I am not a regular member of this board, but I have emailed Kevin and have his support posting this to the board. I troll the BMW and Porsche boards as I have tracked my 911 and now race a ’93 BMW 325is (Spec E36 class). I opened my account on this board for the sole purpose of helping my buddy Mike Austin’s (MustbNutz) family in selling his 94 Camaro. Mike passed away suddenly in December of 2009. Mike was on of the good guys, and his wife Linda cut from the same cloth.

I have tracked with Mike and caught rides in his car when my car was out of commission. He let me drive it at Road America and I was surprised at how much fun it was to drive.

I was turning 2:18’s at the Glen in my 911 and Mike was faster than me. My fastest lap was a 2:15 and I believe Mike was faster in this car. The car is a 9 out of 10 exterior. The interior is pretty much removed except the dash.

We are posting asking for your help and collective wisdom in pricing the value of Mike’s car and then eventually the posting for sale. The family is not looking to make a killing but they also do not want to be taken advantage of.


The Car

94 Camaro
'96 Lt4 Corvette Engine (Crate Engine with one season)
Chassis Mileage: 70,368
6 Speed Transmission
Short throw shifter
Ram clutch
Aluminum fly wheel
3.73 Posi rear 10 bolt
Big brakes on front – corvette calipers
Long wheel studs 9/16”
MSD AL6 digital ignition
SLP air intake
Brake bias valve
SLP headers
Loudmouth exhaust system
All after market suspension & bushings
- Bilston adjustable, 1” lowering Ebach springs, all polyurethane bushings, all sway bars are aftermarket.
Roll cage - The cage attaches at six points
Simpson harnesses
Interior stripped down
Accusump oil system, remote filters
Stainless steel brake lines
Momo steering wheel with quick release hub
FAST air/fuel computer with programmable read only memory chip
After market prom chip
GM LT1 Road race K member
Misc. stock interior parts
BBS modular wheels - 3 complete sets of wheels Two (2) Dry with Hoosier’s on them (one is a rain set with Hossier wets).
Salvage title prior to becoming track car: Car is straight as an arrow. Rear hit with no suspension impact.
Mike showed me years ago where the car was hit and the damage was not very extensive or very noticeable in the rear compartment






















I have asked for more pictures but Mike’s wife is busy adjusting and has not had time yet.

Thanks folks!

Than Orens

First, sorry to hear about this. Sounds like he was "one of us" and a good man with a family and friends that miss him a lot.

I'm not sure of the overall value of the car, but those modular wheels with the black centers are CCWs, not BBS. The 5-spoke wheels are either GM OEMs from something or low quality Chinese knock-offs.

On the CCWs you should see what size they are. THey are likely either 17x9.5 or 17X11. I'm betting they are 11" wide with 315/35-17 tires. They are great wheels (as light and as strong as just about anything out there) and should be very marketable, especially if they are 11" wide.

The 5-spokes will be worth more if they are GM made vs. Chinese replica. They should have a size stamped on them somewhere (I think??).

The car's value is tough because on the plus side it's well-suited for track days, has what appear to be thoughtful upgrades and modifications toward that end, and it appears that the workmanship was good. It's also a good platform for someone to transition to full-blown racing eventually.

On the negative side it's pretty much done as a street car. No interior and a salvage title make it a poor choice for must who'd want a street ride (or something that could do double-duty. Also, to be a "race car" it needs work in that direction as well. It's a "tweener" car, but someone, somewhere is looking for one of these.

If I were going to market the car I'd include the wets (on 5-spokes) and one set of CCWs in the "base" price and then add incremental amounts for the other sets of wheels if someone wanted. A set of 17X11" CCWs with used mounted hoosiers could be worth $1500 or more by themselves. The Hoosiers should have a 4-digit build date stamped in the sidewall of one side. Will be a 2-digit month and 2-digit year. So 0710 would be July 2010.

Good luck with the sales, and I'm sure others here are going to come by with useful information shortly.

I had no idea Mike had passed away. My sincerest condolences to his family. I can only imagine what they must be going through.

Big Enos Burdette has pretty much covered everything. The only thing I might add is that because of the modifiction path Mike took, the car is basically a track day car.

