I go to Harbor Freight Tools for most tools, and on and off for years have seen a white C5 in parking lot, someone must work at one of the businesses in the strip mall and daily their Corvette.

Always slightly excited to see it but never looked at it, one day parked near it and walked by it and was kind of shocked that it’s in horrible condition, first thing I noticed is one of the 4 exhaust tips was broken off, then both wheels on driver’s side were all gashed up like it had been curbed bad.

Then saw several signs of minor wrecks damages and holes cracks in the car, paint coming off, both seats had materiel worn off or burned off and ripped open all over.

I guess it was a beater and probably had very high miles.

My first 2 cars in life were in this kind of shape, 1972 Chevelle Malibu 2 door and later moved on to a 1981 Camaro Z28, both cars were beat up with little dents all over, the Chevelle ended up having major rust and needed so much work having all that rot and having a worn small block Chevy, non power 4 wheel drum brakes, no power steering, rusted out exhaust leaking up into the car through the rust holes, looking back it was dangerous, so after a year I traded it in with $800.00 for the 1981 Z28 Camaro thinking it was better.

The Camaro at least had power steering and power front disc brakes, but it still was a clapped out POS, at 18 years old I was going to fix it up, not long after buying it, lost oil pressure.

I was deciding on whether to fix it, or try to get another 350, while looking at it noticed someone made “home made” brackets to bolt the power steering pump to engine, it was very crude and I wondered why they didn’t just get the right brackets off a junked car since at the time (1996) salvage yards had tons of vehicles with small blocks.

Saw lots of other things butchered and thought about it, at one time someone bought the car brand new and it would have been nice, and how the car had been so messed up by someone going out of the way to just do half *** things, ac was yanked off car, just don’t use the A/C if you don’t need it, the cowl induction mechanism was removed and sheet metal cut out very crudely with jagged metal pieces poking everywhere to make room for a chrome air breather.

I was thinking if I ever bought a nice car brand new, or slightly used none of that would ever happen, and now my C5 at 24 years old is still much better than both those old cars were.

In 2011 I met a guy who saw my Corvette and he went on and on how nice it was inside and out, he said he had one but it was in much rougher shape, maybe he bought it that way.

Saw a 2003 C5 for sale on Facebook marketplace for $6000.00 and it was thrashed like that old 1981 Z28 Camaro I used to have, engine was missing the fuel rail covers and had loose wiring all over engine like the wire loom dry rotted, said new engine but was filthy, reading more it was a 4.8 or 5.3 pickup engine crudely slammed in to replace the LS1.

It’s not that hard to keep a car in good shape!

 

To some owners, the C5 (or any Corvette for that matter) is just a car, a means of transportation to get from point A to point B. They don’t care about the overall looks and condition as long as the car is reliable. I could never do that to a Corvette that I own, but it is their car, their choice.

 

They are relatively affordable transportation. Think about it as a consumer (not a hobbyist) you can get a corvette that someone probably babied its whole life or an average used car that was used as a tool for the same money. Why wouldn’t you get the corvette and then turn around and use it like just another used car.

or in other words we still have people on this forum that think a c5 will be ruined if it is driven in the rain. It is just a car built with the same components as all other GM vehicles and can be used in the same way. We even got ripped off a little bit with plastic fantastic body panels when other vehicles are made with real metal… oh how many times I have heard plastics are inferior to metal that they made in the old days.

 

Corvette’s are likely to have significantly lower miles than average

my 01 is considered ( Here in Corvette land). As almost verging on High Miles....


Try to buy a 2002-3-4 Tahoe with less than 100,000. Ha! Call me if you find one!

Point is.... We have a group of really low mile cars...

Priced very reasonably. Competitively in fact..

Just Sayin,

 

I own a Corvette for me to enjoy and also accept others enjoyment opinion on owning theirs that includes the way it looks. Several years ago I was at our town's boardwalk and parked the C5 vert top down in the general parking area. When I came back from walking, a father and son were getting out of their car next to mine and the son (maybe 12) was looking at the C5 and touching it with his hands. The father went ballistic, yelling, do not touch the car. I went over and had a conversation with the father why he was so upset. He said he had a difficult encounter with a Corvette owner and that is why he said what he did to his son. I then asked the father if it was alright for the son to sit in the C5. He was taken back a bit, but said yes. When the son got in you could see the biggest smile on his face. Then I also let him touch anything he wanted; turned on the radio. Opened the hood, for him to see the engine. Then the trunk. The father and son thanked me. Hopefully, I able to counter a previous unpleasant experience with a Corvette owner.

 

When I bought my 2000 last year, one of my requirements was it had to in great shape and taken care of. I found mine at a small dealer that showed cars by appointment only. So I made one and drove the 50 miles to go see it. Absolutely gorgeous shape with only one previous owner. It was obviously well maintained at least according to carfax and garage kept. Only had 44K miles which comes out to 2K per year. Did the paperwork right then and there. My yellow C6 & 7 both had chips, nicks and bug damage to the bumper.....this one has ZERO damage.


oh yeah...and it's a SIX SPEED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Most Vettes are #3 or #4 vehicle in the garage. Most are never a daily driver.

A lot of collector cars have effected the market as many people have put away more of the sport models in hopes it will help collectability and value. In the case of the C5 this left too many clean low mile cars out there so they are a bargain right now.

Often if you look sone of the big dollar cars today were low volume cars no one wanted. Dodge Daytona, the early Cobras and even the Ferrari GTO were cars that were used up race cars that were hit and needed work. The Dodge was considered ugly and too sone dealers two years to sell. Today they are big money.

The Vette being built in volume is not rare and lower priced and reliable make it more suited as a daily driver so yet yoday you still see them drive regularly. Not as much as before but still happens.

 

I work at a place with 5000 employees, it is associated with a major college and medical school. I can find at least 8-9 Vettes on any given day. 2 C8's, 2-3 C7's, 3 C6's and 5 C5's. I have not seen anything older than a C5. 2 of the C5's are dailies and they look great. Everyone looks great but one shows some track wear marks and real usage. I talked to the guy and he said it has been so darn reliable that he just keeps it as his daily/chore running car and the wife has the nice luxury SUV. Insurance is cheap and upkeep is cheap. He commutes 30 freeway miles each way and gets a solid 21mpg so he said, why not?

 

Very true. Let's not forget Shelby stopped making Cobras because he could not sell them any more. And GTO's were less than $10k used - they were only $18k new. I was offered an Aston Martin DB4 back around 1978 for £1,000 by a friend in England. Worth at least half a million today. Trouble was, I did not have a "spare" thousand pounds back then - just as I don't have a "spare" half mill today...