Need Help Buying My First Corvette
Thread Starter
5th Gear
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 5
Likes: 0
From: Philadelphia PA
Need Help Buying My First Corvette
Hey, i heard about this this forum from someone and i just got my account activated, and i need help. last week i was driving through the mountians in NY and i saw a corvette on the side of the road, i got out and checked it out. to make a long story short, the car from the outside defintly needed a paint job, but talking to the owner who said hed sell it, said it was machaniclly perfect when he parked it there three years ago. he said it has a 400 small block engine, and a 4 speed man. transmission. i love cars and ive always wanted a corvette, but im not well versed in them. the guy said he put a custom nose on the car, and spent two grand on that, so he wants about 3500 dollars for the car. i told him im going to come check it out. what should i look for when going to check it out, what are comman problems on a 74 vette? are parts expensive? how much does a good paint job cost on a car like this? i defintly want it, if not for a daily car but just to fix up and have for sunny days. please help me out here, thanks alot. my email is voxon2@comcast.net
[Modified by voxon2, 6:51 PM 7/1/2002]
[Modified by voxon2, 6:51 PM 7/1/2002]
Team Owner
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 43,136
Likes: 155
From: Thomson Georgia
Re: Need Help Buying My First Corvette (voxon2)
74's are great cars......I have one myself.....Main thing to look for is Rust on the winshield posts and underneath the car.....Obviously it is not an original car with a 400 Sb.....but I am sure that if it is in good condition it should be worth 3.5k.......A good paint job will run you around 3k a great one will be around 5k and up........What is this Custome nose that you speak of?? Any pics.....By the way the car can be easily and relatively cheaply modified
Melting Slicks
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,340
Likes: 2
From: Moro IL
Re: Need Help Buying My First Corvette (voxon2)
Well what you have there definitly isn't an investment car, since the engine is obviously not matching (corvettes never came with 400's) and the custom nose doesn't help the resale value either. But this really may not matter depending on what you want the car for. If you want to build a hot rod it may be perfect since you don't have to worry about destroying a numbers matching car and the initial cost of buying the car is low. The nice thing about 74's is that they are still pre-smog, meaning no cats and still had full dual exhaust. Parts on a vette can be cheap and expensive depending on what part of the car your working on. Anything on the back end of the corvette is normally expensive while most stuff on the front is realtively cheap. Most things that are vette specific tend to be the more expensive parts, while engine parts tend to be the same as any chevy. The best advice i can give is have a veteran vette enthusiast go with you to look at the car, they'll know where to look for problem areas. A good paint job on a vette your probably lookihg for somewhere in the 2500-3500 range depending on how much prep work will be required and how nice you want it done. By the way, welcome aboard
:cheers:
Pat Kunz
:cheers:
Pat Kunz
