Welcome to another chapter of “You’ll See Almost Anything on Barn Finds.” Today’s entry is a Vette Kart made from a 1994 Corvette, but barely resembling its donor at all anymore. The advertisement is here on craigslist, where the seller has it priced at $5000. It’s located in Cape Coral, Florida, and the tip came from Jack M. Once again, Jack, great find! Turns out that folks have been making Vette Karts from wrecked ‘Vettes for years, inspired by David Freiburger and Mike Finnegan, who ripped up a 1984 Corvette on Roadkill in 2010. Fun, but are Vette Karts worth $5000? Let’s find out.
Once you have your wrecked Corvette in hand, the sky’s the limit. Engine swaps from stock are common. Our seller doesn’t say if this is the ’94’s original 5.7-liter LT1 V8, but if it is, about 300 hp resides in this … engine bay? frame space? … minus about 900 lbs once those body panels come off. You can see the potential! A beefier build is almost obligatory. These guys specialize in C4 conversions, and they’ll probably produce as much horsepower as you want. The craziest Vette Kart I found was “Leroy”, a twin-turbo build by Garrett Mitchell, aka “Cleetus McFarland”, capable of 178 mph and a ridiculous quarter-mile time. But back to our more mundane listing, which is an absolute grocery-getter with its automatic transmission. The seller notes that it runs and drives perfectly.
The interior is recognizable as a C4 – bolstered buckets, digital dash. Dang, I would have changed that steering wheel out for something more Mad Max-y, but each to his own. The seller tells us that everything works in here – the AC, tilt, power seats, and so forth. I wonder if that includes the airbags?
The process of crafting a Vette Kart starts with removing just about everything except the frame and pan, building in the mechanicals and the wiring, welding up a roll cage, and installing some sort of interior. A fuel cell is a must – partly for safety but also because they don’t weigh much, and so long as you’re going to drive something that looks like this, you better be going fast. Our seller indicates that his Kart is licensed, titled, insured, and street legal. Your experience may vary on these points – some states’ DMVs are pickier than others. As is so often the case, value is in the eye of the beholder. This Vette Kart sold for around $9500 just recently, while another C4 sold here for $10,750. But both these builds are more meticulous and ingenious than our subject Kart, and each of them likely cost a lot more to build than their new owners paid – implying a relative bargain. What would you pay for this Mad Max wannabe?
Naked motorcycles and now naked cars. Not a very interesting trend, imo, although I wouldn’t say no to an Arial atom.