There’s nothing quite like a good barn find. Something about an old, dusty car that’s been lost only to be found once again makes us all sorts of happy inside.
Hagerty has a whole web series dedicated to barn finds and the latest episode of “Barn Find Hunter” involves a very special 1954 C1 Corvette. Only 3,600 1954 Corvettes were built and all of them came with an inline-six cylinder engine and a Powerglide transmission. It wasn’t until 1955 when the V8 engine would become available. This particular example happens to be equipped with a numbers-matching Blue Flame six-cylinder engine, which produced five additional horsepower over the standard inline-six engine.
How sought after are these cars? Hagerty says a 1954 C1 Corvette in Concours condition is valued at $138,000. However, since this car is in fair condition, it’s worth about $44,000. By reassembling the car with the hubcaps, windshield and other components, the car is instantly considered to be worth $67,000.
Take a closer look at the C1 Corvette in the video above.
Comments
Sweet.
Guess that works better than burying a Trailblazer underground!
Considering only 300 1953’s and 700 1955’s were produced, 3600 1954’s was a huge amount. In fact at the end of the 54 model year more than half of the 3600 54’s were setting around unsold. As a result 1955 production was kept low. All 54’s had a 150hp Blue Flame inline 6. Some 55’s had a revised 155 hp version of the straight 6.
Correction, the 155hp engines were phased in during the ’54 model year. It wasn’t an “option” just a running change, due to a different cam.