While surfing eBay recently, I came across a listing for the first fuel injected Corvette race car. The lack of photos made me question the authenticity of the listing, as the very car has graced the pages of this site in our In the Barn series. What really grabbed my attention though was the price. If you’re standing, you might want to take a seat. They are asking an astronomical $6.5 million for this historic race car. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand the historical significance of this particular car, but is it really worth that much? It’s a well-documented car that raced at Daytona and Sebring and it does have an interesting story as a barn find, but it is hard to fathom it being worth so much. The seller has since updated their listing with more photos and if you’d like to take a look for yourself, find it here on eBay.
Rather than rewrite everything that has already been written about this car, feel free to read the original story A Nose For Rare Vettes here. For those that would rather not read the entire story, the short version is that this car was built by Chevrolet to debut their new Rochester Fuel Injection system. It was used for only about a year and during that year it was raced at Nassau, Daytona, and Sebring. It than was sold to a new owner who put it in storage in 1958. That’s where it stayed until the owner had a severe stroke in 2004 and had to let it go. The next owner Joe Trybulec, which I assume is the seller, has for the most part left it in the condition he found it in. It seems hard to believe Joe would be letting go of his prized Corvette, but perhaps it is just time for it to go to a new home.
Given this Corvette’s history, I have no doubt there are countless collectors that would love to have it. There have already been several offers made, so perhaps the seller is close to market value. I doubt they really intend to sell the car on eBay though and are instead trying to build hype. I will not be surprised if we see this show up at the auctions this summer. At the venue and with the right crowd, they might just get their asking price and then some. We will keep an eye on it and give everyone an update if it pops up elsewhere!
Ouch – be still my heart! This one is not for the faint of heart.
Hey it has a nice Patina
I think he is about 5 1/2 mill to high. Cool but not for those numbers.
In Bentonville, Arkansas, bought by Joe Trybulec, a Walmart exec. I remember the story from The Hemi In The Barn, one of Tom Cotter’s books. I wonder if Trybulec is the person offering this historic Corvette now on eBay.
I have the same reaction to this car that I had for the Aston Martin MkIII, but multiplied by about 25, since the play-money number is now $6.5 million instead of only a quarter-million for the Aston. This ex-racer built by GM is significant in the history of Corvette, but you wouldn’t want to actually use it to visit the local Dairy Queen on Saturday night. The National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, KY is really the place this car should end up, or maybe the LeMay museum, but I wonder if it will end up in either place.
I would rather see this car sold at public auction instead of eBay, for mainly selfish reasons. I would get to know how much it sold for and maybe who bought it. It might also get written about in SCM magazine or similar places, so I could read the experts’ opinions. If it sells on eBay only the seller and buyer will know any of the details, and the car might just go into some collection until it goes on the auction block the next time.
Even better if it was sold or ‘gifted’ to the National Corvette Museum, because I could see it next time I’m there. I hope that’s where it goes.
This is incredible. But for 6.5mil? No thanks.
The seller of this car has sold off some parts and bought parts for the Vette over the years according to his Ebay feedback!
But it did race against Porsches, so it has to be worth at least that much!!
I agree with Dolphin, it should be deeded to the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green.
what I find truely amazing is that its sitting on some expensive looking carpet without a drip tray to be seen…or humour me and tell me its elaborate floor tiles instead..
or maybe they know the oil is dried up inside from sitting for so long anyway.
Dolphin..the National Corvette museaum…thats not the one which dissapeared into a sink hole..sorry I am from outta country and not sure of your museums but I remember seeing it on TV and what they lost made me shudder.
Dolphin said ” Even better if it was sold or ‘gifted’ to the National Corvette Museum, because I could see it next time I’m there.” I do you can.. so Am hoping its not that sink hole place..
Yes, the NCM is the place that had that had the sinkhole—see:
http://corvettemuseum.org/enews/backups/media/sinkhole.htm
But the sinkhole was limited to under the skydome, and the museum is a lot larger than that. I think there were only 8 cars that fell into the hole. The museum is getting ground engineers help to fix things, so I think they have done the work to make sure there aren’t sinkholes under the rest of the museum.
good..hope they resolve the problem..this was a worldwide general news report not just auto circles & it was a decent report on 6 oclock news here.. It made me shudder just seeing the collapse, although I knew many could be saved…the news reported it worldwide but ironically I reckon most would think…”who cares” as car people we are only a minority.
