Wow, thanks Tom & Dave for all the info. & pictures.

It seems to me in most of the pictures the letters F & E are centered on the horizontal body contour line, which was what I had pegged as my primary reference point. The picture of the 2 cars, the one with Mauri Rose's name on the back fender, looks like the "Chevrolet Camaro" script is obviously cheated downward a little more than on most of the other cars.

I wonder if in some cases the pinstripe might be slightly higher than spec.?

I'm still thinking we need to cheat the script lettering downward a little bit, maybe VERY slightly forward too (right side). After forking out big bucks for paint, I'd like to avoid the lettering running over the pinstripe as it does in some cars (car #92 best example)... but still want the script to align pretty closely to the picture placement.

quote:

Originally posted by Sappy787:

Did you get the dark blue Pace car decals from the member on here or the light blues one from Heartbeat?

Actually neither. I got the ones I have from a private individual around 1988. They were supposed to be modeled on a NOS set that was found in a dealership.

quote:

Originally posted by Tom D:

Are your fenders off a RS Camaro? The reason I am asking is because the front set of the holes don't seem to line up for the SS emblems. Just curious! If you look at the other pictures of the nose stripes like on Bruce and Carens Pacer and the picture that Tom McGinnty posted earlier the holes look different than yours.

This is an interesting factory quirky thing. I had heard similar feedback through other knowledgeable sources about the RS fenders. The fenders, and the emblems & holes with them, are NOS fenders that came off my 06D coupe (a 19K mile survivor body (SS-396/RS) I acquired in 1979). It appears that the letters "SS" were installed from the factory with one right side up and one upside down! You wouldn't think this would make much difference but when we started scrutinizing the stripes recently we realized that the second letter S was sitting slightly higher than the first. The original black nose stripe on the coupe was painted at the factory with a 55MM gap in front, 60MM in back, which created the illusion of the white gap being square to the letters. In the restoration we are planning to relocate the second S so they are both on the same horizontal line.

Charley.. all men should try as hard as you do with the finer points.. The car is coming out fantastic and will reflect so in the value the car will have because of these details.. Just like Sappy's car.. you guys are building them right..

The decals, remember, were put on in Indianapolis at the different prepping dealers.. thats were you get the variations... my opinion at this time is that the Zone or the Representatives from Campbell-Ewald which was the advertising arm of General Motors delivered the door decals directly.. This is why we have never seen an unused set or found a part number for them in any subsequent GM parts manuals. Different people installed the decals and you would get great variations..

Now with your car being an LA baby.. I DO NOT KNOW how or when the cars were decaled.. I'm certain they were NOT installed at the factory but may well have been put into the trunk as theorized..I do know a great many dealer Pacers never had them installed at all! It would have been a special COPO process with special instructions because of the lack of a part number.. It is still a mystery to me and a topic that drives even more questions to the surface.

I would suggest putting them on as perfectly as possible and be certain not to set them too low.. Its my opinion that looks unsightly. Did you get your decals from Andy Wolf? Please don't put those baby blue catalog stcikers on!

My car with Andy Wolfs decals

I think the pinstripe is too low on this picture compared to the one Tom McGinnty posted above. Charley, if you look at the "F" in both pictures you will see a radical difference in the spacing of the upper and lower fingers of the letter "F" compared to Mr. McGinnty's. That makes a huge difference in where the decal gets positioned. Also, the finger spacing in the letter "E" looks different. It looks like Mr. McGinnty's decal in the photo above is the correct style. So even though at first glance both of these decals look correct, if a person were to lay these decals on top of each other they would see there is a big difference in the style of lettering. Just thought I would point that out. Charely it looks like you have the same style as Mr. McGinnty.

As the saying goes, "The answer is in the details"

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Tom D,

Charlie,

Merles/My LA car as the story was told by Merle had the decals on it when the delivery truck rolled into Benson Chevrolet. Merle said Benson's didnt want to sell Merle the car unless he agreed to keep the decals on the car for 30 days. Here is a picture of my LA fresh in 1967. You can see a little bit where the decals are below the pin stripe. Hard to see but its there.

Thats interesting and may contribute to the " stickers in the trunk " stories.. only this time they might well have installed the decals.. the lack of a part number is job #1 in the research!

Now if we could find a vendor that makes that same style as the "original" decal.

good luck

Charley ,

You have raised an interesting topic.

I own what we generally believe is the car # 117 with Mario Andretti in it.

My car was repainted in around 1985 and a typical for the time paint job which was over the existing paint job. There is a chip in the paint on the rear quarter toward the rear of the door exactly where the pin stripe is below.

You can see the original pin stripe quite clearly through the chip in the top layer of paint. When the car was repainted the stripe was reapplied higher than the original. Is it possible this was to raise the pinstripe to clear the door decal to make it look more even????

PS; Where did you get the pic of car # 117 with Mario Andretti in it? I have not seen it that size before.

Tom D.-- very subtle observation regarding the decal differences that I had never noticed until you pointed it out. I would agree with your observation mine are more like Tom M's where the center finger on letters F/E are closer to center.

Amazing (and a little frustrating) that no matter how many years you try to learn everything you can about these cars, there's still always something new to discover.

Geoff: you asked about the car #117 picture... this came from Tom not from me. And another interesting observation about the srripes.

Tom M: Not sure how to get in touch with the person you mentioned? The decals that I have were acquired around 1988, purchased from a private party.

No sticker is perfect. The ones in the catalog are so wrong because of the baby blue its irritating.. Those letters should be squarely in the Navy blue range. It no easy to tell if you have stickers from a decent batch that came out quite a while ago or not... You would need to compare closely to my cars door which are Andys version.

If you decide to go with Andys just PM me and I'll get you his phone number.. He's a great guy

The more I look at both decals the more differences I see. Your decal and Tom M decals look just like the original Pace Car's #92 decal. Charley your early 80's decal is probably an original decal or one from a good batch of decal made back then. I know you would appreciate the detail in the differences and want to know which decal is the correct style to have on your Pacer. I would want the same thing too. I know one thing, I will never look at a Pace Car decal the same anymore, now that I know what to look for.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Tom D,

The lower blue letters with the date have different fonts in many versions. The blue of OFFICIAL PACE CAR is always the dead givaway and the gold "Chevrolet Camaro" is many times written in a slightly different cursive

Decals on #92...

This one we have see a thousand times, but is worth looking at again for it's decals!