1967 Chevrolet Camaro

Gasoline

If you're planning on, or even looking at vintage muscle cars made by Atlas Muscle Cars in McKinney Texas, then you REALLY, really should take the time and read this comment, before you throw down your hard earned money on a so called vintage muscle car restoration from them..! PLEASe. . .. by all means, take the time & read this, it could save you a lot of time, headache and heartache & last but not least, a lot of money. . .!! Check out this painted over Rust Bucket. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBX-XET81lkLet me begin by saying, I purchased a black 67 Camaro pictured here on March 5th 2015 from Atlas Muscle Cars based on several months of researching vehicles of this make and model & low & behold I stumbled upon the listing/web-site below. http://atlasmusclecars Upon first discovering this site I was impressed by the level of presentation & marketing that went into how this web-site was presented & marketed. I must say it looked good and presented itself well initially, but don't let that fool you as it did me. If you notice they spend a lot of time on marketing, (smoke & mirrors, as I call it) & verbiage on disclaimers covering themselves for poor workmanship by outlining over & over again that these cars are sold "AS IS No Warranty". Well there's a reason for that too!! After a few weeks I'd decided that I would make contact with Atlas Muscle Cars and inquire about the listed Black 67 Camaro & once having made contact with one of the principle owners (Matt Petry), I was pleased at the information that was provided to me about the car. That it was a sub-frame off restoration of this car, essentially brand new build, brand new parts, essentially brand new everything, turnkey ready as he'd put it, he seemed like a nice knowledge-able guy. I came away with the good feeling about this car & the builders behind it. Keep in mind that I'm a car enthusiast & not a gear-head. It was not til a couple weeks later & countless hours of further research, that I'd called back to get some additional details on this particular car and how to start the purchasing process, it was then that I'd spoke to the second principle owner (Harvey, not sure of the last name) but he seemed to be bit over-baring & a blow-hard but still helpful, but of course he would be at this point, as this is a potential $34k sale right..!?? After several more inquires, spanning a couple of months & a few more weeks of research & decision making. I'd decided that I was going to make this happen with Atlas sight unseen based on all the information that was provided to me from these two guys about this car, their company & their car restoration experience.. Once the deal was consummated over the phone it was up to me to start the process of finalizing the purchase, financing, etc... After a price was agreed upon the sale was finalized and the purchase was made, from there we'd arranged shipment of the vehicle from Taxes to California, which cost me $900 in an enclosed car hauler. The car arrived to me on March 15th free of any cosmetic damage from shipping; the car was rolled off the car carrier & from there was driven down the street around the corner & into my drive-way, where my nightmare began. . . The moment I pulled the car into my drive-way the first problem I'd encountered was that the gas pedal had fell limply to the floor as if it just broke, good thing I was only in my drive-way and not on the road somewhere, as that would/could have been a disaster.. Come to find out that the cotter pin was not properly installed on the accelerator linkage to the carburetor, so it just popped right off. This is within the first 5 minutes of me taking delivery of this car.. Oh, it only gets worse from here. . ..! At the time tho, I thought this was just an isolated incident & could be explained away once I realized what the solution was.. Easy, got the right cotter pin & installed it myself as the one they used was neither the proper application nor a good/reliable long term solution not to mention improper installation. At this point, I was afraid to even drive it based on my carburetor linkage experience. I mean, if something like this had already happened within the first 5 minutes of taking delivery of it what else could be wrong. From there, over the course of the next couple of days, I began a thorough walk-over inspection of my newly purchased/delivered car/vehicle, only to find so many details had been over-looked. Keeping in mind, I'm not a gear-head just a car enthusiast with an attention to detail. It was quickly apparent to me that this car although it looked nice & pretty from afar, was not exactly what one would expect from a $34k sub-frame off restoration coming from supposed car builders, with this type of resume to their credit. Details that I was able to immediately identify were things like, the paint (clear coat) running down the upper lip of the rear spoiler, screws on the front head-light housing missing, passenger door handle not properly installed, passenger door latch broken, no battery tie-down, Improper header installation (header knocking against the steering box), wrong headers for this motor, knocking noise coming from the transmission area, no radiator over-flow tank installed, which led me to check the water level in the radiator, which was at best half full. Poor color clarity of both the engine oil as well as the transmission fluid, mismatching nuts & bolts on the carburetor were used; random nuts & bolts missing, no cable was wired for the electronic choke. Sticker labels were still on the after-market parts that were used; "I mean they weren't even able to remove the stickers