Well, I kept the one car I could never bear to part with and it has followed me around in a state of disassembly for 15 years +/- now; a 1969 L36 (427/390) Corvette coupe with the M20, posi, side exhaust and power nothing.
I’ve bought and sold a bunch of others whose time came and went but this one holds a special place for me.
One car I have always beat myself up over is one I was too ignorant to realize what I was looking at, at the time. A '69 L71 Corvette some dude was selling alongside a yard sale. I was new to Corvettes and didn’t realize the significance of it. I got to my friend’s house and told him about it and we raced back there but it was already gone…
@TwinTurbo, the 63-67 Corvettes and the 68-73 models are my all time favorites. Granted, comfort and ride is not as plush as modern era cars but they do kind of grab you.
A guy I used to run around with back in the day had a 68 with the tri-carb setup. It was an oven in the summer and had the ride of an oil field truck but still cool nonetheless…
Back in 1971 I heard a rumor about a Vette for sale in a farm town 40 miles out and went out one weekend to track it down. It was sitting in the backyard underneath the trees with mildly faded paint and a stone dead battery while covered in bird doody.
I passed on that car for 1100 dollars and still kick myself to this day.
It was a red on red 63 Split Window with a 327 and I walked away from it because of no big block under the hood…
Boot, meet hiney. Repeatedly.
it appears I m wrong…
not the first time or the last. I don t know where that got into my head from, thanks for the correction. I ll blame the lyme disease…
@ok4450
We have the same taste in vintage 'vettes.
Almost every other vintage muscle type car I have owned I upgraded suspension on to prevent wheel hop once the engine was tweaked to my satisfaction (i.e. too much horsepower). But I always had trouble over powering the C3 suspension even in its OEM form. They just seem to squat down and take off!
The coupe helps with heat where I live(d) which is nothing like your area. The pop out t-tops and rear window make it tolerable around these parts although the storage area is clearly inadequate for all three items IMHO.
The red/red '63 missed opportunity would be tough to live with!! I actually like mid 60’s styling best but the prices now are astronomical…couldn’t afford one back in the day and now I’m just drawing the line on how much I’m willing to pay for yet another car.
My son is now 3.5 and showing some interest in the old '69 (you drive the chevelle and I’ll drive this one!) so perhaps I will have an opportunity to work on it with him in the coming years…
The C2 and C3 'Vettes are IMHO by far the most beautiful. Ten came the rounded plastic rearend and eventually the transition away from curves and toward a wedge design. The newest 'Vette is just a wedge. Nice if you like wedges, but for those of us who remember the gorgeous 'Vettes they’re just not he same.
It bothered me when I read that they were calling it a “Stingray”. IMHO there’s only one Stingray, the C2, modeled after the Mako Shark concept car. Calling the new one (C8?) a Stingray is IMHO an abomination.
@TwinTurbo, here’s a pic of the '59 I had. The pic is B & W but the colors are gray with silver coves and all red interior. Traction bars with 4:11 Posi gears and it would just squat and go while barking the tires at every shift.
No, that’s not me in the pic. That’s the guy who owned the car before me.
I acquired the car with the understanding that the transmission was shelled and with weeds growing up around it. Threw some gas in it and while waiting for the battery to charge up so I could hear it run I pulled the shifter boot loose. The trans was fine; the roll pin on the shift lever had sheared. I found a roofing nail in the dirt, stuffed that in, and drove that baby home…
I too love the stingray…but my favorite is the style of the C1. I’d LOVE to own one today. Maybe when all the kids are out of college I could afford one.
Man, that thing is just flat out gorgeous! and tough looking at the same time. I just love the stance and that rear axle placement…
Yeah, that would be a tough one to have given up. Got a real kick out of the story of how you rigged up the shifter. I can just see you scratching around looking for anything that would work temporarily. What a feeling of satisfaction that must have been, expecting an expensive problem, finding it wasn’t so bad and then Gerry rigging it up to drive it home!
I remember one old Nova I bought off this guy that claimed the motor was on its last legs so the price was set accordingly. Not a problem, I have an old used motor I can drop in it. It was clanging bad enough I was embarrassed to even drive it let alone risk not getting it home so after buying it, I parked it in the street in front of his house and pulled the valve covers off to have a look-see. Did some adjustments on the valve clearance by ear right then and there and lo and behold, she quieted right down and was running smooth. Boy was that guy ticked off! I left him a couple of small oil stains followed by rubber streaks on the road as a token of my appreciation. BTW- I never did anything more to that motor and drove it for a few years before selling it to a friend who drove it into the ground.
