With some exceptions, anything on a home or car can be repaired. That said, every day bulldozers and track hoes raze once-lovely houses to the ground, and every day good people give up on their once-beautiful automobiles and send them to the junk yard. This Flood-branded 1969 Corvette Stingray 427 in Hayward, California seeks an optimistic new owner here on eBay where the low price of $3,900 will make it yours.
The rolling gear suggest this car retired from service sometime in the 1980s. The fiberglass body of this Stingray survived whatever watery trauma the vehicle endured, but it’s no secret that repairing a Corvette’s rusty metal bird cage is no walk in the park.
That Alpine stereo dates the sound system to the mid to late ’80s. In addition to the normal challenges of rust, seized engine, and deterioration of plastics due to age and sun exposure, a flood car poses additional concerns. Water-damage, especially involving salt water, can trigger deterioration in places you never expected. Imagine your metal glove box door, a part that normally survives for decades in good shape, rusting from the inside out. Now consider that effect in every accessible and inaccessible part of the car. You can’t get to some of the places that water can without the equivalent of an automotive autopsy.
Sadly, the potent 427 cid V8 is gone. The second-year C3 (third-generation Corvette) offered no fewer than four 427 cid engines ranging from 390 to 435 HP. To borrow a quote from the late great Keith Jackson, 390+ HP in a car this size “will wreck your parlor.”
Have you noticed that closing the door on a rusty car is followed by a “shush” sound as little pieces of corroded metal separate and fall somewhere, either inside the doors or under the car? Close the door ten times, and you’ll hear the sound every time. You can laugh about it, but eventually you will want to cry. Anyone with the wherewithal to rebuild this car knows that a $1 asking price wouldn’t change the decision process. What future do you see for this formerly fabulous flood car?
This would have to be torn down to the last rusty bolt. I’m not saying it can’t be done, I’m saying should it be done. It will never be a # matching car for those that care so I’d say it’s not worth restoring. I think you’d we better off parting it out and calling it done.
Future? How about a YouTube video driving it off a cliff and detonating 5 pounds of C-4 plastic explosives as it’s in mid-air?
C3 explosives is a more fitting term.
If you are looking for a *lightweight* corvette post sandblasting, complete with its own ecosystem, this car just might be for you!
The underside of that car looks like every ’70s car in the 1980s after driving in the Chicago area.
As a Chicagoan, I confirm that truth. I will say it for all of us, what a crime to let a car sit like this. Moss on the driver floor? Come on! Unbelievable.
That there is a genuine forest of miniaturized bonzai trees, being prepared for delivery to one Danny Laruso of Reseda California.
This one looks as if it spent 30 years *storage* inside a Chicago roads dept. salt barn.
The Dan Ryan has beat my flip up headlights into submission!!!!
“Listing has ended”. We’ll never know it’s fate.
Ended: May 10, 2018 , 9:42PM
Sold for:US $3,900.00
As someone who’s in the Corvette parts business, I’m not sure you could get $3900 back, parting out what’s there.
I wouldn’t mind having those old Appliance Wiremags. They were always one of my favorite wheel designs.
I thought the same thing, I’d like those wheels, they look great on c3 corvettes
It’s gone – Thank God. I could say I wouldn’t wish that one on my worst enemy, but then again I might.
Here you guys go arm-chair quarterbacking my auctions once again. Do you guys ever buy stuff?
Hahahahaha
Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn’t a car like this make a great donor for a wrecked ‘vette? I would say if you had a good chassis but a shattered body after hitting something capable of destroying a vette body (a juvenile chipmunk, for example LOL), this would make a good swap/ donor candidate. ???
If it had the original engine I’d say yes if you were skilled and could do the huge amounts of labor yourself. When I hear saltwater, I don’t walk. I run.
Perhaps it could be a candidate for insurance commercials …”We are Farmers, Dum, de dum dum, dum dum dum…”
Can you save the patina?
lol…adds value
These were also infamous for the abysmal quality control from the factory.
Isn’t that Gas Monkey Garage? or pretty much everyone on Deadliest Catch?
No,just Gas Monkey.
Too far gone. The best option would be to part it out. Repair or restoration would take a mountain of cash and labor resulting in a car with a branded title and a non matching power-train. It seems the better idea would be to put that money toward a drive able car with a clean pedigree in operational condition.
It would be cool if you could put the c3 body on a c5 or later chassis. This chassis is toasted. Rustytech
Tweekers are notorious for disassembling things and never attempting to put them back together, you’d do better by hiring them to do the tear down.
I’ve restored several flood cars, all fresh water river flood situations. The ONLY way to accomplish this correctly and actually save the car is to have immediate access to the vehicle [We pulled cars out of the water and began stripping down the car within hours] As we pulled the cars out of the water and onto the rollback trucks, we used pump sprayers with a 2% bleach solution & water sprayed EVERYWHERE possible, and sprayed again as we disassembled the interiors. We then put everything [car included] in the paint booth and turned the temp up to dry it all.
We put the following car back on the road: 85 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur Centennial, 1969 Volvo P1800, 1969 Triumph TR-6, 1960 MGA. The Rolls-Royce was purchased by myself, and was a huge amount of work. The good thing about that car was the high quality of every piece of hardware and no parts were left unpainted when new, so corrosion was kept to a minimum, plus each electrical connection was solder dipped and the electrical connector pieces were all solid copper or stainless steel.
In my opinion, this ‘vette is a parts car at best.
Run Forest Run .