1955 copper

This is how I preserve my corvette, check out all the states we drove (stickers) on the tear drop trailer driving around the country

biggd

Even if you put it away and don't drive it, all you'll have is just an old car. Does't sound like too much fun to me but to each his own.

Jackfit

Simple, I just drove it for the last 45 years as much as possible (300,000) miles, fix what breaks, and the result is a great running original engine car

MikeM

Well, the question was "the best way to preserve one", not which was is the most jiggles and giggles.

To me, "no fun" is cleaning up a car after it has gotten dirty being on the road.

Jackfit

Not much to clean up on this road! Lol

mrg

My '64 was out of the loop for quite a number of years - from 1980 to 2011. The car came out of mothballs and was driven for a brief period in the summer of '96. The thought was to start a restoration at that time. It didn't come to that and the car was once again put to bed.

In all the time the car was stored in the garage no special measures were taken in the way of preservation. The mild climate here in the bay area of CA figured into it. The car wasn't covered or anything like that while in storage.

There were a couple of things, though, that did deteriorate before the car went back on the road in the summer of '96. The chrome on the bumpers in some areas picked up some tiny rust pits. ..The brake cylinders and master needed to be rebuilt. The Harrison radiator eventually sprung a leak out on the road. An epoxy plug 'fixed' the radiator leak, at least for the rest of that summer.

Bucket list item.......better get on it!.. By 2011 all the mechanicals front to rear, body work, new paint, etc. had been completed.

Trying to make up for lost time while the car was being 'preserved'. .. It's all about having fun out on the open road now...!..
John

biggd

Not much fun just looking at it in your garage either. If it is for you then you have a strange sense of fun.

MikeM

Again, you're way off topic but I could accept your statement if you substituted the word "satisfaction" in place of "fun".

Some of us get satisfaction accomplishing something and some of us get satisfaction writing a check. I am in the former category.

I have a '65 Corvette that had about 1000 miles put on it between 1972 and 1980. Wasn't driven again until 2001 when it was pulled out of the stall next to the Nova mentioned above. I put gas in it, new set of tires/wheels and drove it about 200 miles and parked it again. Everything worked as well as before, brakes don't leak, nothing squeaks/rattles, no smoke out the exhaust. Exhaust still sound.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever packed the wheel bearings in this thing because it still has the original brake pads and rotors on it.

How much better preservation do you want just by not driving it?

brit vet

Mine get driven. I've tossed the keys to mates before now and let them drive..

biggd

I don't understand that line of thinking but, what ever floats your boat.
I had a very good friend of mine that had the same line of thinking. He had a 2 million dollar car collection that he never drove. He use to hold his own car show every year so that he only had to bring them out of his building and not get them dirty. He wasn't cold in his grave when his son sold the whole lot for just over a million.

Frankie the Fink

I've pulled a few "stored" classics out of long term storage. Clutch stuck, brake fluid looked like Campbell's mushroom soup, parking brake stuck, wheel cylinders leaking, valve seals turned into gummy bears, gas turned into ether, transmission and rear main seal leak.

None of which the owner said was the case before the car was stored. IMO, you can 'love these cars to death'....so afraid to drive them or do routine maintenance which might disturb the God-be-praised "patina" that you have a car that your worship-clouded eyes prevent you seeing is turning into a POS.

My favorite is those inflated plastic bubbles - Soooo weird. Owners who want their cars to look like they are in a kid's snow globe and unsullied by human hands.

Some of my favorite car videos are when Jay Leno pulls some beautiful classic car out of his collection that some here would never dare let see the light of day and roars down city streets in it.

biggd

It's lot easier to wash and wax them than repair all those things after they have been sitting. Life is too short and they are just material things that can be replaced. Health, family, and friends are what life is all about.

Roger Walling

I enjoy working on cars more than driving them so I ended up with several cars that I can't possibly drive in the summer season.

My solution is to have five of them registered and switch registrations on a few of them each year and that way I get to drive them at least 2 or 3 times a year.

Bill Pilon

I've had my 60 Vette for over 35 years, drive it every day the weather is decent, taken to northern NY several times, including last summer, I'm 73 years old and don't really care what it is worth as long as I can get in and out of it and enjoy it. Bill