Junkyard Find: 1992 Chevrolet Camaro RS Coupe
When GM introduced the third-generation Chevrolet Camaro for the 1982 model year, it was 367 pounds lighter than its 1981 predecessor. The third-gen Camaro had gained most of that weight back by its final model year of 1992, but it still showed plenty of early-1980s-style swagger. Today's Junkyard Find is one of the very last third-gen Camaros ever built, found in a Denver car graveyard recently.
This car was built at the notorious Van Nuys Assembly plant in California's San Fernando Valley.
This car made it to nearly 200,000 miles, but most of its Van Nuys-built siblings didn't hold together quite so well. The plant was shut down forever, soon after this car was built.
There's a shopping mall called The Plant where Van Nuys Assembly once stood.
1992 was the 25th anniversary of the first Camaro, so all the '92s got commemorative dash badges. There was also a 25th Anniversary Heritage Edition Camaro package that year, with extra stripes and special wheels.
In order to experience 1982 in 1992, you needed a T-Top roof on your Camaro. This was an $895 option, or about $1,990 in 2023 dollars.
The VIN and emissions sticker in this car tells us it left the line with a 5.0-liter small-block V8 rated at 170 horsepower.
That may even be the very same engine we see here, but Camaros have traditionally received engine swaps early and often and I didn't feel like getting filthy looking for block casting numbers, so we can't know for sure).
A five-speed manual transmission was base equipment in the 1992 Camaro, and that's what was in this car. The T-5s that went in these cars are still worth something, so they tend to get bought quickly by junkyard shoppers.
The MSRP for a 1992 Camaro RS coupe with 5.0, 5-speed and T-Top roof was $13,339 (about $29,655 after inflation).
Along with stickers from cannabis dispensaries, this one is standard equipment on junkyard-bound cars in Front Range Colorado.
The base-level RS didn't get much attention in Camaro advertising.
Did the 1980s linger until the last third-generation Camaro was sold?
[Images: The Author]
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Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Man I wanted an IROC Z in high school, well I wanted a Porsche or a Lamborghini, but on a maybe almost possible level- I wanted the IROC
My '91 and '92 Camaro RS were the best looking of any Camaros I've had. Didn't like getting gapped by a Geo Storm GSI back in the day however.