A New York City Barn find, eh? Or so the listing proclaims. Ohhhkay, glad to have that out of the way. I didn’t think there had been any barns in NYC since the days of Peter Stuyvesant but what do I know? Regardless, a find is a find and a C-2 Corvette is always worthy of further exploration. Located in Belvidere, New Jersey, this 1965 Glen Green Corvette convertible is available, here on eBay for a BIN price of $47,500. There is a make an offer option too.
Chevrolet’s Corvette had a robust sales year in ’65 with total output reaching 23K+ copies with the convertible body style, such as our subject car, besting the coupe by almost two to one. How many of those are still in existence? Considering how many we cover on Barn Finds, probably all of them…an exaggeration of course but a ’65 Corvette is no stranger to these web pages.
Originality is certainly this ‘Vette’s calling card. It is intact and appears to be missing nothing though the body has its fair share of contusions and cracks. Instead of front and rear end damages which is the bane of any car used to parking on New York’s streets, this Chevy appears to have been used as a backstop for careless parking lot dwellers. Still, most of the damage looks to be superficial. The knock-off alloy wheels are always a nice inclusion!
While the engine in this Corvette turns over, it doesn’t start. It appears to be a base level 250 gross HP 327 CI V8, a powerplant in its final year as the standard ‘Vette prime mover. The engine isn’t specifically identified, the “T06” engine stamp simply means Tonawanda & June, it’s no more indicative than that. Approximately 2,000 1965 Corvettes were straddled with Chevrolet’s two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission and unfortunately, this is one of them.
The interior is standard Corvette fare. Trimmed in dark green, it’s showing its age but is still pretty presentable. Leather upholstery was an option but I can’t tell if that’s the case here or if it is standard ‘Vette vinyl. Notice the seatbelt attachment points on the center console. This was a common feature back in the sixties and I have owned both Chevelles and Impalas so equipped – it makes for a tidier interior and eliminates the hunt for the buckle end of the belt.
So, a real barn find? Who knows, it doesn’t matter and it’s just a term bandied about anymore for an old car that has been sitting for some time. The seller informs us that he has owned this Corvette for a year, so the real back story isn’t detailed. And that leaves the matter of price. I took a gulp at first but if you research what a ’65 Corvette trades for these days, the $47,500 ask is not so surprising. Now, whether or not he gets it is another matter, right?
Those horses that pull tourists around Central Park on carriage rides sleep somewhere at night.
“Working” horse-drawn wagons were a thing in NYC (and other big cities in the US) into the 1950s, mostly for junk men (so called “rag and bone” men) and other low-margin operations that didn’t lend themselves to the capital investment of buying a truck.
The big unknown on these cars is frame rust, particularly the area just before the rear wheels. If there’s rust there, they’re asking too much for their car. (get it?)
Yes. there ARE Barn Finds both in and around NYC. I live in a town in New Jersey 12 miles from NYC and it is considered a suburb of NYC, as many people commute to the City for work. The Corvette Barn Find was found in a barn in another New Jersey suburb not far from NYC. Also, there are hundreds of parking garages in NYC (mainly Manhattan) and there are many cars that have been left in these garages sitting after their owner died or the car was stolen then parked there, etc. Jay Leno had the biggest Barn Find in NYC some years ago when he found a Duesenberg in an NYC garage. Garage Find or Barn Find- basically the same thing.
I sold auto parts in Upstate New York, Liberty in Sullivan County. I had a very good customer , a great mechanic too BTW, he heard from one of his customers of an old Corvair that had been parked in a parking garage in Manhattan. It seems no one really knew how long exactly it was parked there, it had no license plates on it, nothing to identify who it belonged to. He drove down to Manhattan to see it, it turned out to be a ’64 Corvair Spyder Convertible, Black body, interior & folding top too. It had less than two thousand miles on it, it was in pristine condition except for the accumulation of many years of dust, he bought it did a vin # search found the owners family , they didnt want the car , but had information about when the deceased owner bought it. It turned out the car had been parked there for over twenty five years and the parking garage was being sold , he was able to buy it when the garage owner put a lien on the car for unpaid fees, Had the parking garage not been sold that Corvair would have probably not been disturbed . After a bit of maintenance the car cranked up and ran smooth, new tires and it was road ready. He never disclosed what he paid for the car but knowing how “thrifty” he was it probably wasnt too much, I dont know if he still has it or not, this was in the mid ’80s .
the rust that cant be delt with is ,THE BIRD CAGE, this is the metal that surrounds the windshield, and cowl area. If its rusty ,GAME OVER.