wow, i have never seen a C3 described as: "Dad's '74 looked like a dinosaur clown machine"
now that is bold! ha!

the talk of this, as i've been looking for cars, have noticed that there are a lot of '84s out there...prices are all over the place and condition, of course, is all over the place....

the thing that strikes me is in the last few days seeing the folks who have turned the 84/85/86s in to race cars (or modded) and seeing the vids of these things going 160 & 220mph!!!! i mean that is impressive i think.

but i will agree w/ the OP, that the vid of the "car mangler guys" who are trying to get the stock 84 to go faster by cutting parts off the thing, the 1st time i saw it, i didn't think much of it, but as i've watched it a few more times i think it's pretty sad....i mean when you chop the hood and doors off, it no longer looks like a CORVETTE!!!!!

 

Well I was 10 years old and that's what I thought at the time. The anticipation was enormous in '82 and I would buy every mag to get the latest scoop and spy shots. The C4 was so sleek and advanced it did make the C3 look very bad. To the point where I used to get made fun of at school. By the end of the run the fenders and curves got to be very dated and the car became a joke. The C4 was that good.

Now when I see the late C3's at car shows I admire them. I remember the same backlash toward the C4 when the C5 came out. The magazine articles would say "The C5 does this XXX better than the old model." Blah Blah. Sales depends on improvements and it bench marks it against the old model this way.

 

IMO, the C4 was the most radical advance in design and technology for any Corvette generation over the previous generation. I mean, the C4 is so far ahead of the C3, sometimes it's hard to believe they are from the same manufacturer. Some might argue that the C7 goes farther than that beyond the C6, but I disagree. So I believe that the C4 is really the performance launching pad for all modern Corvettes. It really was so advanced. I still hear stories about how it dominated various racing categories shortly after it launched. Sure it's "only 300hp," and some are over 30 years old, but what a slick, stylish performance bargain it is... as much as I love my 1995 6-speed LT1 coupe, it's just a really under-appreciated car in general. Today, the C4 is going through that never-land between current and classic, and I honestly don't think values will climb significantly for another 10 years. Also I've been wrong before...

 

In 25 years, the average mechanic will have grown up in the computer age and will be quite proficient on the systems in a 25 year old car.

Not that you or I would be comfortable working on it......

 

Lol@ the absence of respect part. I don't drive a c4 for respect either, but the fact is, Corvettes, ESPECIALLY C4s have a strong consensus in the minds of most, especially hot chicks, to be Sexy as f*** rides. Basically, they're chick magnets. Not the fatties who need room for their wide load figures, but magnets for hotties who can actually fit in one. They always have been and always will be to some extent.
Any "hate" being thrown at them is originally from people who either can't afford them, can't afford to maintain them, can't fit in them, couldn't catch them, felt intimidated by them and the natural case of superiority they seem to carry on the road, or all five. NO ONE really hates a c4 corvette. And anyone that follows the original rejects, are just mindless idiot sheep jumping on the fad bandwagon of modern society in order to conform. Hating a C4 corvette for looks is like hating the aesthetic beauty of an aurora borealis. And hating it for its performance is non sequitur. Even today, theyre still beasts and upgrading them isn't too hard considering their exceptionally good engine to weight ratio. They're still the perfect bodies to mod imho.
Early 90s saw the fastest car in the world as a modded sledgehammer c4. But even if they weren't performance dynamos, the beauty of them in perfect stand still tops most anything in motion to me. The only even remote contenders to c4s imho are high end porsches, ferraris and lambos aka exotics that cost far far more. I love other american muscle, but you lose that sexy *** sleek fighter jet cockpit style at the same time, which just makes the c4 the ultimate affordable chick magnet, muscle car and "exotic" kind of look you could ever find on the planet. Anyone that says otherwise likely drives a total piece of **** and laughably pays more for its upkeep, not to mention all those drive thru meals for the fattie girlfriend in the front seat.

 

Other than the point of social hatred by the weak as c4 corvettes were typically the alpha "bully's" ride and naturally by looks alone a chick magnet, that's also a good other point. C4s are in that exact never-land right now between the newest technology and classics.

 

Well put.

C4's (with the exception of the ZR-1) are also caught between the desirable high-horsepower big blocks of the C2's and C3's, and the desirable high-horsepower small blocks of the C5's and C6's.

Let's face it: 300hp is not all that impressive these days. (Neither is 330hp.)
Hyundai sedans with V6's put out close to that.
C4's were built at a time when big horsepower was politically incorrect, so they'll never have that cache'.

 

Well at least we still have torque going for us!

 

I share the OP's disgust at seeing a perfectly good car (let alone an interesting, collectible one) abused and/or destroyed.

I was at a local car show, and they had some kind of lottery going on, wherein you could place bets to see how long a car would run, at full throttle, with no oil. The unfortunate candidate was a perfectly solid, relatively clean 1982 Trans Am. I remember when that car was new (I was in Jr. High), and I loved it, and wished I could own one. It was really sad to watch that car get destroyed, when it would have made a great first car for someone.

On the topic of the C4-hate, I've never encountered it in real life, only on Corvette Forum (where its just the views of a bunch of trolls and their lemming-like fans) and from a few "I'm so in the know" supposed experts who are laughably termed "auto journalists".

The C4 was a revolutionary design, and is a timeless classic IMO.

It doesn't matter what a bunch of nobodies on the internet think. Drive your C4 and enjoy it.

 

Vl5150, your avatar is boss. I have seen that movie probably 100 times, I love every frame. And you are dead on about the C3. It looked like a '82 Magnavox console TV next to the 55" flat panel that was the C4. When I was 18 in 1986 you could buy a nice early BB C3 for $5000 easy. They were never going to be worth anything. Tastes and perceptions change.

 

The C4 is a fantastic looking car, and as mentioned way ahead of any of the previous vettes. Collectability down the road remains to be seen, they made a ton of them.
The nice thing about them is they can be bought cheap. You will not find a better sports car for the money.