Tim Ware

Some restorations are taken-on because the new owner wants the satisfaction that comes from the hands-on work and owning something he built. Others can only afford the purchase price & understand that it could take years to finish the restoration. In either situation I applaud the restorer & encourage him along the way.
But, if you can afford to buy a decent ( not perfect ) runner, it is always a better use of your money.
This will be your car & only you can make the decision. Good luck.
Tim

Procrastination Racing

A tinkering sort of guy and one dedicated to a lot of long, hard hours restoring a car can be miles apart.

You have to rip the interior out of both. The '68 you have to paint. Probably the '72 also. Even if you know how to paint, just this much is about $4000 in materials (interior and paint).

If someone else is doing the painting, then you have $5000 in paint at least.

Do a search for projects and find the many projects on here. They frequently go on for years.

So is the driving force tinkering and doing major work? Or is it driving and enjoying, with a few minor tinkering projects along the way?

I did a '79 about 12 years ago. I estimated 60-65 hours to complete. Right rear trailing arm needed replaced, right front fender patched back together, and then painted.

I hit right at 65 hours, but it took about 4 months to get that 65 hours done.

These cars could easily take a year to get done unless you have nothing but free time to dedicate to them. If not, you could be one of those finishing in 3 or 4 years.

This isn't to discourage you, but to present some reality. Too many are seduced by a Corvette, and especially at getting a project cheap. There is a reason they are cheap. They cost far too much in time and materials to get them to the same level you can buy one ready to drive today.

Far too many get one, work full speed for the first few weeks, but see little positive progress, begin slowing, and finally come to a very slow crawl. Meanwhile, the calendar goes on, and you seem further and further from getting it done.

As a friend once said, "3 days to come apart, 3 years to go back together."

In reality, his project at 5 years was shipped off to a friend who really liked doing these things. He got it back 4 years later. Done, really nice car, did well at Bloomington, but it was 9 years in the making.

And he started with a daily driver running car.

Sunstroked

Its not just corvettes that linger. When I met my friend Steve, he had a solid running 65 mustang gt. It needed a new brake line and a trans seal leak fixed. In his quest to make it a bit nicer so he can sell it for more money he has invested about 4k plus he still needs to paint it. When he is done I think he will go backwards on his potential profit. I met him 4 yrs ago. He probably needs another yr to completion.

muscam1

I wanted to thank this forum for the advice and opinions. I'm going to pass on these two for now.

It may be 30 to 45 days before they are available for sale. I will provide location and other information at that time to those who pm'd me and were interested in the cars.

Thanks again - as you guys know...the hunt is half of the fun!

-MM

garym52

i can relate to this.....easy to do with a c3 corvette

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...-any-tips.html

VancouverL71

I think you would have no trouble selling either of these cars on the forum here. Buy them both and put one for sale on here and I bet it will be gone in no time! When I see some of the cars that are being offered up as projects for many more thousands of dollars, I would say you can't lose until you start restoring them. If you do it yourself, you may be fine. As soon as you start paying someone to do some of the work, you will be behind the eight ball financially in no time.
I have a 1969 convertible but just love the early 1970-73 coupe's, especially the Ekhart Green colour (call me weird), I would make a bid on it if you picked up both.
Cheers, Pete

crf311

Man, I wish I could run across this kind of sale! Good luck. Get them and do what you like.

muscam1

UPDATE

Both vettes are up on eBay. They are owned by a local bank and the bank prefers to see what these will bring through the auction process and not looking at offers at this time.

72 Coupe:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/28284375349...84.m1555.l2649

68 Convertible:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/27306437088...84.m1555.l2649

If you have any questions - I would be glad to answer them

20mercury

Interesting and I remember these 2 Corvettes! Saw the 68 earlier this morning and will watch the auction closely.

Thanks for the heads up!

avalonjohn

Wow, that is a real early car!

dmaxx3500

add $20-45k to your pricing and find one that somebody started on,you can look at it all apart and get most of the work done already

find a big-block conv and at least it will go up in value

694speed350

of the two the '68 is the one I would want

car junkie

When I think of a "tinkerer" I think of a guy that spends an hour or two fiddling around with a picture hook and a level hanging a picture.

It would probably take a hundred years of tinkering to finish one of these cars.

PainfullySlow

IMO neither would be worth going the route of a full restoration as they are both base models. Might be good for a restomod if the frames are solid.

If I am going to spend 20k+ on a restoration, its going to be on a more rare car.

mrvette

I going to stay away from anything specific, as just not enough known about the cars.....BUT trick is....IMO stay away from doing resto per NCRS and settle for some tasteful mods you your desire.....reason is that all us old farts that admired these cars on the showroom floors, are outta the market or dead by now.....hopefully because we HAVE one, we are outta the market.....so expect prices to decline over the years with these cars.....

SO, what does the OP expect from the car....?? I bought a rather modded '72 vert....22 years ago.....pretty much rust free, a bit here and there, but nothing on the FRAME, that wasn't easy fix, anyway.....

My car was an old show car....body paint was GREAT, had later shark flares added, and over the years, it's seen a couple wrecks....while parked in a damn parking lot......believe it or not....

last time around, I got the glass fixed right, and got it shot by Macco and it's a good 10-10 car.......

course being an olde tyme hotrodder, there is nothing stock from stem to stern/wheels through roof....NOTHING.....even the Muncie was changed to a 200 4r auto for the overdrive.....
\
see pix below.....

tokim

Judging by the even current price on E-Bay, these cars would have been a steal $5K for both of them.
Flippers make money on these types of projects..restorers don't get the return, unless of course they do it for their personal satisfaction, cost be Damned.



.

mrvette

I paid 8k for my car back in '95 today I have about 15 or so into it.....

so no complaints....I retarred here so car sets more than my ***-sets.....

Greg

As they say "Opinions are like ********, everybody has one."
So I'll jump in as well.
I think both cars are certainly worth restoring. I'll qualify that by saying I do all my own work. If you're paying a shop to do your total restoration, almost no car is worth it.
Funny, many will recommend passing on both of these great Corvettes because they're not high horsepower cars, but remember, most of the Corvettes built and certainly most of the cars belonging to members here are not high horsepower cars either, yet they pump money into them every year (including me).
Both cars are now on a world-wide forum and I believe the current bids reflect the truest value of both these Corvettes and the trend towards the inevitable upturn in C3 values.
So buy a C3 while you can because they aren't making any more of them.

Al T

The car "sold" at $9150, but now it's back up again. Shill bidding? Error in description?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/282856884156?ul_noapp=true

Greg

Listing says winning bidder retracted his bid. I have had this happen in the past. When it does I simply go to the second highest bidder and offer the car/item to them at their last bid. They are usually happy for the second chance and make the purchase. Don't understand why this seller didn't do that instead of listing all over again.
Also, I saw the '68 was bidding very well but then that listing was pulled too.
Maybe something stinky is going on there?