Hello,
I have a 1972 Corvette C3 with VIN 1Z37W2S505977 – any chance to find prior owner history or factory details?

Thank you!!!!

 

Welcome to the Forum!

The only thing the 72 VIN will tell you is the body style and what the original engine was. Your full VIN decodes as follows:

"1" - Chevrolet Division of GM
"Z" - Corvette
"37" - Coupe body style, if it was a convertible this would be "67".
"W" - 454, the L-48 would be "K" and an LT-1 would be "L".
"2" - 1972.
"S" - St Louis assembly plant.
"5" - Is a GM control number and is "5" on all 72 Corvettes.
"05977" - Is the sequential build number, the 5,977th 72 Corvette built.

Beyond that the C3 Birthday Calculator show that 1972 Corvette 5977 was built on or about October 29th, 1971.

The Trim Tag on the driver's side hinge pillar, just above the upper door hinge has codes on it that will identify the original interior and exterior colors as well as the date the body was assembled. Post all the information from the Trim Tag (or a photo of it) here and someone will be able to decode it for you.

As far as tracking owner history, that's pretty difficult. Obviously the first place to start is with the person who sold you the car to see what they know. No state will give you former ownership history based on the VIN because of privacy laws. If you belong to the NCRS, for $50 you can get a copy Shipping Data Report which should tell you the dealer it was originally shipped too. Of course after 53 years very few dealers are still under the same ownership, and even if they are there's not much chance they still have records from 53 years ago. If you know the dealer, at least you have a general geographic area to start you're search from.

There use to be a gentleman by the name of Bill Gould who had a business called Auto Ancestry tracing ownership history of cars. Bill was fantastic at finding history, but unfortunately he's been retired for 5 or 10 years now. There may be other automobile history detectives out there, but Bill was the only one I knew.

 

My 73 is insured by Hagerty and they offer a free service called Vehicle History Report. It was as simple as going to their website and sending an email requesting help along with the VIN number. You won’t get peoples names but you’ll get the record of every time the car was titled or registered for plates and the state(s) it occurred in. From there you need to apply some basic detective work. Many states will offer title searches upon request. In my case, the car was delivered to a Chevy dealer in Manchester NH and then titled and registered in Maine by owner #1. The record then indicated that it was registered to that same person for 20 yrs then issued a new title and registration in FL, where it remained for 20 more years. Being 70 myself I’ve watched how the average corvette buyer/owner behaves through the years. Here’s where the human behavior and detective work merge. I’ve guessed that the original purchaser of my 73 acquired the car as many others of that era did as a mid-life reward for some level of personal achievement. It racked up very few miles and was babied, maintained and garaged stored through the tough New England winters. When the owner retired 20 yrs later he moved to FL and took the car with him to enjoy in retirement as many many others from the north east have done throughout the years. The history report then indicates that the car was retitled but not registered or plated to a new party for a short time, which may indicate it was bought by a dealer, then retitled again in TX within a year where plates were issued. It was retitled again after two years in CA to the person I bought it from. That guy told me that he had purchased the car in an online auction from TX and had learned that that individual had purchased it from a dealer/flipper in FL who had attempted to sell it in the annual Mecum Kissimmee FL auction. I went to the Mecum auction history online and found their record of the car being registered to auction along with its assigned lot number and day it crossed the block. The car itself showed some supportive evidence to back this history. When I acquired it, it had what looked like brand new Firestone tires that I knew haven’t been available for years. Their date code coincided with that single year that the car was titled in FL for a short time. Mecum records mileage on auction lots and the mileage shown on the car when I bought it indicated that only 68 miles had accumulated on the odometer between when it was last titled in FL to when I purchased it many years later in CA. The brand new appearing tires with old date codes confirmed that 68 miles was probably accurate.
So to wrap this up, insure with Hagerty if you haven’t already, request the Vehicle History Report and do a little sleuthing. The provenance you will generate will only add value to the car if and when you choose to sell it and it’s kinda fun to do.

 

Hi,
thank you very much for sharing your experience and all the details about the Vehicle History Report. It’s really helpful!
Unfortunately, I’m from the Czech Republic, so I’m not sure if I can use the Hagerty services here.

Thanks again for the valuable information.

 

Welcome to the Corvette Forum Denisa!

This is the right place to learn and talk about our C3 Corvettes. The experience here is amazing and if you have troubles then this is the best place to start!

Corvettes in the Czech Republic must be fun! I hope the Corvette is good enough for you to enjoy and drive regularly!

Be careful where you post that information with your VIN number. There are a lot of creepy people in this world who do bad things and they just need the identification number to start. Be safe and just post the last four digits of the VIN #. In this case your C3 is the 5977 which identifies your car sufficiently without giving away valuable information. My car is a 1968 but I tell people that the VIN number is #2595 out of 28,000 made which identifies my C3 as an October, 1967 built Corvette.

Best regards,
Chris
a.k.a. ctmccloskey

 

What? There are VIN numbers posted everywhere on this forum and the internet... I'm guessing you've never been to any of the C3 registries! Your verbosity is well known but the misinformation you post can cause unnecessary worry.

 

Tried to find your VIN on one of the Corvette Registrys, but could not find it. Not that it matters much or helps with your search, but I did find the Corvette that was built right after yours with VIN ending 05978. Thought you might find this interesting at least...

https://www.c3registry.com/index.php...kuoRgsxzDOow==

 

It always cracks me up when people blank out their license plate too. I guess these people drive around with a big sharpie mark across the actual license plate so nobody else can see it. Why is a VIN so secret? Just search on-line for 1972 vin decoder and it will list everything gbvette62 posted. It's in countless books. The only unique thing about a VIN that will ID an individual car is the sequence build number.