These ’68-’72 Stingrays are my second favorite Corvette body style, nudged out by the extravaganza of the ’58’s – chrome up to here, fake vents, quad headlights, and so on. But I digress. Today’s ’72 T-top coupe is described here on eBay as an all-original, matching-numbers survivor located in Kansas City, Missouri. The seller wants $25,000 for the car, with a “best offer” option potentially bringing that down a bit. I am not a Corvette expert like many of you Barn Finders, but join me while I examine this offering to see if we can find reasons to ask for a discount off the full price. You can add your observations in the comments section; together, we’ll form an opinion of the Right Price. Oh, and before we launch – thanks again, Curvette, for the tip!
We’re working with fuzzy photos in this listing, many of which are truncated. I pulled this engine bay photo from a moment in the listing’s video. Right away, we know the Mickey/Thompson valve covers are not original. The Edelbrock intake is catering to a Holley carburetor described as “new”. The radiator, clutch, starter, and distributor are new. So – survivor? or not? I vote no here, and I’m not picky enough to insist that wear parts be original after all these years, but when a Corvette loses its factory carburetor while the car is described as a survivor, I’m bothered. Moving on, the 350 cu. in. V8 was rebuilt – thus the new parts – apparently 2500 miles ago. No documentation is included in the listing, so I asked for it. I’ll let you know if I hear anything. While the AC compressor is present, it is “unplugged”. The underside reveals a few new parts – namely, the gas tank. The seller says the exhaust system has been “fully replaced” and the brakes have been upgraded. Also on the positive side of the ledger, the car does run, and it’s a four-speed.
The interior is worn with dirty upholstery, a crack in the dash around the passenger’s side air vent, a missing steering wheel center emblem. But the gauges, windows, heat, and headlights work. Speaking of headlights, the passenger’s side headlamp door doesn’t lie fully flush. The windshield wipers are not in working order. With the sale comes the original jack, owner’s manual, roadside breakdown kit, vinyl sleeves for the T-tops, and miscellaneous parts. The original wheels have gone missing but the car does ride on new tires.
The paint is dull, scuffed in places, and mottled on the rear deck; the rear bumper is dented. But these sins can be forgiven, if we’re happy to settle for a running, driving, used Corvette that blends a few worthy original features with a few upgrades. What’s the right price? Well, chrome-bumper C3 Corvettes are for sale every day of the week. With a bit of effort, a buyer can find a decent example with matching numbers, shiny paint, and a clean interior for $30k, maybe even less. Project cars will sell for considerably less. Today’s car is a Rorschach test of sorts: do you see a project, a survivor, or a driver?
Another good write up Michelle, both informative and entertaining.
I’m not an expert on the Corvette, but Corvette Summer is one of my favorite movies! I think about 18k would be all the money for this car.
This appears to be a hurry up and rush to sale car. It sat for 40 years, now we are in a hurry to sell ? Makes no sense. Yes you replaced the carb, you should have retained the old one. No docs to prove engine work ? New emergency brake cable but not installed, why not, sounds like a rush job. First thing someone is going to see, the steering, missing center button. Major flaw, should be present. Not an expensive item. Brake work up grades, what up grades. again no docs. Not original wheels. Does this mean the YJ8 wheels don’t go with the car ? Sounds like much need info was left out or at best very fuzzy. The 4 speed is a plus. Best of luck with the sale.
If it didn’t need paint, interior, A/C repair, wheels and other odds and ends it might be worth $25K. If you bought it fo $25K and fixed everything that needs fixing you’d have close to $40-45K in it. I think $15K might be a reasonable price.
I agree with $15k based on what I see. On the plus side, the 72 was the last chrome bumper car, but it took a serious hit in the HP department. 1970 the base 350 engine was 300 HP, 1971 was 270 HP, and 1972 a dismal 200 HP.
I’m with you Michelle, unless you’re specifically looking for this car in this color and you want a project to dump money into, look elsewhere. There are plenty of these cars for sale already redone correctly and can be enjoyed immediately.
In the Corvette universe little things count. Missing ignition shielding for instance. The wiper door setup is a bit tricky to get to work properly in coordination with the wipers operation. And so forth and so on. So to me this is more of a project car than a fully sorted driver. The conundrum is that these ‘68-‘72 Corvettes keep rising in value. So most sellers try to hit a home run with the asking price. My advice would be that if the seller is stuck on their asking price then keep looking.
Way over priced. Too many Mickey Mouse Chinese parts on engine. Gonna be a money pit.
Finally, an early C3 with underside pictures. Magnifying the rear shot you can see that the ends of the frame rails are in good shape, so at least you won’t have to worry about that.
Like has been mentioned, there is a lot to do to get this one in good shape, but might be worth it to someone.
Needs rally wheels, though.
What’s with the painted bumpers? Man that’s just wrong on a chrome bumper car IMHO. 15K and plenty of work ahead.
I don’t think the bumpers are painted. They are “patinaed” in that they have aged naturally to look like that. The rear bumpers on my ’70 looked like that – the “shininess” had gone away – but the front bumper still looked great.
I never bothered to replace them or get them rechromed before I sold it.
My 71 also has “patinaed” rear bumpers, with my front looking excellent and it is the original bumper.
I like the green exterior with the tan/saddle interior. It’s a stick car which is nice. looks like it has a lot of work needed & the later model rally wheels need to go. It looks to me like a pricey proposition.
Overpriced for what it is. Seems like a nice 12 to 15K project car. If the wipers don’t, try the switch at the base of the steering column that you hit with your foot getting out of the car. Engine with a lot of useless junk on top of it. Q jet is the best car for a base engine. Horsepower was the same as 71, just a different rating system. Emblem in the steering wheel? That the horn button that’s missing. What fake vents? The ones behind the front wheels (gills), the ones at the base of the windshield, and the ones beneath the rear window are all real and functional pieces. What is not a vent is the speaker grill on the top of the right side of the dash where the crack is. A lot of scale on the bottom side for a Missouri car. What should be carefully inspected is the windshield frame. That’s a bad spot for cancer on a C3. You usually don’t see evidence of it until it really gets bad. If the windshield leaks badly, walk away. Why is it that people “fix” all sorts of things on a car but never tend to things you really need like the Air Conditioning?
My reference to fake vents was in regards to the ’58, not this car. I agree about the quadrajet.
You mean the louvers?
Oh I forgot, those were fake too. I was talking about the cove “vent” which was really chrome trim….