I’m considering purchasing this used Chevette. Does anyone have any advice? Attached is a picture from underneath the car. A little rust, but not too bad…
1 Like
How much are they going to pay you to take what was a poor vehicle when new ?
I hope you are joking. it is not worth even trying to fix that car. it would cost you 10x just in parts what the car is worth. and thats just for the bottom part.
Did you type in Chevette when you intended Corvette? The title of your post is 'Vette, Before I read your post, I assumed you were looking at a Corvette.
A friend some 25 years ago bought a Chevette, removed the engine and drivetrain and installed the components in a “kit car”. This “kit car” resembled a sports car from the 1930s. This car was a blast to drive and the Chevette engine and drivetrain worked well. The transmission was a 4 speed manual.
If this is what you have in mind for the Chevette, have fun.
1 Like
A C1 Vette which when fully restored can be worth over $100k and you can buy this vehicle for under $5k then it might be worth it. Expect to pay tens of thousands of dollars restoring this.
My minimum shop fee for raising a vehicle to inspect underneath would have been more than the car was worth unless a few $20 gold coins under the rear seat.
I like that Fred Flintstone brake shoe port though.
3 Likes
Definitely a Chevette. Good joke!
1 Like
The first clue that it isn’t a CORvette is the rusty floor. CORvettes have fiberglass floors that don’t rust.
CHEvettes rust their floors like their mama demanded it!
5 Likes
It’s a Chevette. I didn’t see Chevette in the drop down list, so decided to have a little fun.
Not actually buying it. Well, I guess I did buy it already, by weight for scrap metal.
It’s on the rack having fluids drained. I’ve never seen so much rust that the carpet is falling through! I assume it spent some time north of the Mason Dixon during its career as a pile of a car. 
4 Likes
Given its age…it may have just caught up to all those 'Vettes from up north whose floors rusted through at 7 years, or 5, or even 3 years!!
1 Like
By Chevette standards, that’s pretty much mint condition. It’s worth almost as much as it was new. I’d give a quarter and a stick of bubblegum for it, myself. Good find!
3 Likes
I was thinking me an the invisible snowman might put some batteries in it and make an EV. Mustangman can do the suspension mods. You strike me as a turbo guy, so I will leave that to you. I’m not sure how we will turbocharge the electric motor (that I will source from scrap metal from an industrial account), but we can hammer out those details later. Rod Knox lives close. Need to involve him. I’m thinking he can do the body work.
The Invisible Snowman has a new screen name but kept his strange ideas.
3 Likes
And you saw right through him.
(‘Cause, invisible)
3 Likes
My '65 Mustang (and many others of that age) often rusted out the floor pan. Mine wasn’t near that bad, at least. I looked at a '65 in a used car lot in '88 or so, nice respray, nice interior. Unfortunately you could see the carpet from below…
In 1961, my cousin’s going off to college car was a '57 Chrysler with a rusted floorboard situation almost as bad as that Chevette’s. That car served him fairly-well–with 2 roundtrips from Long Island to West Virginia–but it met its end when he drove it into some tombstones during a night of drunken revelry.
I had quite a few friends that had Chevettes. They’d rust the floors out and the body you could see would be rust free. There were aftermarket floor patch panels available. Then they’d rust the shock towers.
An auto tech buddy got all 3 kids through school driving old used Chevettes he bought for cheap or were given to him. The kids would wreck one and he’d swap the good engine into one with a blown engine he’d gotten for free.
My brothers 82 Mustang floor-pan rusted so bad the driver seat dropped a bit. When I pulled the seat to fix it - the seat was less then 3" off the ground.
My Dad had an old VW Beetle back in the 70s. I drove it as a teenager and found the seat was one bump away (no exaggeration) from falling to the road. I put angle iron under seat and enjoyed the view of the road under my feet.
put a piece of acrylic down and you have a reverse moon roof. LOL
4 Likes