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Corvette owners are notorious for waxing their cars more often than they drive them. So there are a lot of C5s out there in like-new condition. One careful owner, low mileage, no stories, no excuses.
C5 owners start dying or going to nursing homes in significant numbers some time in the next decade, leaving their cars to Gen-X city-dwellers who don't know what to do with Dad's diaper-rubbed '98 automatic-transmission convertible.
Interesting article, the one part I disagree with is "according to my pal Mark, is that virtually all of them have under 30,000 miles" From my experience when looking this was not the case. Go on ebay now and most are above 30K miles
Interesting article, the one part I disagree with is "according to my pal Mark, is that virtually all of them have under 30,000 miles" From my experience when looking this was not the case. Go on ebay now and most are above 30K miles
And yet on this forum, there are quite a few. I wouldn't say most and that is surely an exaggeration, but it does drive home a good point.
Show me 5 other car make/models that are 15+ years old with less than 100k miles. I will go out on a limb and say half of the C5's on the road today are under 100k. And a Corvette with over a 100k is considered to have one foot in the grave.
<edit> mine has 140k (70k in 3 years I've owned it).
I think its a big exaggeration, example on ebay right now 27 of the 30 2000"s c5's for sale have well over 30k. I'm not saying there are not a good amount below but I am saying most are above 30k, at least the ones for sale.
Last edited by bruceg2016; 01-06-2017 at 05:06 PM.
Reason: correction
And my thanks to the single previous owner for taking such good care of my car and paying 51k for it and hardly driving it and garaging it for 12 years! I am thankful every day for my find!
Last edited by phoneman91; 01-07-2017 at 12:45 AM.
And my thanks to the single previous owner for taking such good care of my car and paying 51k for it and hardly driving it and garaging it for 12 years! I am thankful every day for my find!
This. I just got home with my "new" 2002 C5 Z06 last night. it only has 8,7xx miles on it. It looks and smells like new. Thanks former owners for paying so much and never using it so I can have a virtually new C5 Z06 14 years later.
Personally that doesn't describe me at all, I'm 33 and I have a 45 minute commute on a mountain highway. I drive my corvette on most days it doesn't rain and tend to get a little bummed out when I can't. I doubt I'll ever sell mine either, I picked it up intending to mod it.
Sometimes it hurts really bad to see the rock chips and other regular driving damage... but that's the price of having fun and actually experiencing the car... which is also not an RX-7, Corvettes kind of last forever, which is probably why it takes so long for them to put on a lot of value at auction
I was very excited when I found my '97 C5 in January of 2007. I was the fourth owner. The first three owners had only racked up 43K miles. You could tell the car had received special care. I thought I'd found the buy of the century.
Needless to say, being on this forum for ten years I've seen some fantastic buys on low mileage cars.
After ten years of ownership, I probably spend more time waxing and dusting, than I do driving. At my age, that's just the way I want it. If I were younger, I'd be buying up every cream puff C5 I could find. Especially the Anniversary Edition '03 Z06 and the '04 Commemorative Edition.
Please believe, I loved the fact that my car came pre-detailed from the previous owner to the dealership so they didn't even have to touch it. Also, you won't find any 15 year old used cars that are in the same garage kept and often covered condition.
I'm also thankful to the original owner that I bought my completely stock 2001 vert from for keeping it a garage queen and extremely low miles so I could take over and molest and mod it to my satisfaction and then proceed to pack on the miles and slam it around an autoX course at every opportunity...what a fun car, every mile a smile. It takes a lickin and just gets better, cause that's what they were made for. I never want to look back and say I wish I had done more when I could.
p.s...the original owner of my future C7 Z06 is out there right now keeping it in a garage, not driving it, babying it and saving it for the day I am ready!
I enjoyed the article, but not as much as I enjoyed buying a 10-year old car with 18k miles on in and driving it every day possible. Now at 48k miles and will continue to log the miles until I can find a C7 in the same condition for the same price and start all over again.
I, also am glad that the two previous owners of my 01 coupe only put 31K on my car the first 15 years of it's life. That leaves me a whole lot of enjoyment for many years of driving. I myself plan to drive the hell out of it.
01-06-2017, 03:23 PM
Road and Track: The Corvettes That Don't Get Driven, Sold, or Bought (Merged)
