Reader Brian T recently sent me a couple photos of a ’63 Corvette Split Window Coupe. All he said about it was that he stumbled across it and was in the process of trying to negotiate with the owner to buy it. He asked me to not post it until he knew for sure what was going to happen with it. Well he just emailed us and sadly he couldn’t work out a deal, so he wants to share his story with everyone, in hopes that one day the owners will let it go to a good home to be saved!
From Brian – So for a fathers day gift my wife and two sons bought me a 5 day vacation to L.A. to watch a couple Dodgers games, Vancouver Whitecaps soccer game against L.A. Galaxy and to enjoy the 4th of July (amazing sight to look over L.A. and see the million different firework explosions) as my oldest son is in the USAF. Did I mention that I’m from Canada? My wife located a rental condo in the heart of Beverly Hills – very nice. We had a underground parkade to park the rental car, I didn’t notice on the first night the heap of dust covered Americana – probably from a late night flight.
The next morning as we went down to the rental car my wife says to me – look isn’t that the car like your dad had… “Holy crap” you’re right- I was hooked. Now here comes the interesting part, as I looked at it with its 40+ years of dust. It has black plates and it looked as if the tag expired in ’72. This 1963 split window in gold with tan interior was reeling me in. Against my better judgement I checked the doors, to my surprise it was open. Like I said I was hooked – I opened the glove box and checked out a couple of pieces of paper to see if I could find any info on this beauty. I was in-luck and found a name and phone number (no longer in use, dead end). On another paper I found a company that in its day was the premier equipment rental company for Hollywood. The paper gave me a name.
I looked up the name and found contact info, but they are now deceased, which means their daughters own it. I made contact with them and made an offer. I firstly offered $25k which was refused immediately. I waited a few days and offered $35k – again it was refused and that they wanted to keep it in the family. Looks like some front end damage had been redone as there is primer on the front end, and it states on the paperwork needs headlight motor.
So I enjoyed the rest of my stay in Beverly Hills, hit Venice beach with my boys and met Howie Mandel – funny guy. We returned home five days later and I couldn’t get the Vette off my mind, I thought about it for the rest of the week. I decided to try one more time and contacted them with a $50k offer – denied. So I’ve given up on the Vette – $65k and my last born and they won’t budge. It’s probably just as well as it probably will cost $80k to get it back to its original state, besides I’m looking for a TR4 or TR4A. If any of you know of any TR4s, let me know, I would be interested.
I feel compelled to state that we don’t not condone or recommend opening other people’s cars and rummaging through their glove boxes! At this time, it would seem the owners aren’t willing to let go of their Corvette, but hopefully they will either give it some much needed attention soon or decide to find a new home for it. We would hate to see it degrade further, but at least it’s stored indoors. Special thanks to Brian for sharing his find with us!
Cool story! Pretty bold looking through the car. I’d probably have done the same. Maybe even sat in it and made vroom vroom noises while rowing the gears.
50K and a NO.. very unrealistic but as said very cool story
My advice keep in contact, you never know when they change thier mind. I have two cars I am interested in that are sitting quietly in garages and I keep in contact with thier owners. I have offered to pay cash, but they still want to hold on to them, I understand, it is a little frustrating but I am in for the long haul. And besides I am always up to have coffee with a fellow car guy. Good luck, sweet find!
Your right…I made offers in the past that were turned down. Had a few sellers call a month later asking if my offer was still good.
Don’t give up if you think its worth the price. 63 split window is only going up. Wish I bought one 20 years ago…..
Thank you Brian for sharing a neat story.
No problem
not like it’s outside rusting away, sinking slowly into a field, it’s covered up and being that it’s in Beverly Hills, they have the money to get it fixed and the chances are higher it will be fixed.
Howie Mandel – funny guy
once I read this, I knew story was a fake,LOL
Not a fake I’m the guy that offered the $$. I meant funny in a weird way
Always wanted one of these vette’s, too bad the ladies of Beverley Hills have more money than brains to just let it sit in that parking garage, surprised no one hasn’t loaded it on to a trailer during midnight auto sales.
“Too bad the ladies of Beverly Hills have more money than Brains” ???? Dude, it’s 2016. Your next President is going to be a woman. The British and German Prime Ministers are women. It’s time to let the sexist attitudes go.
My next president isn’t going to be a woman! Not that I’m against having a woman president, just not THAT woman who’s running this November. Has nothing to do with a sexist attitude. I just love my country and freedom.
