History

Clint Ferrel, the current owner of this gorgeous car, posted several photos of his recent purchase in a Facebook group on May 17, 2021. He had just acquired this '99 hardtop, 6-speed Z28 with only... 2022 miles on it! He purchased the car from the parents of the original owner for their asking price—$17,000. Their son had died of cancer and they had been holding onto this car for many years. They had finally decided to let it go. Clint said that the previous owner's parents were "car people" and would start it up, change the oil, and clean the dust off. Although color has yet to impact value to a great extent, I wonder if the previous owner or his parents knew just how uncommon this car is?

Believe it or not, but this is Clint's second Camaro he's owned in this color, and he currently owns a Firebird Formula in this same color (the Pontiac name for this color is Medium Blue Metallic). For those concerned about such a thing, Clint does intend to take the very best care of this car. He has a heated warehouse for it to live in until special occasions call it out.

Rarity

Bright Blue Metallic is the rarest of all of the factory paint colors for 4th generation Camaros. It was a 1999-only color.

Only 1,117 Camaros came in this color. Here's the break-down:

So is this the rarest possible Camaro in this color? No. Is this the most desirable Camaro in this color? Perhaps, but that is a purely subjective opinion. Is it phenomenal that a Z28 in the rarest factory color (for 4th gen Camaros) still exists with only 2k miles in the year 2021? Absolutely! This car was built on May 19, 1999. When Clint purchased this car on May 17, 2021, it had 2022 miles on it. There's some pretty coincidental numbers there, huh? At 21 years, 11 months, and 29 days old, this car had 2022 miles, and Clint purchased it nearly exactly 22 years after GM had finished this car at the factory in St. Therese. Surely the original owner didn't purchase it for several days/weeks after it had been produced, but let's not get tied up in that technicality.

Is there anything else particularly unusual about this car?

There's a few things worth mentioning. Clint unfortunately did not receive the original window sticker for the car, but he did receive a copy of it, which makes decoding the car a LOT easier. It states these options for the car: Z28 Preferred Equipment Group, leather seats, P245/50 ZR-16 tires, electric rear window defogger, Monsoon premium audio system with cassette player, and Northeast States Emissions. Fun fact: The reason there's not a price next to Monsoon premium audio system with cassette player is because this was actually standard equipment in 1999 for a Z28 coupe. It wasn't standard on a Z28 coupe until 1999. It also appears on the left side of the window sticker in the standard equipment section, so it's just an odd quirk that it appears on the right side with optional equipment. Perhaps GM wanted people to feel like they were getting a freebie if this appeared on all of them, or maybe it's an odd mistake that just appears on this one.

This Z28 lacks T-tops, which is something I prefer... I like hardtops. In 1999, a total of 14,747 Camaro Z28 coupes (in all colors combined) were built, of which, 11,873 of them had T-tops. Only 2,874 of those '99 Z28 coupes had a hardtop.

Based on the RPO codes this car has...

1SE for 1999 meant that this was a Z28 coupe with Preferred Equipment Group 1. The only other possibility for a 1999 Z28 coupe was 1SD, which was the base model Z28 coupe.

It has NB7, which is related to emissions. It might be a '99 only RPO code too. I don't want to open a can of worms here, but technically, for at least 1999, California emissions was actually YF5. I think NB7 was more of a trigger RPO code that said "hey, this car doesn't have Federal Emissions FE9, so pay attention." But that's just a guess. (Thank you Dax Hiestand for helping me cross-verify this RPO code and others for this page).

NG1 is definitely Northeast States Emissions (technically for the year 1999... NG1 is Connecticut, District of Columbia, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey,

New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island or Virginia Emission Requirements). I'm not sure off the top of my head how the car's equipment was different, I think it mostly just makes the car picky about what type of gas you run in it. Gas without octane booster put in it, or something.

R9Z is Control Sales Item #100. I don't have my RPO decoding work from 11 years ago handy, but I think that might be the code for Customer Ordered Vehicle. If so, the first owner of this car didn't buy it off the lot... he ordered it exactly how he wanted it. Note: R#_ codes are typically pretty secretive, so they take a lot of work to figure out. [I could be wrong about what this one means, I haven't triple checked.]

It has VK3, so it originally came with a front license plate mount. The owner told me the car came with it, but it just isn't installed. The 1993-2002 Camaros had a separate plastic piece for holding a front license plate. For 1998-2002 the GM part number was #10272212. Typically it was in the trunk of the car when it was delivered (if the car was optioned with VK3) and the dealership would drill holes in your front bumper and mount the plastic bracket with screws during make-ready. It looks like the original owner requested the dealership not install the front plate bracket, otherwise there'd be holes in the grill. I find it a bit odd that the window sticker doesn't mention the front license plate bracket when the car has VK3, however. My assumption is that the NG1 (Northeast Emissions) RPO code forced VK3 onto the car. This is a guess. I'm probably wrong. But something is a little odd about this. I expected to see it on the option list on the window sticker.

If the car had the VK3 bracket installed, it would have looked like this:

Image Gallery of this Car:

Clint's matching Firebird Formula

Like I mentioned above, Clint has a '99 Firebird Formula in the same color code as the Camaro. Pontiac named this color Medium Blue Metallic, probably because they used to call Medium Quasar Blue Metallic "Bright Blue Metallic" in previous years, and the color name would add confusion to an already confusing way of naming colors.

This color is actually even more rare on Firebirds, primarily because Firebirds had lower production numbers anyway. I haven't ever done cumulative production number math for Firebirds, so I don't know if this is the rarest 4th gen Firebird color or not. I do know that only 122 Bright Green Metallic Firebirds and only 14 Maple Red Metallic Firebirds were built for the 1999 model year, but those colors were offered for more years than just 1999... I would assume that this blue color is among the rarest colors for a 4th generation Firebird.

To my knowledge, only 652 Firebirds came in this color. Here's the break-down:

This car has actually lived its life as actual transportation, so it isn't completely stock or low mileage. This car originally had leather seats, but Clint's family put a cloth interior from a wrecked '99 Firebird (that had 10k miles on it) in the car.

And here are some pictures of this car with the incredibly low mileage Z28.

Video