The Camaro is one of the most popular and identifiable sports cars all over the globe. The first generation, which Chevrolet launched in 1966, includes some of the most relevant muscle cars ever manufactured. However, times were changing, and in 1970, Chevrolet heralded the Camaro’s second generation with a Jaguar-inspired body style that was longer, lower, and wider, and would eventually become the iconic Camaro shape. The Camaro would remain true to this style throughout that entire generation, which ended with the 1981 Camaro, 11 model years later.

With the introduction of the 1975 Camaro, Chevrolet shocked consumers and critics alike with the announcement that they were discontinuing the Z28 performance option. This would have been understandable if the Z28 was a failing package, but that wasn’t the case. The Z28 was one of the success stories of the muscle car era aftermath. The year previous, sales had increased roughly 13,000 units, which was a lot for a specialty package, and the Z28’s primary competition, the Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, was more popular than it had ever been.

The Z28 didn’t stay gone long. Chevrolet had failed to recognize the Trans Am’s success when they chose to cancel the Z28, but they couldn’t ignore the success for long. In 1976, Pontiac sold in excess of 45,000 Trans Ams, and Chevrolet knew that they had contributed a great deal to that success. Chevrolet’s design team scrambled to return the Z28 to the lineup for the 1977 model year, but they came up a little short. Chevrolet launched the 1977 Camaro for sale without it, but it was ready to rock and roll by mid-year, so Chevrolet released it as mid-model-year variant sometimes referred to as the 1977