Red has always been the most popular color for Corvettes. This 1980 is being sold by a dealer in San Antonio, Texas and while there are only a few pictures in the ad, it looks great. This car is special because it is one of 5,069 Corvettes built in 1980 with the L-82 engine. This would be the last year for this engine which was introduced in 1973. The car is listed here on Facebook Marketplace for an asking price of $24,900.
This car is well optioned and comes with the polished aluminum wheels. The base engine for the 1980 Corvette was the L-48 350 cubic inch V8 engine rated at 190 horsepower and could be ordered with a 4 speed manual or 3 speed automatic transmission. What makes this car special is that it was optioned with the L-82 350 cubic inch V8 engine that only came with an automatic transmission in 1980. It was rated at 230 horsepower. An LG4 305 cubic inch V8 engine was installed in California bound Corvettes. It was rated at 180 horsepower. As with the L-82, the LG4 could only be ordered with a 3 speed automatic transmission.
The ad states that the car has a red interior but the pictures show a white leather or oyster interior. From what can be seen, it appears to be in immaculate condition. The L-82 350 cubic inch engine was only available with an automatic transmission in 1980 which the shifter can be seen between the bucket seats. I owned a red 1980 L-82 Corvette when I got out of college in 1987 and loved it.
In 1980, Chevrolet molded the front and rear spoilers into the body work. This was highly popular and many Corvette owners add the rear spoiler piece to their 1976-1979 Corvettes. Sales for the Corvette declined from 53,807 in 1979 to 40,614 in 1980. This one is priced fairly and looks to be rare and in great shape.
These were not street stormers but great grand tourers. Very comfortable and drive flawlessly on a freeway. Took a several state trip with a friend in one like this decades ago, a wonderful car. These get a bad rap for lack of power, but they had enough to do what they did, well.
🎯 Curt. 🏁
Owned a few of these. Quality control was terrible!
Although these rubber bumper corvettes weren’t the fire breathers they were 10 years earlier, for reference here are horsepower numbers for other cars in 1980.
Ferrari 308, 214hp.
Porsche 911, 180hp,911 Turbo, 300hp, 928, 231hp.
Jaguar XJS V12, 285hp.
Trans Am, 205hp with optional engine
Z28, 190hp.
Mercedes 450SL, 160hp.
So you can see 1980 wasn’t a banner year for performance, but the L-82 Corvette was no slouch in this company. And with bolt on modifications you could easily increase the small blocks performance to run with any of these cars. This car looks like very nice driver.
I had an ’80 L- 82 and never felt it lacked any power, sure enough it didn’t have the raw power of a ’71 LT-1 That I owned or even the acceleration of my ’70 350-350, L 46, 4 speed that followed but it had sufficient power to chirp the tires after I put a shift kit in the TH350. It was a very comfortable car to cruise in whether around town or on the interstate
In my mind, this little darlin’ has a couple of strike against it, and in mind, they are both pretty substantial. First is the fact that I believe the design guys ran out of good ideas by the time 1980 rolled around. I think that the spoiler and the air dam absolutely killed the looks of the C3. Then there is the automatic gearbox. I’m sure that they are a pretty nice cruiser, but I’m of the school that believes Corvettes should not be automatics, (with the notable exception of the later model rocket ships) Just my opinion.
Nice car, but as usual, GM was too cheap to certify the great L82 with a four speed manual transmission. The 80 Corvette lost some weight IMO looked 10 times better than a 75 to 79 model.