Papa John's pizza founder finally located and bought back his '71 Camaro

Papa John's pizza founder John Schnatter publisized a search for his 1971 Chevrolet Camaro Z28. http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2009/06/papa-johns-camaro-25000-cash.html

Schnatter sold the car in 1983 for $2,800 to help keep his family's then-struggling tavern afloat and to start his Louisville-based pizza empire. For their help in finding the car, the car's current owner, 165 miles away in Flatwooods, Ky., received $250,000, and the buyer Schnatter sold it to 26 years ago got $25,000.

The car will be displayed at the company headquarters in Louisville, replacing a replica Schnatter commissioned while he searched for his original car. http://www.papasroadtrip.com/

In honor of Schnatter's reunion with his beloved ride, Papa John's will offer a free pizza to all Camaro owners Wednesday. Pizza lovers must drive their Camaros to a Papa John's location for verification.

Via: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-talk-small-talk-26aug26,0,139147.story and http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2009/08/25/papa_johns_founder_finds_his_beloved_1971_camaro/

One among the rarest 1969 Z28 Camaros

February 26, 1969, 18 year old Lyle Mader went into Rapp Chevrolet in Marion South Dakota, and employed the little known HA Special Paint code. He ordered baby blue. This 18 yr old was the only one to ever do that.

He also went for 24 other options and had his Camaro outfitted with chambered exhaust, special factory headers, and the cross ram intake.

Muscle Car Review, March 2009, page 53

and http://motorcities.com/vehicle/05CFM485901461.html has the following;

The car was also ordered with the JL8 4 wheel disc breaks, and the car was sent to a special Chevy warehouse where it sat for weeks waiting for the parts for the 4 wheel disc brakes.

Unfortunately it did not receive the rear disc breaks, they discontinued 4 wheel disc in May of 69 and this is a June car, so the car was delivered without them.

Lyle also ordered the special Z/28 SCCA off-road cam with heavy-duty valve springs installed by the factory - usually found only on the real SCCA cars. Rounding out the high-performance special-order items, Lyle also checked the box for the M22 close-ratio gear box, the low-restriction chambered exhaust, 4.56 gears in a Posi-traction rear end, factory cowl-induction hood and Firestone 200 Sports car tires.

Lyle wasn't finished with his dream car yet. Unlike the SCCA drivers, he was going to ride in comfort, so he ordered just about every convenience option available from GM he could, including the Z87 custom interior, black vinyl trim, tinted glass, fold-down rear seat, head-light washers, rear window defroster, remote control rearview mirror, center console with factory installed 8-track tape player, AM/FM radio, speed warning indicator, Comfortilt steering wheel and full cockpit instrumentation.

To save weight, Lyle left out the electric windows, power steering and hide-away headlights. The baby blue paint was ordered with the white racing stripes wrapping all the way around the rear bumper - just like the Trans-Am cars he had seen on TV and is the only one ever produced from the factory with the strips running all the way down. A set of optional front bumper guards competed the exterior appearance.

IROC Z28 with only 4.3 miles found in a shipping container

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/02/26/ebay-find-of-the-day-85-camaro-iroc-z28-with-four-miles-mulle/
It was never dealer prepped for sale, so it's factory fresh on the inside, really dusty on the outside.