Wow Ric, we were close with our choice of cars...
While I still had the '63 Impala, I fell in love with my girlfriends sisters '65 GTO 389 Tri-Power and bought it from her for $600! Later that same year ('73) I sold the Impala for $275 bucks with new paint and new top! In '74 on the way to work, I saw a silver car with black stripes on the hood that caught my eye at a car lot. I had always wanted a '69 Z/28 and wondered if that was what I had seen. I spun around and went back to the car lot and sure enough, it was a '69 DZ302 Z/28 in silver and black w/4-speed. $1,195.00 was on the windhield with 33Kmiles! The car was only 5 years old with only 33,000 miles and I could get it for under $2,000 bucks! Yep, goodbye GTO - hello Z/28!
BTW, they gave me $600 trade-in on the GTO! Man, I wish I had all 3 of those cars today!
Greg