Kompletely Kustom: 1968 Chevrolet Corvette Mako Shark

Want a Hot Wheels car come to life? This blue 1968 Chevrolet Corvette might be just what you’ve been hoping to find. It’s not “just” blue, though, and that’s what makes it stand out. It’s got an all-over silver-blue flame paint job, and some radical body mods that make it even more shark-like in appearance than this generation of ‘Vette was famous for being. If you like it, you can see it Brantford, Ontario, Canada. You’ve got time to make travel plans. The car is here on eBay as a sale ad, not an auction, and there are three and a half weeks before the ad expires.  The asking price is $29,000, but offers are being accepted. Thanks for this great tip go to Curvette, naturally.

You could look at this two ways. On the one hand, someone has spent a good deal of time and money creating their vision of the iconic American sports car. The Corvette has captured hearts since its 1953 debut, and most of the ones you’ll find for sale are, if restored, done to factory spec. This one is anything but, with the roofline rethought and the interior, surprisingly tame compared to the exterior, still accented with neon lighting. Could you create this car out of an existing Corvette of the same vintage and do so for under what you’d pay for this one? With a lot of talent in your hands, yes. But if you’re like the rest of us, for whom paint an body work is a skill beyond our grasp, this level of work is a far sight from our here-and-now. That’s one side. The other is that somebody has done gone and ruined a perfectly innocent Corvette, and there’s no going back now, nor would you want there to be.

But there’s another factor to consider: Is this level of imagination, nearly psychedelic in its wild fury, one that you share? There’s an old saying in the car hobby that goes something like, “Everyone wants to buy your custom until it’s actually for sale.” This car would be fun to have, for a while. But once it’s been to a few cruise-ins and the novelty factor wears thin, it’s not going to garner nearly the attention that it will in the first days of your ownership. When that happens, are you going to be so keen on it as the day it rolls off the trailer from Canada? This might be easier to parse out if you already have a collection of cars, and this is just a piece of eye candy meant to come out a few times a summer and mesmerize onlookers with its over-the-top presentation.

But that’s also a cop-out. To say that the crafter’s skills might be a bit misapplied in the contemporary moment (unless this kind of wild custom comes firmly back into style) is to dismiss the historicity of this Corvette. Now, it would probably mean a lot if the seller could say, “This was a Barris Kustom” (or fill in the name spot with one of a number of other custom builders who has a following in the hobby). But that’s not mentioned in the ad, nor is there any particular detail about when the work was done—ie. How well it will age. About all we know is that it has a rebuilt 350-cid, 4-pot V8 with a four-speed and 34,000-plus miles on the odometer.  If this is sounding good to you, the question left is, “Do you want your wild child in 1/64th scale, or one-to-one?”