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Do you remember when if you had a corvette it was the top dog in muscle cars and the prices reflected that. What has happened here ? People are selling their corvettes for less than some are demanding for Camaros, Chevelles, Firebirds , GTO's ,Mustangs, etc etc. etc. and those cars don't even have to be original. The only way that is going to change is for everyone to stick together and start demanding what they are worth. Corvettes have always held their value better than anything else in the muscle car market until recent years. Just remember how many of those run of the mill muscle cars you've seen in the local bubba's junk yards and then try to remember if you ever saw a corvette in the same junk yards. Odds are you didn't because people always put more value on corvettes.The only corvettes you find being parted out on a large scale is when it is an all corvette yard and it is run as a big money making operation. Even that shows respect to the corvette that it deserves. We need to start demanding that they are worth more than the run of the mill muscle cars. After all they are the original all american sports car.
I've wondered the same thing. The only reason I can see is maybe too many of the metal cars went to the crusher or rusted away. Corvettes are never wasted so there easier to find. I have noticed an increase in chrome bumper prices though. I agree though, it's crazy what you see runt of the mill Chevells going for.
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I kind of look at it as a good time to buy. I'm not too worried about the market right now. It will come back just like the stock market. I do agree that the Corvette should be the top dog though.
Falling in and crawling out, door panels that cost $350 a piece, exhaust nightmares, rearends that lean in so far at the top they pop the tires, all this just for starters, not mention the body and paint job, I wouldn't buy one for an undriving project.
They are just too hard to work on and you can't take the family with you and people are just not accepting the hassle anymore.
I think they coined "garage queens"
Now that I have mine, I hope they go through the roof! But seriously, I was expecting to pay a lot more for mine. He had just done about 8k worth of work to it. It sat on craigslist for about a week before I had a chance to go check it out, I couldn't believe nobody snatched it up. I got it for 1k less than he was asking for it, he was pretty firm at the beginning though. Supply and demand, right now there are plenty of sellers, apparently not too many buyers.
You answered your own question they crushed tons of chevelles camaros etc.. while the vettes were resold and rebuilt so there are far less clean never wrecked muscle cars around than vettes (supply and demand)
Look at it this way they made the68 69 chevelle 2 yrs, 70-72 chevelle body style for 3 yrs, the 67 and 68 camaro 2 years the 69 1 year, but the corvette looks fairly similar from 68-82 thats 14 yrs, the camaros and chevelles rusted (steel bodies) and were scrapped the vettes didnt.
what do you see more often any 68-82 vette or a mint 68 camaro or a 70 ss chevelle?? Not to be rude but vettes are a dime a dozen solid steel muscle cars arent!!
not to mention how many vettes did you every see in a demolition derby or a hick town stock car race back in the day being driven by the local guy wearin the wife beater??
Last edited by blunblk68; Nov 20, 2007 at 09:49 AM.
Stick together all you want but alot of car people now days arent into the all matching numbers thing.
would i buy an all original 70 vette coupe with a stock 350 for 30g or buy the 68 camaro with a new 502 and a tko 5 speed thats been restored for the same 30? hmmmmm???
you will never see a change till lame **** shows like barret jackson are gone cause every idiot with a car from 63-72 thinks they hit the lottery after watching it. JMHO
The biggest deal with corvettes versus other cars is the preception that others get when they meet Corvette people at corvette only shows. A perfect chevelle is to the layman, just a cool car. Nobody ever comes up and really picks the thing apart. Park a corvette on the street and some jerk off with only a Camry to his name still knows enought to ask if its the original engine.
In my mind we have to apprecaite and value all corvettes, not just NCRS ones.
You answered your own question they crushed tons of chevelles camaros etc.. while the vettes were resold and rebuilt so there are far less clean never wrecked muscle cars around than vettes (supply and demand)
Look at it this way they made the68 69 chevelle 2 yrs, 70-72 chevelle body style for 3 yrs, the 67 and 68 camaro 2 years the 69 1 year, but the corvette looks fairly similar from 68-82 thats 14 yrs, the camaros and chevelles rusted (steel bodies) and were scrapped the vettes didnt.
what do you see more often any 68-82 vette or a mint 68 camaro or a 70 ss chevelle?? Not to be rude but vettes are a dime a dozen solid steel muscle cars arent!!
not to mention how many vettes did you every see in a demolition derby or a hick town stock car race back in the day being driven by the local guy wearin the wife beater??
Much thruth here. The Corvette is one of the most abused and at the same time most preserved car ever. Our values have held faily steady and continue to creep. The newer Vette's and steel bumper Vette's dictate our values; maybe this newest C-6 will give us all a hike. I have seen a great increase in value for the '73-'77 years. Generations are a cause for change in value also. I never would have thought the '80 would have become so popular; however many have a preferance that didn't exist before.
From: Minnesota in the summer, Las Vegas in the winter
I would compare the issue of old car prices to that of the prices of stocks. Stock prices today have less to do with the actual value of a company than they have to do with outside circumstance-driven factors which have little bearing on a particular corporation.