@TwinTurbo, that noisy Nova story is kind of amusing and the guy I got that Vette from was a bit irritated also. When we worked the deal he agreed to pay for a full set of brand new tires with the decision on tires being all mine so it got a set of Goodyear Red Lines.
The tires were just another poke in the eye is the way he looked at it after discovering the transmission was fine. It’s not my fault; I worked the deal on mostly his terms and thought I was getting one with a blown trans. He could have pulled that boot as easily as I did.
Unfortunately, I ended up broadsiding a Chevy pickup at 50 MPH when some lady tried to dart across 4 heavily traveled lanes of traffic. Didn’t even get a chance to go for the brake pedal and figured it was all over for me. Not a single scratch or bruise even though the car exploded more than anything else and no lap belt in use.
That fiberglass just went up in a gray-white cloud and the tow truck guys found parts of my car a block away.
Sure miss it. With the top off on a summer evening it was Nirvana to drive and had the sweetest sounding exhaust of anything I’ve ever owned or driven.
Who would have ever guessed that car would tick off 21 MPG at 70 MPH with 4:11 gears…not me.
@ok4450
Yeah, it’s funny how the tune changes when the shoe is on the other foot. If I had driven off clanking away he would have felt he got the better of me for the rest of his life. When he found out it wasn’t a big issue, he got bent out of shape. I’ve taken my lumps on used cars a few times but mostly came out pretty good. I like the Seinfeld comparison to buying fruit- you know it’s a gamble going in. I never went whining about it when things didn’t turn out in my favor.
Wow, talk about lucky! What a shame for the car but to walk away unscathed is pretty astounding.
@TwinTurbo, I was absolutely horrified right before the point of impact because I could see a number of kids in the bed of the pickup. This woman was apparently ferrying a number of them home from a pee-wee football practice and the 2 in the cab along with the 4 in the bed were still wearing their uniforms along with their helmets.
After the car slammed to a halt I looked at my buddy (also not a scratch or bruise anywhere) and we climbed out the windows expecting to see multiple fatalities among those kids. The truck jumped the curb and knocked the corner off of a brick home. The woman driving the truck had a badly gashed forehead but not one scratch on any of those kids although they were scared to death and some were crying.
The one child I heard screaming was a 10 year old girl in the next lane with her father who also broadsided the Chevy at the same time. The girl had a pretty good gash in her leg but she was going to be fine.
It happened so fast the dad with the little girl never even saw the Chevy. He thought I was the one who caused it and when I went around to the passenger side to offer assistance he grabbed me by the collar and was going to start whupping on me after calling me a dumb S.O.B.
I pointed out the Chevy sitting a 100 feet away with the nose in the house and at that point he apologized and I helped him get the girl out of his car.
The one amusing part of it was while the 2 tow truck guys were sweeping my car up with snow shovels some guy came walking up with the RF headlight assembly and about 6 feet of wire hanging from it. “Might this be yours, found it a block away by the turn…”.
Amazingly, neither lamp was broken although the unit was scraped up pretty badly. How that happened I will never comprehend…
Back in the mid '80s my (dear departed) brother bought an MGB convertible from an acquaintance for 'bout $100.
Fair price considering it wasn’t running, body, top and interior in good shape. Brother had it towed home.
Back then my brother refused to pay more for a car than a typical monthly car note.
He had me look at it. I’d gotten pretty proficient tweaking the Weber carb on my '81 Accord.
Turned out the venturi plunger was stuck. A little time with a can of carb cleaner and it was good to go.
My brother drove it back to get the title signed over and the guy refused! Wanted more money!
@circuitsmith I’ve learned from years of buying up broken machines that I could get going in a day or two - NEVER try to fix it until you have the papers signed and in your hands. NEVER tell the seller you know what’s wrong. NEVER tell them how easy it was to fix it. Why rub salt into a wound? You can brag to your friends or almost anyone else, but with the prior owner - shut up.
BTW- I never did anything more to that motor and drove it for a few years before selling it to a friend who drove it into the ground.