When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
I just turned 65 and retired in March this year. I was a little worried about how to occupy my time during the long Winters in Northwestern PA. My wife and I have been avid houseboaters for years. This year we decided to get a little bigger used houseboat and we had to sell the old one. The day after we hung the For Sale sign on it a couple approached me, looked over the boat and offered an even-up trade for their 71 Coupe. The cars body looked good, was free of significant rust and in running condition with the usual 40+ year old Vette problems and in need of some TLC. When I got home that evening I thought I would give my wife a chuckle and told her about the offer. She looked me square in the eye and said "when in our lives would we ever have the chance to cruise around in a Vette!" After someone picked me up from the floor I did some internet research, talked to some knowledgeable folks, crunched the numbers and realized this deal had potential. In my younger days I used to do most all of my own auto repairs but jobs, family and the increasing complexity of more modern automobiles pretty much ended that! I began to see this as an opportunity to reconnect with that part of my past life, one that I enjoyed. I have the tools, some space and time, so Why Not!
I got my C3 in the summer of 2013, Sold a rare-ish Challenger RT back to Chrysler. What was next? Always loved the C3 classy, American muscle V8 in a head turning ride. I my early 20's I drove a girl friends 78 anniversary edition occasionally and just love it. So the hunt went on and fun began. Settled on the 80 as I love the lines. I bought a derelict scow of a car for a bargain. But it has been a work of love and frustration. Bit of a learning curve. But now it on its way. check out my Albums.
In 1976, I was looking for a new Corvette on-the-lots of Chevrolet dealers to buy.
I had a 2 year old Cadillac to trade-in on the new Corvette.
I shopped a couple Chevrolet dealers in my hometown at the time of Memphis, Tennessee. I also shopped the Chevrolet dealer directly across the street from the GM Corvette Plant in Saint Louis, Missouri.
Every dealer I shopped wanted a difference of $6,500.00 and my Cadillac to do a deal on an in-stock Corvette.
I called a Chevrolet/GMC/Pontiac/Oldsmobile country dealer in Wahoo, Nebraska. I dealt with the dealer owner. He offered me a new in-stock, 1977 L82, A3, loaded-up for $4,600.00 difference. I bought the new Corvette C3 on-the-spot.
Had a '99 corvette in college that my wife and I bought just before we married. After graduating and starting our careers, things were tough, really tough. Had to sell the vette. After working for a couple of other design firms, I finally mustered up the courage to start my own business. That first year we lived extremely frugally, not knowing what would happen with our company. To my surprise we ended that first year with a nice distribution and profit, which set the stage for an even better second year. Early in our second year we decided to reward ourselves by picking up another vette....and given the sentimental nature of our reward, I opted for a car the same age as me (a 1979). In a way it was a great step, as even being that it's an L82, it wasn't over the top expensive. It was in excellent shape. I've since replaced the carpet and seat covers (they were a little faded ), and ofcourse put a little chrome under the hood. It's not the fastest on the road but still turns heads.
Our second year of owning a design firm we did so well we purchased a C6. A year later, once again all the hard work paid off and we picked up our '63 roadster. At this point we are maximizing retirement fund, our kids' college funds , and still doing well. Just two months ago we put an order in for a 2015 z06. If we keep this up I'm going to have to add on to our garage!
I'm very proud of my wife and I for working very hard and sticking with it in the early years when things were tough. Seems like the American dream is still very much obtainable if your willing to work hard and be true to yourself and your clients or customers. I think about these principles every time I hop in my '79 and take it for a spin, as it all started with that first year and being brave and believing we could make it...
I first saw my 71 Vette when I was about 14 years old. It belonged to my brother-in-law, he had it stored in a steel building along with a collection of antique Rolls Royceses Fast forward to 2005 when he died and I went to help my sister, I asked if the car was still in the building.....it was. I found her sitting in the middle of the building, which the roof had leaked and all metal on her was terribly rusted. We agreed on a price and I brought her home. I have been working on her off and on ever since, health gets in the way from time to time, but I do what I can. I had a resto thread going, but I now see that all of the pictures are gone, friggen photo bucket Anyway.....she is my avatar on this site.
In 1991 was was hot to replace my 1970 roadster sold a few years earlier. Being a traveling rep I traveled 5 states. In Sioux Falls I gave my name to Howard at Howard's Corvettes and mentioned it had to be "mint". As we all know there are many interpretations of that term. Howard was on my wave length and a month later called with this '81 two tone with 19,000 miles. Even the nuts and bolts on the underside still had the golden cad finish. It turned 50,000 miles as I drove it to storage this fall for the 23rd time.
