I'm looking at getting my first vette. A 72 to 79 due there low price point and having two small children. What I'm looking for is advice on common problem areas these model years have I can be on the lookout for when looking a them. I'm very comfortable working on vehicles mechanically but I've never purchased a vehicle this old before. Thanks in advance!

 

Read this, https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...-corvette.html

You may also want to take someone with you that is familiar with C3's before purchase. Try contacting a local Corvette Club or NCRS Chapter.

Your preference of 72-79's do to price point can get out of hand very quickly, i.e a $10k car can cost $15k to fix. I suggest buying the nicest/cleanest car that you can find, even if it costs a bit more. A $2k deal of the century will end up costing you a ton of money in the end. Paint & body work are typically the most expensive jobs in restoring an old vette, so an unhit body and nice paint go along way in minimizing your restoration costs.

Good luck and welcome to the anger, frustration, regret of owning a vintage vette.

 

Hi A,
I agree with Revi on several points.
First, buy the very best, most complete, car you can afford. A needy car can look attractive because of it's price, but will likely become a very costly car as you work on it to get it to be what you'd like it to be. In the the range of years you mention there will still be a WIDE range of cars available at VERY different prices and there will be SUBSTANTIAL reasons for those prices. For example: a $5000 72 convertible WILL be a VERY different car than a $5000 77 coupe.
Secondly, it's difficult to quickly learn enough about 30-40 year old cars to make a wise choice on your own. Finding someone quite knowledgable about cars built during these years to help you is a very wise thing to do. You need to learn what to look for to determine what's going on with the car and how it's been used and maintained during it's life.
I also think it's good early on to decide if you're going to be buying a car that's been modified along the way or one that's still basically like it was when it was originally built and has been maintained with service parts.
So be VERY careful, do your homework, and get some help at this point.
Good Luck!
Regards,
Alan

Buy a car without a rusty frame or birdcage and buy a complete car, not a car with many missing parts or parts that will obviously need to be replaced immediately .

 

Thank you guys so much for your advice. Those are good points. One more thing to compound my difficulty is that I live in a small town approximately 2 hours from the largest variety and best deals on these cars so it makes it difficult to take my time and really check a car over or bring someone with me. And I said 72 but I know I'll probably be more into the later years because like you were saying the cheaper ones tend to be in better condition.

 

Hi A,
I'm curious what you're referring to as the the "largest variety and best deals"…. where is that?
Buying a good Corvette for a fair price is rarely convenient.
Regards,
Alan

 

Hey just read that forum....perfect! Thanks!

 

Alan,
Sorry that was poorly worded. I live in a town of 40,000 so there is usually one or two c3s for sale locally but they often are too expensive or not what I'm looking for. Looking on line the years and price range I'm in I are often around 2 hours away.

 

As Alan has said; you may need to be willing to travel some distance to locate the right car. When I was looking I took the kids with me and we made fun road trips out of it. Just about every weekend (for 3 months) we would pile into the car and make a nice day trip out of it; we saw lots of new and interesting places and more than a few Corvettes along the way!

In the end I ended up placing a few online ads looking for a complete driver. This was after more than a few wasted trips to see cars missing parts, or, just too far gone. That brought in a ton of cars to look at that the owners had never advertised. My 73 was found approximately 3 hours from home in a small town I had never heard of before! Good luck, keep focused and, most importantly, have fun with your search.

 

All some great advice here! Agree with all of the above

Couple of other suggestions for your consideration:
1. Check ebay or amazon and get a copy of Richard Prince's C3 buyers guide
2. Educate yourself on rust areas and what to look for
3. These C3's, despite your best efforts, go to an emotional decision. Kinda of like the crush on the pretty girl at the dance. Make sure you get Pop's objective advice on women before you jump in In words, bring an educated C3 person with you. I say half the fun is looking, after you fork over the money, you own that puppy!
4. The cheapest C3 will be the one you pay the most for at purchase.
5. Paint jobs are expensive or for DYI, time consuming and tedious AND expensive.
6. It cost the same to fix up a non collectible (76 for example) as it does a 69 collectible, generally speaking. And while it defies common sense to me anyway, the market pays more generally speaking for originality right now.
7. No matter what C3 you buy, you will have plenty of opportunities to work on it
8. Most people that I know do not make money buying and selling C3's, easy to get upside down on the purchase. Check completed ebay sales to help get a sense of what actual sales prices might be. Lots of folks ask $$$+++, but what are they actually selling and trading hands for??
9. Expand your area that you are willing to buy to get a better deal, you might have to drive 6 hours to check one out.
10. Never look at a C3 in the dark, nor in the rain, or not on jacks so that you can not see underneath nor with your wife who has already decided to buy it basis the photo in the ad.
11. Try to look at 4 to 5 to 6 C3's before you buy, this helps you get more, ok, a little more, objective and take your time, another pretty girl will be along in the next streetcar, you can book it
12. Lastly, C3's, I say, are the best design ever, ever made, the waves and smiles from kids and people and the experience is priceless!