It doesn't really fit into any racing series (and be competitive) as it sits without some serious cash in-flow. So the target demographic is very small.

Asking $10K for it puts it really close to 97-00 Corvette territory.

A similarly modded car was sold recently. It will give you a comp ...
http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/index.php?showtopic=14200

We paid about $10K for a similarly-equipped 94 Z28 convertible about 3 years ago. It is a street car, though, and lacks the brakes and ignition, but has a LOT more cam. Although everything worked on our car, it did have more mileage on the clock. My wife loves it, it's a real hoot to drive, so this one should be quite nice. Good luck. I hope someone takes as much care of liquidating my collection when I'm gone.

I don't think it would be all that great a comp. The car on ebay had a full cage whereas this car seems to only have a bolt-in rollbar which is worth basically nothing.

Kyle's cage wouldn't pass NASA Tech and a bolt-in cage is legal in AI/CMC (although not recommended).

Thanks for all of the feedback. Please keep them coming and i will amend the posting for the final classified.

Than

Than - At one time there were a set of Superior axles with ARP studs/nuts, plus ARP's and nuts for the front. I sold them to Mike not long before he passed away, and they should be new in box. Current price on that merchandise is $337.

Alan,

I will speak with Mike's wife to locate the axles. Thanks for the heads up!

Than

Howdy,

If the wheels are the earlier "deep dish" AFR reproductions of the ZR1/Grandsport wheels, they'll be worth a little more than straight repro wheels. The earlier AFR wheels were nearly the same weight as the factory GM wheels (21 lbs or so).

If they're later AFR or OE Concepts wheels (25 lbs to 28 lbs or so), they're not worth much. You can buy a new set in the $500 range.

Tires in good condition and not too old (say in the last year or so) are worth $80/ea all day long for quick sales.

My guess is that the car isn't going to be worth a lot, since its not prepped to a particular series. My WAG is $5k or so max, unless you find someone that wants to build a car just like this one. If I were selling it, I'd advertise it as a package for $7.5k or so and see if you can find that guy. If not, sell the (expensive) wheels/tires separately and keep it on whatever cheap wheels you have around. Also consider parting good parts where you can, swapping on stock stuff to keep the car driveable, then dump the shell for a stupid price.

If you're looking for a quick "get this out of here and out of my hair" sale, I think you're going to be sub $5k unless you get pretty lucky.

Mark

Agreed - I went thru this a year ago with my old racecar - there was zero interest in the whole car, and parting it out netted me my bottom line number. It is a LOT more work, and you'll likely still end up with the shell of a car in the garage, and if there are no stock parts left to replace the sold parts it won't even roll around.

If you have the tools, time and space to part it out, get more details and pics on the parts on the car and we can help value them.

Alan,

I had no idea that you had finally offed "Aeromaro." May it RIP.

Unfortunately I agree with all here. I have a 93 I probably have sunk $50,000 in that I would value at $2500 right now, but I won't sell it for that. I also have a 98 that is in much the same situation as Mike's car except it has a Blaine Fab rollbar and sidebar and a LS2402 and other parts as well as full title, and only 60,000 original miles and although I wouldn't sell it for less than $10,000 I simply don't think I would get anywhere near that. Both these cars were bought new and I simply can't part with them at their current FMV.

Reality is that our cars are worth little now and with mods they are close to worth....less than little. Even an enthusiast that would want them knows that and would pay FMV to buy it. Heck, try in the $7500/10,000 range suggested here on EBay and on FFRAX and see what happens.

Perry

Don't forget to market it to drag racers also, the only draw back to the car for drag racing would be the 10 bolt, otherwise it's an excellent start at a bracket car and probably very quick even in it's current form.

WOW, I just checked the site because a guy is buying my car up in NY and he told me he knew a F body guy that did DE's up there. I had Mike for a student at VIR a few years ago and remembered he lived up that way so I was just checking to see if he knew the guy I was selling to.

Then I came across this post that Mike has passed away. I'm very very sad, my condolences to his family, I am really shocked, Mike was a great guy.

I have driven the car at VIR, it is very well done and thought out. It would make a great track day car.

Tim

I wanted to add some exterior pictures taken this past week.