But back to the Corvette. Way to many dollars to get in to it, much less ever see daylight after restoration. My pockets just aren’t that deep, but if yours are, Go for it.
You must be kidding Julles right? I agree with Gopar and 95% of the others on here. I guess a female would be ok for our president but this nightmare is no lady.
There are rules here, no profanity, political rants, or personal attacks. Can we get back to talking cars?
Maybe you haven’t noticed, but women or not the PM’s are mucking up their countries. We’re doing the same. That said, holding on to a split window Vette is never a bad idea.
Great story! I would have done the same exact thing to respectfully figure out who the owner was and make contact. It pays to stay in touch. It’s good to be first on the owner’s mind when they change it.
You started out at 25g, went to 35g, went to 50g and then, you offered 65g and they still said no? First off, be glad they still said no when you offered 50g and 65g because you would have kicked yourself if you paid that much for this car. Sometimes, we get so caught up in the hunt and find that when it’s time to make the deal, we go overboard and overpay, which you would have done at 65 thousand dollars for this car….
I agree with that. I collect old records, & after a few years of searching, I found an album I’d been looking for, for some years. Although it’s book value wasn’t high, I ended up in a bidding war with someone going up to 10x times the value. I lost fortunately, & ended up with another copy that was about mint & paid much less than I originally bid on the 1st copy. Don’t let your emotions run away with your wallet!
Found this one in AZ… He thought it was crazy someone offered him 20k and doesn’t believe i would pay that price…
Next time you see it, do them a favour and wash and wax it. I hope the market crashes, we can’t drive gas powered cars and they come crawling to you hoping to trade it for potatoes.
In this day and age I wouldn’t really touch someone else’s car never mind wash and wax. You could get sued over literally nothing in today’s world. Some kind of bogus destruction of property charge for washing the paint off.
I wouldn’t start going through its contents either.
Pretty nice sister car on Hemmings for only $12K more than your final offer. it would be a decent deal plus you could turn the key a drive way immediately. :-) http://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/dealer/chevrolet/corvette/1845113.html
Now that I like. It’s a “sister” car. I will definitely agree that 63 split window coupe corvettes are “sister” cars. Fine thinking!
Agree that $50K was more than all in unless it was a fuelie, and I don’t see that on the body. Only issue for one in Hemmings is that it is non matching numbers. You should be able to get a very solid #2 matching numbers if you are patient for $80K or less. Picked this one up two years ago for less. It is a 327, solid lifter 340 HP, 4 speed.
@JW- thankfully with all of the video surveillance nowadays, there are far fewer franchises of Midnight Auto Sales!
I know where there is a 63 Fuelie for $75k, fully restored and ready to drive. That is probably the ONLY Vette I’d g over $50k for
Rock on,… There are still those that do. I lived in SoCal for 20 years, and it is still a profession for some.
So this car sits unlocked in the basement level garage of a hotel in Beverly Hills. Do the owners live / own the hotel? I don’t understand the location. I may have been inclined to blow up the tires, clean it up and lock the doors. No stranger than the circumstances already.
I was wondering about the location too. Are the heirs paying to store it there?
It was a gated community not a hotel
Screw ’em – they have your number – if you’re meant to get it, it’ll happen – if you don’t you’ve probably saved yourself a headache
The old sentimental ‘endowment’ effect has driven the values of lots of things up—-in some owners’ minds that is.
nessy is right. It’s better to walk away from someone suffering from mistaken ideas of how valuable their stuff is. I think you’re unlikely to regret walking away when that happens, because there’s going to be others for sale, probably cheaper and in better condition.
Very sad story, and sad car, eh. People from Beverly Hills obviously have too much money to waste on rusting 63 splitwindow coup experiments.
Bob
It’s Beverly Hills, fifty grand is what you tip the valet.. or have dinner with Hillary and some liberal movie star. Be lucky you escaped. I had a buddy from high school, when we were in college, traded a VW dune buggy for I think a ’64 fastback without an engine, but it was the same gold color. I give them a one time offer, take it or leave it. If they balk, I am gone.
Although sometimes you have just the opposite experience with the jet set. Sometimes they just let stuff go cheap. Last year I went to check out an old chrome bumper MGB (no rust, but frozen motor). Due to the seller’s hectic schedule, I just happened to be the first guy who showed up. Parked next to the MG was a mint 1978 308 GTS, identical to the iconic Magnum PI car. The Ferrari had belonged to her father, now deceased. The timing belt had broken while idling at a stop light, and instead of the big-dollar repair, decided to store it. He was apparently more of a Cadillac guy anyway. Other than the obvious engine repairs, it was beautiful- no paint flaws or other blemishes anywhere I could see. the best part? She only wanted $15K for it. As my budget was down in the MG level, I had to pass, but I often think how cool it would be just to have something like that parked in your living room. Needless to say, the next guy who showed up snapped it up.
