65hihp

I would not dismiss this car so quickly. I have a good friend picked up a 65 L79 roadster looking very very similar to this one year ago, from the same kind of seller. Same neglected looking condition, but carpets in better shape. (carpets are cheap) Remnants of a trailer hitch welded to surface rusted frame. Consignment shop, not corvette specialized. Priced at $39K. Close inperson inspection revealed: Original under 90K miles, all born with drive train, mostly original paint, undamaged nose, rear, unhit body, super dry frame still with shim marks, part no.stencil, and date showing. Incredibly unmolested in all important areas. He got it for $31K. Spent one year going over brakes, fuel lines, replacing leaky heater core, water pump, alternator, cleaning up engine, hoses, belts, cleaning/dyeing carpet, grinding off hitch parts from frame, and myriad other stuff. Was driving it after about 4 months, and showed it in chapter NCRS meet at 10 months, would have made TF if horn had not glitched in OPS check. (it worked driving off judge field!)
Bottom line, this could be a very good car at a steal of a price.

Nowhere Man

It helped and hurt everybody at the same time too

Dan Hampton

Totally agree. If you are selective, and you spend a lot of time talking with the seller before hand, the trip is cheap insurance. There is nothing like buying a misrepresented car sight unseen. You will pay a heavy price.

Ratty68

Did the 7 hour road trip to see Daytona location car.

Could get two fingers in frame. Was thinking of offer, with idea of frame swap/repair, but spent time to get upside down under dash to look at birdcage, and backed away from this one.

Good car if you want a matching numbers, pretty original car that needs full resto.

As Dan said, a misrepresented car sucks. I do not fault sellers too much, as they are not corvette guys. Still, when i left, there were two piles of rust chips under the car.

Rich Yanulis

I have been on the quest for my next '63 for quite a while.
I also have made several road trips like you describe and each time I have walked away empty handed.
BUT, it gave me the sense of satisfaction of knowing that I did not miss the opportunity to find the one "diamond in the rough" that I know is still out there

Frankie the Fink

I don't think you have to be a "Corvette guy" to know that you are selling a vintage car with rusty 'innards' at an unreasonable price. I looked at a bunch of cars in the last year and the sellers of the ones with body rot all looked sheepishly guilty when I found it right off. They clearly knew what was going on...and some of them could care less if you drove 7 hours or 7 days if there is a chance they could unload their 'white elephant' on you.

After passing on a rusty SWC with a NOM last fall that I'd driven two hours to see the owner was texting me about every 1/2 hour during the ride home with a lowered price - pretty funny.