Bought my 1980 7 years ago, a present to myself after going through a divorce. Makes me smile every time I look at it. Pretty good condition when I bought it but, I've done some upgrades and more in the future. Buffed the paint, scrubbed the interior,new wheels, exhaust, headers, carb, manifold and of course more chrome.
Favorite story and still continues is picking up the grand son from school in it and, by his request. You have to love kids, every time he's see's it, it's like the first time.
A couple weeks ago a customer (I own an automotive repair facility) requested that we tow an 81' he inherited to our shop to find out why the brakes didn't work. His father had recently passed away and this car was his baby since the mid eighties. Of course the calipers/master were all shot, but at just a tic over 70K the rotors looked good and had never been off the car. The gentleman was a bit overwhelmed at the cost of the brake work and the other issue, so when he stated that he'd just tow it back home I spit out "two grand cash and just leave it here"! So now I have this car and have no idea why I bought it, but knew that my new wife loved the C3's and decided to give it to her for Christmas, for which she's thrilled and absolutely loves it!
It's still on the lift with new brakes/tires/multiple gaskets/PS re-sealed, and just waiting on the carb rebuild to get it on the road. It's no show queen, but a clean unmolested red driver without a speck of rust, so we'll play with it for a bit and see if the Vette lifestyle is something we'd enjoy
My dad purchased the Vette in 74'. Drove the car for a while. Parked it due to having a family around 74' with 77k on the odometer. I was born 1987, Then sold the house where it was parked around 1991-92. Moved it to the new house that did not have a garage. Sat outside on cement pad, half in the sun half out, but religiously always covered. My brother and friends overhauled the motor/trans and could not afford to do the brakes. My whole youth I was playing around that car in the driveway, pretend driving, We would take the T-tops out when my dad wasn't home and pretend we were cruising around in it. Then around 2012 I put the car in the garage. 2014 I purchased the house off my father and in the Bill of sale was a 1969 Corvette Stingray baby..
I've always like Corvette's. My first exposure to a hot rod was this C1 -
- this pic is from May of this past year when I helped the family of the late owner unearth it from his shop. It is a 57 (Vin # 97) that was drag raced in CA in the '60's. Perhaps I'll write about that one another time. Anyhow, the noise, the smell of the exhaust and axle grease... I was 5 and I was hooked. When I was 15 and looking for a car, my Dad took me to a local Nissan dealer who had a 78 white 4 spd Vette on the lot. Dad drove it off the lot, pulled over and let me drive. I flogged it and loved it, I wanted one... badly.
Fast forward many years and I have been into mainly Pontiacs, Firebirds specifically and currently have both a 1st & 2nd gen, but I still wanted a Vette. The C1 crossed my mind many times, but even at the "friends and family" price of $20K it needed a ton of work and was just too much to outlay for someone with two kids in college.
I found my C3 (if you've read this far you were wondering when I was getting to that point) exactly a year ago on CL here in Dallas. The guy was interested in trading for my GMC SUV that I no longer needed. Looking at the car, it was all there except the #'s engine. An L82 4 spd car, there were some details that led me to believe it was the clean 60k miles car it looked to be, like the original black cloth interior still in decent condition. This part of the story is too long to tell here, but needless to say, the trade didn't happen and neither did the attempt to just buy the car from this guy. We couldn't agree on terms and I walked. In the course of researching the car, the seller told me how he came about getting the car and that the guy he traded for it had the matching #'s engine. A quick call to him and I found out the engine was all there and in fact had been rebuilt, putting out over 300HP and was currently running in a '66 Chevy Truck. This guy said he would reluctantly part with the engine only because it belonged with the car for the price of the rebuild.
I got video's of the engine running and rethought the deal, but the car was gone. 2 weeks later I'm on a trip in CA and one of my buddies texts me and says "your car is for sale again" I'd written it off already and moved on... Told him it's not my darn car!
But of course I ended up calling - a different person this time, Scott had made a trade with the other seller and then had a project car he had been hunting for a while get dropped in his lap right after bringing the C3 home. He and I talked and I cut right to the chase, stating " look I've been through this car & know what it needs". I told him I had already walked away at his asking price and I threw out a number. He said No and we parted ways. It seemed I had lost the car again but I told him I knew where the engine was if he wanted the guys name. The next morning on my drive to the airport, he text's me. Even longer story short, he tells me the car is mine for $100 more than my low ball offer. Wow! I just bought a Vette - we made arrangements to meet the next day,with me back home, at his work to pay for it and he even offered to trailer it for me to my shop. When he then told me where he worked, I was a bit shocked... Yep, the same Nissan dealership where I first drove a 78 Vette 4 spd at age 15!
