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End of line for Firebird, Camaro
By Brian Aberback
 Media Credit: BETH BALBIERZ/THE RECORD David Fiorina is a lover of the 1968 Firebird. He is shown reflected in one on August 27, 2002, in Wayne, N.J.
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The Record (Bergen County, N.J.)
HACKENSACK, N.J. —Everyone who was anyone at Bergenfield High School in the late Eighties and early Nineties drove a Chevy Camaro or Pontiac Firebird.
Sleek, fast, and powerful, they were the perfect cars for cruising the main drag or jetting to the shore, said Krista Merschrod, who could be seen around town back then in her bright red 1988 Firebird.
“It’s a total adrenaline rush,” said Merschrod, who today owns a 1967 black Camaro Super Sport. “When you’re driving it you just feel the power. Everything else around you doesn’t matter anymore.”
For Merschrod and other enthusiasts, it’s the end of the line. The last of these wild ponies, once among America’s most beloved vehicles, rolled off the assembly line last week at a plant in Quebec.
It brings an end to two models that became part of the essence of Jersey, and an end to the T-Tops with the removable glass panels that sold so well to the “Saturday Night Fever” set.
The Camaro roared onto the market in September 1966, and the Firebird followed five months later. They were Chevrolet and Pontiac’s respective answers to the wildly popular Ford Mustang.
The cars’ combined sales peaked in the late Seventies, a time when the Firebird was especially cool and was featured in the “Smokey and the Bandit” movies and the “Rockford Files” television show.
Although aficionados here lament General Motors’ decision to halt production, for them the era isn’t ending. Not when there are so many early model Camaros and Firebirds to polish and shine and take on a cruise down the parkway.
These are people like Dan Deutschman of Metuchen, who loves taking his 1976 “carousel red” Firebird Trans Am to car shows, darting into open spaces on crowded highways along the way. And Wayne resident David Fiorina, who said it’s the mix of nostalgia and pride that makes riding in a `68 Firebird special. As the speedometer races forward and his stereo blasts The Doors and Led Zeppelin, the clock turns back to his favorite years, 1965-1975, a time when muscle cars ruled the road.
Merschrod so loves these cars, she even opted for her Camaro over a limo to whisk her away from her wedding two years ago.
Like many classic car owners, she doesn’t use her Camaro for everyday transportation. It sits safely in the garage, taken out for rides on warm summer days or breezy fall afternoons.
Fiorina also plans to use sparingly the 1968 Firebird he just purchased. He can’t imagine risking the chance of a scratch or dent at a parking lot.
“Who would want to take a car like that to Willowbrook (Mall)?” he asked. With excitement in his voice, Fiorina described his new Firebird, a convertible that boasts an eight-cylinder engine. His old Firebird had a six-cylinder, and on the mean streets of North Jersey, that didn’t cut it.
“It was kind of cheesy with the six-cylinder,” he said. “It’s depressing when you have a car like that and you can’t keep up with a Ford Probe.”
Fiorina first saw his dream when he was a teenager growing up in Riverdale. It was parked across the street at a neighbor’s house. It was, of course, a red 1968 Firebird.
“When I saw it I just wanted it,” Fiorina said. “I was 14 or 15. I just said, `Wow, someday I want to have one.’ “
Two years ago, he got his dream car. “I drove it all last summer. I went down to Belmar 1/8in it3/8 every weekend.” said Fiorina, 32.
“I feel pride driving something that’s American-made,” he said. These days, he said, you never know where parts on American cars were manufactured. But with a `68 Firebird, there’s no question.
Deutschman loves speed and handling of his 1976 Firebird Trans Am. “When you step on the gas, it doesn’t ask you when, where, or why. It just goes,” he explains.
He’s put more than $15,000 of work into his dream car, though he admits he “stopped counting for health reasons.”
Deutschman said he had mixed emotions when GM announced it would stop producing Firebirds and Camaros.
“It was a shame to hear it, but on the other hand, (GM) priced them so far out of the range of the market they were aiming for,” he said.
The prices of most newer-model Camaros and Firebirds start at around $25,000. And then there’s the hefty insurance premium that comes with owning a sports car in the state with the highest auto insurance rates in the nation.
Twenty years ago, 182,848 Camaros were sold nationwide, according to statistics provided by Autodata, a Woodcliff Lake company that tracks automotive information. Through July, only 20,063 Camaros had been sold this year. Firebird experienced a similar free fall: 105,686 sold in 1982, 21,501 in 1992; 14,567 through July.
“The decision (to discontinue production) was pretty sad,” said Larry Webster, technical editor of Car and Driver magazine. But “everybody’s known it was coming for a while.”
Webster noted that GM hasn’t redesigned the Camaro in nearly a decade, choosing to put its resources into trucks and sport-utility vehicles. Today’s SUVs, like yesterday’s muscle cars, embody youth and sportiness, he said. They’re also more practical.
“People think, `I can be cool in this and fit all my junk in it,’ “ he said.
Some car dealers say it may be premature to mourn the death of the dynamic duo of pony cars. After all, Ford recently reintroduced its Thunderbird line, and Pontiac plans to bring back its classic GTO in 2004.
“I think they’ll be back with a new car in the future,” said Ron Barna, general manager of Chevrolet Hummer in Paramus, where four Camaros remain on the sales floor.
Die-hard Camaro and Firebird lovers say they realize their cars may rise in value now that no new models are coming out. But don’t expect a “for sale” sign to appear in their windshields anytime soon.
“This one’s a keeper,” Fiorina said of his new Firebird.
Merschrod, who now lives in New Milford, also has no plans to sell her Camaro. And, in 17 years, she hopes the next generation will share in the special excitement that comes from sliding into a pony car, hitting the gas, and taking control of the road ahead.
“I’ll let her take it for a spin one day with her mommy,” Merschrod says of her 7-week-old daughter, Amber Rose. “People will know those Merschrod girls know how to drive.”
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