Like yourselves our country is presently experiencing sinkholes in abanadoned mining areas [now residential areas] which until recently I dont remember many or any being reported..with Australia’s mining boom and developer boom i believe we will see many more when abandoned mines are stuffed around with for intentions of reopening them or greedy developers simply building above them. [like happened to our recent sink holes]
What you take out of the land must be replaced…thats the problem..leave them empty and eventually you’ll have probs..similarly why all these devasting tsunamis recently?..take out oil out of the earth leaving a cavity or oil free dirt/rock [now much less dense] and let water rush in and slips occur/holes collapse etc. bingo ….ensuing tsunamis.
Damn shame about the museum..I hope they can shore up all the subterranean problems. Surely someone made a mistake here..developer or mining abandonment or was it a natural liquefaction…who’s taking the blame..act of nature seems less likely too me in todays world..anyway off topic but i Have been wanting to enquire somewhere about the museum..and where better than this blog where there are many lovers of this museum. It did shock a lot of overseas car people.
Well put, Rusty.
Rusty, the sinkhole under the Corvette museum wasn’t a result of mining. The area around the museum is famous for its cave systems and home to Mammoth Cave, probably the largest cave in the U.S.
There’s not gold or coal under them thar hills its limestone and Mother Nature has been mining it with water for millions of years.😀
My take on the huge asking price is that the seller is fishing for the right person to make the right offer. It is there to seperate the men from the boys.
I would say Dolphin is correct in the assumption that the car being posted on ebay may end up selling private. Certainly the sale would start by a simple email to exchange phone numbers. Can you imagine the ebay/paypal fees incurred if someone would offer say $2.5 mil and the seller would accept? Might have to buy some ebay stock!
well if your ebay is same as ours [auusie] ebay fees on vewhicles are capped so no prob there
but……i guess paypal is another matter…hee hee..
at the price of this car cheaper to buy paypal first…well you know what I’m getting at..
I think that the asking price for the Corvette is sky-high. I also think that the seller is trolling the waters, to see if anyone will bite. What troubles me most about this car is that the seller claims that it is unrestored, but yet the paint job and the wheels don’t match the color scheme of the original race car presented in all of the pictures. That’s a big question mark in my mind. Call me crazy, but I’m a little leery about this one.
$6.5 million I don’t think he really wants to sell it. There is a lot of other things I could do with that much money, including building a clone of the same car for a fraction of the price.
Lol, lol, lol, lol, lol, lol, lol, ….
….not a single Penny over $6.499,999.95
I think the seller got dizzy with all the zeros….off by at least one zero…..
or maybe he is selling 3 Photos, a car , a boat and a racing group’s photos for $6.50 ??
Or else he’s got a really bad and expensive ‘funny’ cigarette habit….
Between racing and respray it lost the nose emblem…
For certain it will sell for stupid money, but I am not certain that it will be as stupid as the owner’s BIN price. It is a speculator’s market, after all.
dont worry…when ours backs are up against the wall in the next revolution, the price wont matter….it only takes one downturn to leave the last buyer holding the bag..so who will be game?Or Alternatively this buyer asking too much and missing its real value and holding on too long for a phantom value before prices drop again…or will he be smiling at our comments…its just awaiting game to see who is right…
Our Aussie muscle cars went up to incredible heights we never expected then everyone thouight they’d stay that way.. I hear they trade for half that now..its relative isnt it..someday someone has to be left holding the bag…my guess though, this will be a big bag to hold.
Hey come on guys that price includes delivery
@BRAKTRCR
yes it has nice patina, but it is the wrong one…it needs to be returned to the correct race livery
@rusty … no fear regarding the Corvette Museum… only a few cars were affected, of the many that are there. They will all survive
@AMCFAN …don’t rush to buy eBay stock because of this car…If it sells on ebay, the final value fee will be EITHER $0 or $125 ….depending on how many cars the seller has listed in 2013
@Moxman … being repainted gold…was not a restoration… Restoring it , would be to return it correctly to a specific time period
@Steve H. …sure, you can build a clone…but the closest you will get to the major vintage events is the spectator parking lot
thanksdave…yes it was a worldwide news story…
eBay is not the appropriate venue to sell this. I’m not sure if someone would pay 500k or a lot more but the way to find out is a high end public auction specializing in race cars. Perhaps one of the Pebble beach auctions.
I agree that it’s not. However, it is cheap advertising for the owner and a chance to fish for offers to see what the market will bear without employing a broker. The BIN is set at an absurd level that lets the owner reject all other offers. Sure, you could BIN, but the price is set so high that the owner knows he would be foolish not to take it. Eventually, if interest is high enough, it will go to auction at one of the big houses and probably not even sell for half of that. Then again, I may be wrong because it is a speculator’s market after all and the speculators do stupid things.