Camaro Faqs

There are many people who when they see a vehicle that they like fall in love with it right away. That is how it was with a man named Jeff. He saw “Better Off Dead” in the late 1980’s and loved Lane Meyers’ fully restored 1967 Camaro. And he decided that he had to have it.

He set out to find that car, and, if possible, bring it home. You would think a car as famous as Lane Meyers’ black Camaro would be easy to locate, probably in one of those star car museums sitting between a not-so-rare Batmobile and a General Lee replica. But, no. Jeff’s search turned out to be more difficult than Charles DeMar’s quest for illicit substances.

A random mailing of letters to several names in the movie’s credits dug up the name of the movie’s transportation captain (possibly Robert Elsey, but Jeff’s site doesn’t identify him) in L.A. The Camaro had been owned by his son, who sold it in 1989, but made no mention of its movie-star past to the buyer. With no VIN or registration records from that owner, it seemed a dead end, except for the Camaro’s old car tag. It was the very same one seen on the car in the film.

With that and the help of a team of private investigators, Jeff tracked down the current owner who said he was indeed willing to sell. So Jeff flew from Florida to L.A. to find the car in pretty rough shape and in need of major work, but bought it anyway. In April 2003, after a year of restoration work (done by Time Machines, Inc. not French exchange students, by the way), the Camaro was back in shape to take on drag-racing Japanese brothers. Jeff’s in Colorado now, but still shows the car and has amassed several interesting pieces of movie memorabilia, including the pig hat worn by Cusack.