I was wondering if anyone could tell me the actual production number of my 1980 yellow with oyster interior 4-speed. When I done a search one time I recall in 1980 GM produced 4,000 +/- 4-speed vettes and 2,000 were yellow. Haven't been able to find any info on how many were yellow with oyster interior 4-speed. All the ones I've seen for sale on ebay has been yellow with black interior.

 

oyster cloth or oyster leather?

my black book states 5726 4 speeds and 2077 yellows and 1808 oyster cloth and 7104 oyster leather..
i suppose you can run a statistical calculation that would be a good statistical guess
to get around 64 cars..

 

oyster leather....60k miles..

Not really understanding your statistical calculation, are you saying only 64 vettes were yellow/leather oyster/4-speed?

 

No one knows the exact distribution of options so you have to be satisfied with a statistical approximation. Using the Black Book:

There were 5726 4-speed cars built.

There were 2077 yellow cars out of a total 40614 or 5.11%

This would indicate about 292.8 yellow / 4-speed cars.

There were 1808 oyster cloth and 7104 oyster leather cars built (8912 total).

There were 3070 Frost Beige cars built and oyster interior WAS NOT an option on these cars. This leaves 37544 cars built that oyster WAS an option. Therefore oyster interior was an installed on 23.7% (8912 of the 37544) cars where it was an option.

So you can estimate that 69-70 (23.7% of 292.8) yellow/4-speed cars had oyster interiors.



You need to adjust for availability of options e.g. The number of black / 4-speed / L82 cars = ZERO (4-speeds and L82 were not offered together) e.g. The number of frost beige cars with oyster interiors = ZERO, etc.

 

As nice as it may be, your 1980 Corvette is not "rare" in any tangible way.

Sorry.

 

More modern Corvettes are ordered with Preferred Equipment Groups that bundle options together. On these earlier cars options could be mixed, resulting in "one-of-a-kind" Corvettes. Your car MAY have an option mix that makes it unique!

There is a difference between rare and desireable. A 3-speed manual transmission in a 1963 makes it "rare" however the 3-speed is NOT desireable to most people.

When they were built, the late 1970s early 1980s were the most popular Corvettes ever built. 1979 saw almost 54 thousand cars, 1980 saw over 40 thousand cars. And given the increase in driver population the past 30 years, these build quantities are even more impressive today. However, quantity works against RARITY, you can't have "rare" when you have "lots". LOL

The options that were/are on your car are listed on the build sheet or "tank sticker". This build sheet was GLUED to the top front of the fuel tank and served to tell the workers on the assembly line what options to install on the car. Your car MAY still have it's original tank sticker, however, it is necessary to remove or "drop" the fuel tank to minimize damage to the paper. GM did not intend this paper to be a historical document and the weather, road grime, etc will have faded or may have destroyed it.

Reproduction build sheets & window stickers of Corvettes built in Bowling Green (1981 forward) are available from the National Corvette Museum. NCM does not have the build sheets & window stickers available for the St. Louis cars (1954-1981) or the Flint MI cars (1953).

HOWEVER: Since 2004/5 you have been able to order a photocopy of Corvette shipping records for 1977 and up from the GM archives. The shipping records contain much the same information as the window and tank stickers. (Options, Dealer, dates, etc.)

http://www.gmmediaarchive.com/

 

Thank you all for you comments and helpful links. Weather or not it's "rare" I will say it's for sure few and far between unlike the reds, whites and blacks.

It's unique! As I look up at the frame GM Ad poster of 1980 showing a yellow Corvette with leather oyster interior with a beautiful Blondie standing next to it!

 

I do have some information from George Zapora for my yellow 4 spd 1980 corvette with doe skin leather interier...

Of the 2077 yellow corvettes produced in 1980, 311 yellow corvettes were imported into Canada.

From the RPO codes, my car has a D1A - Interior Compatibility Override Processing. I think this was required because in 1980, Doe skin Leather was not a listed color combination