In other words, the prices of old cars and in particular, muscle cars and corvettes, are substantially controlled by human emotion and minimally dictated by logic.
The bad news is that muscle cars, as a group, seem to draw more positive emotion from the buying public than do corvettes. The good news is that, if corvette owners could figure out how to tap into that emotion, they could possibly improve their cars' values significantly.
For the same reason Harley Davidsons cost so much, no rhyme or reason. Some things are "in" and some things are "not".
I have personally owned Corvettes and Harleys all of my life and still do and this is exactly my point . Corvettes and Harleys have always been top dog in their own catagories and Harleys still are, so what happened to the confidence of the corvette owners that they percieve them to not have as much value as they once did in comparison to other muscle cars. Could it be that the younger crowd buys corvettes now and don't remember when corvettes and harleys were the only top dog and now they just look at them as another cool muscle car ?
Just food for thought...where I grew up, small town tobacco road North Carolina...in the late 60's- early 70's, steel muscle cars were a dime a dozen. EVERYBODY had one! To my recollection, I only knew of ONE Corvette in the WHOLE county, my football coach's yellow 69 350/350 coupe 4 speed, with factory sidepipes.
My point? My (baby boomers) generation is NOW buying their childhood memories. MOST of us owned steel muscle cars (if we were lucky enough to own one at all, I didnt! 69 Bug!!) VERY FEW of us owned Corvettes..I know I didnt! Daddy was more likely to buy off on a "regular car" not some exotic "plastic" little 2 seater!! If you drove a Camaro, Mustang, Roadrunner, etc to high school, to the Senior Prom, got laid in.....THATS what your emotions are gonna tell you you want after 30+ yrs!! Demand is for the steel cars...
Just my .02!!!!
Happy Thanksgiving to ALL!!
Last edited by MakoShark72; Nov 20, 2007 at 12:46 PM.
I think you need to look at all generations of Corvette to make a real comparison. For instance, stock for stock in the same condition, which do you think is worth more, a big block 66 Vette or a big block 66 Chevelle SS? I would also say a fuelie 57 is worth more than a fuelie 57 passenger car. There were a lot less 69 Z28's built than Corvettes, so I can possibly see why the Z's are worth more. I don't think a 69 big block Vette is worth less than a 69 SS396 Chevelle though. Am I wrong here? How about my year Vette, a 79 Vette should be worth more than a 79 Z28 any day of the week. The sad fact is, I can't see myself ever owning a 69 Z28, or a 66 Chevelle SS396, both are dream muscle cars for me, and I would just about kill for one. They are just priced too far out of reach for the average joe anymore.
Just food for thought...where I grew up, small town tobacco road North Carolina...in the late 60's- early 70's, steel muscle cars were a dime a dozen. EVERYBODY had one! To my recollection, I only knew of ONE Corvette in the WHOLE county, my football coach's yellow 69 350/350 coupe 4 speed, with factory sidepipes.
My point? My (baby bomers) generation is NOW buying their childhood memories. MOST of us owned steel muscle cars (if we were lucky enough to own one at all, I didnt! 69 Bug!!) VERY FEW of us owned Corvettes..I know I didnt! Daddy was more likely to buy off on a "regular car" not some exotic "plastic" little 2 seater!! If you drove a Camaro, Mustang, Roadrunner, etc to high school, to the Senior Prom, got laid in.....THATS what your emotions are gonna tell you you want after 30+ yrs!! Demand is for the steel cars...
Just my .02!!!!
Happy Thanksgiving to ALL!!
Good point, All I could afford back then was a regular car and I do have good memories of some of those cars but my dream car back then was to have a corvette . So today I am living that dream and don't care to look back. Why would you want to work your way up to that top dog , then go back to where you started ? If I could have just talked someone into giving me a ride in their corvette, it would have been the thrill of my life. So think about that when a young kid is druelling over your car and take him for a ride. Maybe that will be a future corvette owner.
You can demand all you like, but the only thing demanding prices that are not supported by the market will accomplish is finding more storage for your car for sale.
You can demand all you like, but the only thing demanding prices that are not supported by the market will accomplish is finding more storage for your car for sale.
Thats true if all you want to do is make a quick sale on one car, it would probably just sit there but you are talking about one person and one sale. This is my point , everyone has to stick together and demand what they are worth. You don't win wars with winning one battle and it takes time. If you want corvette values to go back up where they should be then you have to start now and be patient.
The steel musle car have always had performance up grade that the Corvette at first didn't need and later never got. If you look at the Covette it didn't used to have money thrown at it as all of the camaro's, chevell's and Tri 5's.
I think there is a new following in the C-3 cars that is about to change everything. I am not willing to let this one go as It may soon become too expensive to replace it. I have had 7 Vettes and 3 Harley's in the past 25 years and as another said who knows what changes the popularity. It just happens. I'm happy to see that younger generations have become interested in the C-3's.
Designer Imagines A Corvette That Looks More Like a Corvette Than the Corvette
Slideshow: A Jaguar designer's personal project imagines what a modern front-engined Corvette might look like if Chevrolet revisited the golden age of the Stingray.