Hope this might help! (most of this I have learned here in this forum, the best, period)

 

You guys are right it is hard not to get excited since I was just recently given the green light. And I have a pretty hard budget from my wife and even have to give up my other love/money pit craft beer to do this so it's a big deal for me so I will try to take my time. Here's one I saw yesterday but there is essentially no info with it: http://stlouis.craigslist.org/cto/4745385624.html
I already sent out an email with a request for more pics and questions but still interesting.

 

I bought my '76 in '88. Here's how it went in my search, fwiw.

Living in Victoria, B.C. at the time. Checked out a few local cars but they were all auto's. I wanted a 4-sp. Went to Vancouver for a day trip. Went to two dedicated used corvette dealers. One had a sampling of 4 vettes. Took the expensive one out first. Rode OK but was an auto. Took the second most expensive one out. Felt like it needed an alignment. Then the third. Went 100' down the street and could barely keep the car in my lane. Got back to the dealer's lot and mentioned how disappointed I was in the car and asking price. So, how about the fourth and cheapest vette? The sales guy said not to bother if I was dissappointed in the third test drive. Went to second dealer. Didn't have anything other than a 4-sp L-82 on consignment. Asking price was $14K, $2K over my budget but negotiable. Car looked good. Took a test drive. Bad bog but still ran strong and no funny noises. Assumed it only needed a float level adjustment. Bought it for $12.5K. Adjusted float, no more bog. Moral of the story - spend the extra cash for a good driver like the others have said. There'll be lots of opportunities down the road to do work on the car you choose.

 

I would stay away from anything with a "Fresh Macco paint job". That alone gives me the idea that the rest of the car was not cared for, but hey that's just me.

Just because you have the green light to buy doesn't mean you need to buy now. It may take months to find the right car.

 

Take your time and find the right one for you. These guy's gave you great advise! It took me a year and a half and looking and driving at almost 20 cars before I found my all original 1980 Corvette with only 59,000 miles on it! They are out there! Good Luck! Don

 

id say my best advice is be very patient in finding the best deal and search everyday, i did that for a year and looked at probably 30 c3s.

i dont know if youre looking for a manual car, but if you are, from all the cars i looked at it seems the manual cars get beat on alot more also people higher up the price of them, if you want to save money buy an automatic in decent shape and convert it to manual i did this. granted i got a good deal but i purchased my 73 for $7300 then spent 800 on a kit this guy basically made from taking the bw super t-10 from an 80 vette and everything else to make it a manual, the advantage to having an automatic originally is that your cross member is removable, as apposed to manual cars where they are welded in, and its not beat on as much, i did the conversion in my garage and it wasnt that bad id definitely do it again

 

I agree with Revi that the Macco paint job may turn into heartache not far down the road.
Have you seen this one? http://stlouis.craigslist.org/cto/4742113771.html I'm partial to 74s and this is a nice looking one.

 

Take your time. It took me almost a year to find my C3. Almost everything I looked at was a big disappoint but the price never reflected that.

 

HBI,
I did see that one and I think it's great and a good deal...butttt above my admittedly conservative budget which I guess I should have mentioned is around $6000. I guess my thought was that I plan on keeping this vehicle the rest of my life and that as long as it run and drives and its not rusted out I could work on any other problems that come with a car at that price. Am I delusional to think that? I think everyone here is right and I'm just gonna have to keep looking til the "one" comes along. Bonus is that the longer I look my budget goes up as I save money. Thanks guys.

 

Looks okay in the pics. If the prep work was good and all the Maaco guy did was shoot the color coats, the paint could be fine.

I realize Maaco may not be an optimal choice for painting a Corvette, but it is the experience of the painter which matters, not who he/she might work for.

 

That's kind of what I thought but with zero other info and no reply to my e-mail I think I may try to be patient and wait for something else. Like that color and that year though...

 

Another thing I would like to bring up to you is buy some good books on Corvette's and read...read...read...and study. There are some great books out there and some crap too. Learn all you can on them! The seller will give you a line of crap on the phone and you'll need to know the facts. On some of the cars I looked at the sellers would tell me their car is the "best in western New York state" and when I went go to look at them they were just plain junk! Remember, the more you can spend, the better the car.