year old GTO's and Firebirds we were buying back in the 1980's... Why is that?
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