Is this factory? I thought the 82 CE's were the only C3's where the hatch opened?

Friend of mine is thinking about buying it and called me. Anybody know for sure? All I know is its an 81, 4 speed, said its a factory 3 color paint job? I am going to go look at it for him tomorrow.

 

It's not factory. There used to be a company that sold an aftermarket opening hatch kit with the glass but more likely somebody took parts off an '82. I've considered it for my '81 a time or two.

 

They were made buy a company called Car & Concepts. Cars & Concepts did sunroofs, t-top conversions and convertible conversions for the automakers and the aftermarket. The hatch kit came out around 1979 and saw some limited popularity as a conversion. There were a few around south Jersey here as Cars & Concepts had a plant in the area.

Chevrolet had planned to make the hatch available in 81, as either a stand alone option or as part of a package with the two-tone paint to commemorate the new Bowling Green plant. In the end the hatch was cancelled and only ever was installed by GM on the 83 Collectors Edition.

Be aware that there are NO parts available for the rear hatch. If the release cable, hinges, weatherstrip, glass, etc. are damaged or missing, they are almost impossible to find, and very expensive. The only parts available for the hatch are replacement support shocks, at $90.00 each.

I'm really curious about what the 3 color paint job could be!

 

That was put together by Cars and Concepts and sold until they could no longer buy CE rear glass new...I have not kept up on it last I looked no one was selling new CE rear glass,
And yes, it used pretty much all GM parts from a CE...I love it because it makes the silly bubble butt have function....Around 84 I crawled into the back of a CE owned but the son of the big auto parts store here, we took the car to Daytona and we cruised the beach all day with the rear hatch open and me sitting in the rear...I heard not long ago that he ended up parking the car in his backyard in the 80's and it was a basket case sold a year or so ago cheap.

 

neither the hatch or the 3 color paint is stock.
makes you wonder how many other sales claims are BS.............

 

My '81 has three paint codes on the trim tag, but it has beed repainted over the years to a solid maroon.

Here's my thread on it. I never did get around to taking a pic of the tag.

 

I read over your previous post, and I actually think that your trim tag is typical of a Bowling Green trim tag, for a two-tone car.

Back around 96-97, I worked with the team that did the NCRS 80-82 Judging Guide. One area I did quite a bit of research on was Bowling Green cars, especially the paint and trim codes.

The Bowling Green paint and trim codes weren't available from any of the normal sources (Corvette Parts Books, Dealer Albums, etc..), only the St. Louis ones. I looked at a lot of Bowling Green cars and photographed quite a few trim tags. I eventually located an original 1981 Chevrolet Corvette Dealer Order Guide page that was marked as "Revised 6-15-81". None of the St. Louis codes are in the revised ordering guide, instead there is a completely different set of codes, the Bowling Green ones. The 6-15-81 Ordering Guide lists the 7 available Bowling Green solid colors, the 4 two-tone color combination and the 5 available interior colors. From my research and this Chevrolet Ordering Guide, the NCRS Judging Guide was updated to include the Bowling Green colors and codes. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first time that this information was ever made available to the hobby, and this information still hasn't been incorporated into the Corvette Black Books or the NCRS 68-82 Specification Guide.

From the Ordering Guide, when a car was ordered with "D84 Custom Two-Tone Paint" the ordered was placed using 3 color codes and the trim tag appears the same way. From your codes, your car was originally painted two-tone, light and dark claret. If a dealer was ordering a two-tone claret 81, the order went in to Chevrolet as: 80L 80U 98M, or more specifically as Exterior Paint - Claret (Met.) 80L 80U and Accent Color and Code # - Dk Claret (Met.) 98M. Even though they called it two-tone, for ordering and painting purposes, it appears GM treated these cars as a car with a primary color of caret and the dark claret as just an accent color.

Your tag is exactly the way I would expect to see a tag coded, for a Bowling Green car painted two-tone Claret over Dark Claret.

This may be what the OP meant by "Factory 3 color paint job", but it didn't read that way to me.

 

Forgive the high Jack,
Does this tag tell you anything?



Many thanks!

 

69 Corvette.

Body build date: Dec. 04 68, E = Dec 68 and 04 is the forth day of the month.

Interior trim: ZQ4 = Standard black vinyl.

Paint: 986 = Cortez Silver

 

Good info, thanks.

I searched around and never found anything on it. Like I mentioned in my thread, I like that factory look and might try to go back to it depending on what the bang for the buck would be.

 

my 81 has one its called a hatch vette its a nice feature !!! does anyone know where to get replacement lift rams as mine are weak and can you change your shifter on a auto trans to a t top style like a b@m or hurst ???