Only an MG guy would pass on a beautiful Ferrari 308 for $15k.
there’s no hope for British car nuts ;p
The ’63 SWC has a Powerglide transmission, which is not where the dollars are. These daughters probably hear the word Corvette and think because the car is gold that it’s worth it’s weight in gold. The condition of the car shows exactly what interest this family has. These girls are going to be sorry they didn’t take that offer when they find out what it’s really worth. I look for parts on eBay a lot and can only laugh at what some people ask for a part they think is Corvette (and sometimes it isn’t!), when the same part even advertised as Corvette by others is much less. My momma told me, you better shop around!
It was a standard
The problem is they see a similar corvette go across the block @ Barrett Jackson for Uber money, usually because the buyer wants to be on TV. And they think thier Un restored tired wreck is worth almost as much. Not realizing that a top notch restoration can cost up wards of 100,000 or more. My money is on buying someone’s restored project, I can usually get it cheaper than what it would cost to take a wreck to the same condition.
Anybody here read the story of Jay Leno’s Duesenberg in a NYC parking garage find? So much storage money was owed on it that the owner’s family turned everybody down for years. Makes me wonder about this Corvette…
Turning down 65 grand for this money pit was lucky for you. Buy a nice one somebody else has dumped lots money into making it right. Same thing applies to boats, motorcycles, airplanes and houses.
Great story but maybe they were a bit “miffed” because they felt the first offer was an insult? Anyhow, it just goes to show you that the cars are still out there, or in this case, under there.
The old saying ‘Not for sale, but can be bought’ comes to mind. Regardless of its’ current value, $65 g’s clearly doesn’t mean much to these sisters right now. As the market has clearly shown classic Corvettes are a simple commodity, a commodity that should continue to escalate. If they don’t need the cash, why liquidate an appreciating asset!
Typical stupid female not selling a car that she has no intentions on fixing and it was a very good offer.
I stayed on this old 1970 big block bone stock 4-speed Barracuda for 8 years before the original owner, pictured, sold it to me. I would stop by every 4-6 months and check on him and the car. Eventually it was mine……
Theres a lot of STUPID people female AND Male, And thanks to too many TV shows and other media people have unrealistic ideas. I was at a vintage bike rally last week and was asked why i dislike American Pickers. Where do i start?
I have been outbid at estate auctions on parts piles that went over their price in retail for new. Talked to the other bidders and had no clue but had noticed that old car and Motorcycle parts sell well on ebay.
I sold some vehicles off for an estate once where the sellers has 2 E type Jags they also inherited and did a good job explaining what exactly it would take to get them on the road again and floated some ideas past them on possibly selling them as well.
The 2 high maint. daughters threw a fit. “But mom! Granma always promised us these cars would go to us!” Needless to say, Mom stopped the sale and the cars are still sitting waiting for the cash and tech to take them on.
Just like in Cool Hand Luke…”Some folks you just cant reach!”
“What we have here is a failure to communicate”, tis, tis…
Wait until the daughters get a whiff of what it’ll take to fix, maintain, and keep the E-Jags on the road…and that they aren’t as easy to drive as an Audi A4. I have 2 daughters, one is a car nut- the other is a “Girlie-girl,” so I can kinda figure out which category those two you mentioned fall into-
And they’ll sit there until hell freezes over.
This reminds me of a car the set for about 15 years in the parking garage at Lambert Airport in St Louis. I flew in and out of there for many years on a previous job I had, and would always see a 67 Mustang covered with dirt and trash blown up against it. Well one day I asked one of the security guard about the car. He told me the story was that some guy found out that he could park it there cheaper than putting it in long term storage some place else. So supposedly he paid them for a year at a time to park it there and that it had been there for 8 years.
Again that is the story I was told, who knows, I just know the car was covered with layers of dirt and dust, it had flat tires, and was nasty.
But that was 10 years ago, because that was about the time I left that job and started my current line of employment.
Obviously money isn’t their “thing”. Too bad it’s got too remain rotting away in a garage so they can retain some feelings of nostalgia!!
I am amazed that a split window Vette has been sitting, unlocked and unmolested in a parking garage for all these years. How is that possible?
Wasn’t this story posted here about two years ago?
Listed on BF Aug 31, 2016