Ride Of The Week 04/18/2022: Tawnya LaMark's 1981 Z28

PURPLE BITCH

While chatting with Tawnya La Mark at a car show last summer, I got the low-down on the history of her 1981 Z28. Turns out, the original owner lost it in a bar bet. Well, now that’s a #rideoftheweek story if I’ve ever heard one!

And that’s pretty much all we know. No clue as to what the bet was about or why he wagered his prized F-Body. We do know that the winner didn’t really enjoy the car. It sat for about 10 years in a barn when a Mr. Shaffer (first name unknown) bought it for his son to drag race. After modding the engine and having Jose Le Corchick apply the spectacular ‘chameleon’ blue/purple/green metallic paint job, the son raced it once and hated it. So, it was sold again to Mr. DePetro, who happened to be a teacher and Tawnya was one of his students.

Tawnya says, “I told Mr. D, if you ever sell that car, I wanna buy it.” Well, sure enough, the day came when Mr. DePetro was ready to part with the Camaro and he remembered how Tawnya would pester him about buying his car.

“I did a lot of stuff myself, rebuilt the top end of the 350 V8, dyed the carpets, but everything that could break on the car broke,” Tawnya explains, “It was a bitch. So I told my mom, I’m gonna call her the ‘Purple Bitch’. Mom, said, ‘you can’t put that on your car.’ So, I had ‘Cagna Viola’ done in vinyl across the windshield so it’s not too obvious.”

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