off the replacement parts that were installed".! None of the sheet metal was aligned properly (front & rear bumpers, hood, front fenders, doors, truck lid, rear markers), just the upmost lack of attention to detail is what I was noticing right off the bat & I'm not even a car guy. . . Not to mention a whole host of other things, too much to list. The car literally sat in my garage for the first 2 weeks of me taking delivery of it, just due to all these issues that still needed to be addressed before one would even feel confident driving it, not to mention it didn't sound quite right & what I mean by that, is that the motor did not sound tuned and it wasn't the timing was way off. It wasn't til a few weeks later that I'd reached out to couple of my local car guy buddies to come by and look it over & provide me some feedback on it & low & behold their feedback overall was, although outwardly it was a nice looking car yes but on the inside so many corners were cut & simply neglected in the building of this car, things were just not done correctly nor was any extra time spent taking care of details both cosmetic as well as mechanical. I would now need to spend time & more money to get these issues resolved; when this was not the expectation level. Especially, when I was told this car was basically new, turnkey ready. It was now becoming apparent to me that I may have been misled with the representation of this car & what it was, so much so that I had now decided that I no longer wanted to keep it & would therefore attempt to sell it myself, for essentially what I'd paid for it minus shipping costs just to get out from under it.. I then proceeded to list it on my local Cars section on Craigslist here in California to see if there'd be any interest in it locally, & much to my surprise there was quite a bit of interest in it, of those interested parties that were interested enough to come out and look at it, they noticed the same issues that I myself had noticed as well as what my local car guy friends had noticed too, so much so that it made it very difficult for me to even generate enough interest in it to be able to sell the car here locally for my asking price of $33k, (which was about $1k less then I bought it for not including shipping costs) based on all these unresolved issues.. It wasn't until one potential out of state buyer sent an inspector from one of these very reputable vintage muscle car inspection/appraisal company's AAG out to look at it & to conduct a complete vehicle inspection/appraisal, which took him almost 2 hours to complete, to which I was provided a complete & detailed vehicle inspection report, which is not normally provided to the seller but to the potential buyer who's himself paid for this service. Once this potential out of state buyer had communicated to me what was reported in this vehicle inspection report he was no longer interested in the purchase of this vehicle, but was nice enough to share the report's findings with me as he'd felt that I'd been taken advantage of in the purchase of & the misrepresentation of this vehicle, which clearly did not come back as favorable as Atlas Muscle Car would have led me to believe. . . This was a crushing blow as one could imagine having bought into (figuratively & literally) to what these guys were selling me, a large part of this was my own fault for not having done more & not knowing more before making this decision. Nevertheless this had led me to take the car into a local shop here locally to see if some of these issues could be resolved to get it to a sell-able/drive-able condition. It wasn't until I got it into this local shop that was referred to me from some of the guys from a local Camaro car club here in town, so he was coming to me as a very reputable source. Once he'd inspected the car himself he'd found a laundry list of stuff that was not done properly on this vehicle, some minor issues & some major issues, some were even major safety concerns, such as the castle nuts on the front ball-joints were only hand tightened & were missing the cotter pins on both sides.. Yikes.!! Once I received this information I'd put together the above mentioned video to email to Matt (owner) back at Atlas to alert him to just some of these findings & to see how we may go about resolving this & to also see if he could provide me some basic information on this vehicle like a build sheet & a color code used to paint this car so I can have the rear spoiler redone amongst having some of this other stuff fixed... As one can imagine once I presented my findings to Atlas they were no longer really willing to talk to me about it, so much so that every attempt I'd made to contact Matt at Atlas after I took delivery of this car, I was unable to do so, I'd email him & nothing, weeks would go by, I'd leave messages with their secretary at Atlas to have him call me back & nothing. This went on for several weeks, the rare occasion I would get an email reply back from him he'd refer me to the other guy Harvey whom once I called him to discuss my findings & a resolution he would become loud, defensive & completely overbearingly belligerent, not accepting my findings nor concerns as being truthful or reasonable. The owner Matt has yet to return a single phone call back to me since I'd taken delivery of this car. I have all the email correspondence with these guys to prove this. . . Not only do I have the e-mail correspondence, at one point I setup a conference call with myself the local shop owner here where the repairs were being made & the guy named Harvey at Atlas to discuss a resolution, which did not go well at all. This guy Harvey who is one of the principle