Recently, there has been a trend involving current generation Zeta Camaros. Companies like ZTA have been taking the new Camaro and morphing them, via body kits, into a modern version of the Pontiac Trans Am / Firebird. And if you squint your eyes hard enough, it actually looks good. Sorta. While this is pretty much a novelty-type build here in America, some folks in Australia had a different idea when they turned a 1995 Camaro into a first-gen Firebird, and then turned that into a first-gen Camaro.

Confused on how you can turn something new into something old? Well, it all began with Australia’s import rules in regards to cars. Unlike their New Zealand neighbor – who can import any vehicle they want – Australia has a 30 year age limit on what sets of wheels can be brought down under.

If said vehicle is left-hand drive, anything before 1983 is okay, but don’t plan on seeing many modern American muscle cars in Australia anytime soon. In an attempt to bypass the regulations and get an American Camaro in their garage, a person in Australia registered a left-hand drive fourth-gen Camaro by putting a first-gen Firebird front & back clip on the Camaro frame. They then turned around and claimed it was an actual Firebird.

Evidently the registration office must not have paid much attention to the inside of the car, because it managed to pass registration for a while. And while we don’t know the exact back-story behind it, somewhere along the line, some information got leaked to the registration office and the reg for the car was revoked a few months later.

In an attempt to get the car back on the road, the owner then converted the Firebird back to a Camaro, but this time it went to a first-gen body style and the steering wheel was put on the right side as to appease the registration office. This time, it passed again for good. While body swaps of this type aren’t everyone’s favorite thing, we definitely gotta applaud all of the time, money, and effort that was put into this car just to make it legal. Would you have gone through all of this or just dropped back ten and punted?