The car has been off the road since mid-2000's and I've traced it back to the guy who bought it in the mid 80's. All three registered owners since the mid 80's verify it's a low mileage car. It was disassembled to be restored after a carburetor fire around 2006. It's in my profile pic and if you look closely someone repainted it pre-early 80's with an Imron paint job and put a blue accent stripe instead of the dark gray one that goes between the silver and dark gray. If anyone on the forum knows any history of this car PM me as I would love to know more!
The story behind my 70 vette. I had always liked c3's and when my search started about 2yrs ago, I knew I wanted a BB car or one that was blue on blue but that was it. I didn't care whether it was coupe or roadster. I had hoped I would find one that had chrome bumpers but that wasn't that big of deal for me.
In November of 2013 a forum member here posted a blue on blue 1970 vette for sale. The first picture I saw of the car I knew that was the vette for me. So I send off a message to the owner and a week later my best bud and I are on a road trip out east to pick up my new love and she was even better in real life. My new love did have one catch, she didn't have an engine. The owner had sold the original motor a few yrs back cuz he wanted more hp. That didn't bother me either, I had always wrenched on cars and it would be easy to find a SBC somewhere and make a nice driver that the wife and I could cruise in.
My search for an engine started,I looked everywhere and for whatever reason I just couldn't find the one that felt right for me. Back to the forum I went, I put in a search "1970 vette motor" and I look through a few pages and I see one out of a 70 for sale,I thought this might work, then I notice the ad is a couple yrs old. But I click on it just to take a peak then I notice that it was the same user name that I had bought my car from. That really sparked my interest, my engine out of my car what were the chances. I read some of the posts from the from members and the very last post was the member thanking the guy who had bought the engine and he posts his user name. The engine was going to a new home in Michigan. Stop, wait a minute, Michigan, that's where I'm at! I have to track this person down. So I search his name on the forum and send him a pm... No response! I have this guy's name I am looking on the net for a ph# or anything I could use to find this guy. Then my dad says to me look in the phone book. Sure enough his number is in the phone book. I give the man a call and leave a lengthy message and he calls me back and after a conversation about how crazy all of this is he says to me, you should have this back this is your motor it belongs to you. There is one catch he tells me it is in my 70 corvette. A month passes and I go take the motor out and rebuild it and put into mine.
I am ever grateful to Bob for allowing me to take his motor out of his car. I am still amazed that after traveling over 900 hundreds to get my car the motor ended up being 30 miles from my house.
I was hanging out with my wife on Christmas eve when I got a PM from a friend on Facebook. Now he has been an awesome friend over the years but other than FB we have only spoken a few times in a dozen years and we have not seen each other in 12-13 years and the last time we really spent any time together was at our wedding 17.5 years ago. He says I should come out to San Diego to pickup my gift! He has/had a mechanically perfect, no expense spared 1977 that needs a little cosmetic tlc (carpet, small tear in a seat and paint is 30 years old)
So I flew out to San Diego, drove her around for a few days and enjoyed a few days with my pal. She gets loaded on a truck today and next week it will begin her new life in Florida!
I always wanted one but could not afford ins. Was out driving came across a maroon 75, had just lost my Marine son stopped and took it out, and 9-years later still got it. One day while changing the door locks, (need little fingers) I found an for sale sign, got on the web looked up reverse phone no. and talked to woman and husband 50-miles away.
he in is 20's then bought it in Virginia and brought it back to NY's. it was silver then and as we talked he said he had a camp 5-miles from where I lived. that summer we hooked up and he was glad to see it. Great stories all JsR
.............ME! During our early years, we both owned a Vette for two. I purchased a '69 in '73. I drove it until '76. My purchase price was $4200 and sold it for $4000 because I was about to be a Father. This past August, I was joking with her about getting a Vette "for old time sake." One rainy day, I started searching around the local Corvette club's website and found a 1979 Coupe for sale. I ran to her and said, "Hey, I found our Vette!" Two weeks later, we bought it. It has 62k original miles. We took it to a local "Corvette expert mechanic" who was delighted to take our money in exchange for repairs it needed. It now runs fantastic and we will use it, as our license plate says, "FOR FUN"!
Last edited by Crimebust1; 01-20-2015 at 01:05 PM.
Reason: spelling
11-05-2014, 05:38 PM
Fast forward to 2005 when he died and I went to help my sister, I asked if the car was still in the building.....it was. I found her sitting in the middle of the building, which the roof had leaked and all metal on her was terribly rusted. We agreed on a price and I brought her home. I have been working on her off and on ever since, health gets in the way from time to time, but I do what I can. I had a resto thread going, but I now see that all of the pictures are gone, friggen photo bucket 
Anyway.....she is my avatar on this site.