owners at Atlas was completely irrational & belligerent towards me during this conference call so much so that the local shop owner that I'd had on the line with me during this conference call could not believe that this was how they conducted business.. I'd still never received a build sheet on this build nor a color code for the paint used on this car, as they'd told me that they don't have a build sheet for this build nor does this car have a color code, it's just raven black is what I was told by Harvey in between his belligerent remarks towards me. Now again, I'm no car guy but doesn't every color paint used on a car have a color code? This was confirmed by the AAG inspector of course, that every paint color used on a car should have some sort of color code. Now what kind of car builder cannot, will not, does not, even provide you neither a build sheet nor a color code used on a car build of this type? The only solution that was provided to me at this point was for me to ship the car back to them on my own dime $900 so they can re-sell it for me & send me my money back once they'd sold the car for me, all to be done within 30 days or they would buy it back from me if they were not supposedly able to sell it after the 30 days, was how it was explained to me. but it was stated to me by the owner Matt Petry at the time that they did not have the funds to buy it back from me at the time (have an e-mail to prove that) this also proves, that this was a haphazard attempt at best by them to save face & come up with a resolution as no contact by them was made to me to formalize, finalize or even acknowledge this agreement in writing. Just like after taking delivery of this car if I didn't initiate any contact with them to resolve this, I would not ever hear anything back from them at all. They knowingly assumed that I would not do this as it would cost me an additional $900 to ship it back to them & they were not willing to give me any assurances that they could or would even be able to sell it for what I purchased it for, nor could I now trust them to assure me that I wouldn't be told something entirely different once the vehicle arrived back to them, then what I was told. Since they would not make any attempt at ever putting anything in writing, it was a simple case of they got my money & I got this crappy poorly restored car, why would I expect them to go out of there way for me after the sale as they did before the sale.. I would strongly suggest that if you are considering purchasing a car from Atlas Muscle Cars that you take your business else-where, as the complete lack of attention to detail & utter poor workmanship as exhibited in this restoration clearly indicates to me these guys are not car guys, nor car builders, but car hacks. . . As there are plenty of other builders out there that I'm sure would be able to do a better job. I am now stuck with a car that I paid $34k for that did not even appraise for that according to the Auto Appraisal Group. I have now within the last 2 months after purchasing this car had to dump an additional $2700 into this car just to be able to make it drive-able & or sell-able, which includes a new rebuilt transmission, as it was just recently determined by the local shop owner that the knocking noise coming from the transmission area that I'd previously mentioned in my above youtube video, turned out to be that the internals of the transmission had chewed itself up so much so that it was no longer engaging in gear therefore became undriveable, which explains the poor color clarity of the transmission fluid that I'd mentioned in the above video. Metal shavings in the tranny fluid from a failed transmission, this car had not even been driven a total of 100 miles before the transmission in this car failed.. omg.. How does a/the transmission fail only 2 months & less than 100 miles on a newly restored car..!? Tells you everything you need to know..! The transmission guy I took it to here locally also reported that once he'd dropped the transmission out he was able to determine that the dowel that holds the flex plate to the crank shaft fell out while the tranny was coming out & that he was able to remove the flex plate without using any tools at all, that was after removing the tranny bolts which were at best only hand tightened, which completely explains why this transmission has already failed with less than a 100 miles on it, in the brief month & a half that I've had it in my possession... I've now had to replace the transmission due to Atlas Muscle Cars complete lack of precision with this build... A final attempt by me was made to seek reimbursement from Atlas for the failed Transmission I needed to replace 2 months after taking delivery of the car in addition to all the other repairs that needed to be made to resolve the issues that this car arrived with & as you can imagine, they have made no contact with me nor any reasonable attempt was made by Atlas to make good on this build/purchase. This has been one of the most miserable experiences in the purchase of any item I've ever bought in my lifetime & I've owned/bought multiple cars, boats, houses etc, throughout the course of my 45 years of existence.. I would never again do business with Atlas Muscle Cars in this lifetime or any other. If you've read this article & have any questions or concerns what so ever please don't hesitate to respond back to me as I'd be more than happy to share with you my experience with Atlas & any corresponding e-mail threads as well as vehicle inspection reports with you, regarding this purchase & any potential commitment you may be considering making with Atlas Muscle Cars. DoN't Do iT. . .!!!