Just yesterday, this 1971 Corvette Stingray Coupe sold on eBay for $14,900. The car had 552,000 miles on the odometer — or 87 round trips from New York, NY to San Francisco, CA, — and spent 42 years with the same owner in Southern California, serving as a daily driver and weekend cruiser. The owners purchased the C3 Stingray when it was just a year old at Eddie Hopper Chevrolet in Garden Cove, CA, trading in their 1966 Corvette C2 coupe, with the C3 Stingray joining a 1966 Corvette roadster track car in the garage.
Soon after the owners purchased the C3 Stingray, it became apparent that the four-speed automatic slushbox needed to go, so it was replaced with a custom-built 4-speed manual gearbox — to reportedly make it more livable on long trips with the Corvette club.
Originally, the 1971 Vette was adorned in the Mulsanne Blue paint and sported a matching blue vinyl interior; sometime later, the exterior hue was swapped with a Ferrari Red, while the interior was changed to red leather. In 2006, Code Red (a Nissan color) replaced the Ferrari red. When the C3 made the switch to the original red/red swap, the car also received a set of 15×8 Western Wheel knock-offs.
Then in 2009 (that’s 47,000 miles ago), the base 270 horsepower small-block 5.7 liter (350 cubic inch) V8 was rebuilt, increasing its output to 310 horsepower. Other recent powertrain work consists of new spark plugs, oil and air filters, new hoses and belts, a new clutch, transmission service, new posi fluid, wheel bearings service, A/C service, and new brake rotors and pads, in addition to other items.
As for the car’s condition, the eBay listing made no excuses for the car having over half a million miles on the odometer, clearly stating that the car has small nicks and bubbling, and that it needed new tires; meanwhile, the interior is said to be representative of the car’s 30 year old age, with some of the original blue hue peeking out in certain spots, but the seller states that everything functions as it should, with the exception of the clock. Optional interior equipment includes power windows, steering and brakes, tilt and telescopic wheel, and air conditioning.
The car was offered with complete maintenance records (from day one, including receipts), California “blue plates”, the original owner’s manual, an extra pair of keys, as well as a California vehicle registration that was good through August of 2013.
The eBay auction ended Friday, March 23rd — and the final selling price was $14,900 — pretty good value given that the base C3 retailed for $5,496 in 1971. Adjusted for inflation, the base price would be approximately $31,000 today.
Comments
Someone wanted more than I did.
It may be a good buy for some but it depends all on what you want.
surprisingly good shape for the year and milage.
My gawd those seats! How the hell this was ever used as a sports car with such flimsy seats is beyond me.
Chill, it was 1971. There was no such thing as “real” sports cars seats then, in any car. Unless you installed Racing buckets those were about as good as it got.
Okay, but didn’t anyone during development take the C3 around a turn at speed and not remark how hard it was to stay upright?
Today those seats might make a few 3rd rows in SUV’s look lavish, but even today those seats would be a turn off for me as a buyer. I can’t say they would turn off others, but where else are you going to sit in the car?
Brief note: 350 cid = 5.7 L
Thanks @Thumper. I must have had the Silverado’s 5.3L Vortec from this post on my mind:
http://gmauthority.com/blog/2013/03/watch-a-chevy-silverado-1500-pull-out-a-ford-f-150-and-its-boat/
Anyway, fixed and fixed 🙂
No worries.
Wished I had a video of my Silverado pulling a (dead from water that got somewhere where it wasn’t supposed to) Tundra towing a 21′ trailer out of the muck last month…..
NICE! I love seeing nice old cars with really high mileage! It means they were used and enjoyed, as they should be. I plan on putting 200,000 miles on EVERY car I own. So far My 05 GTO looks to be the only car that will probably meet that goal.
I wish more people would keep a car they really like long enough to rack up this kind of mileage. With regular maintenance it’s not a hard thing to do.
I wound up buying this car on ebay the seller did not disclose the mileage, I found this story and the car looked like mine when I saw the little book it had the vin on it, IT WAS MY CAR. Overall happy with it however it did need a lot of work, I installed a 383 stoker I plan on this to be a daily driver.