This 1988 35th Anniversary Edition Chevrolet Corvette has an interesting history, and one that I’d recommend only out-of-state buyers get involved with. The car is being sold as part of a repossession at an outfit called “Moneytree Title Loan”, which is ironically located in Nevada, otherwise known as the land of broken dreams. The Corvette is selling for a ridiculously cheap $2,500 Buy-It-Now here on eBay and is a desirable manual transmission example.
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The all-white treatment and repossession by a Nevada pawn shop is just too good. It’s like it was taken from the script of a hidden script from Casino, wherein Sam “Ace” Rothstein’s son gets into some hot water and the ‘Vette is quickly dumped off at a remote pawn broker’s outfit to throw the Chicago syndicate off his tail and make it look like he left town for good. Or something like that. The seller notes the clearcoat is poor and there’s no door key, just an ignition key.
These 35th Anniversary cars had stunning white leather interiors when new, but the Nevada sun has done it no favors. The arm rest is destroyed, the steering wheel is heavily worn and the seller says the cabin needs full restoration. That won’t be cheap, but the selling price leaves more than enough room to justify the cost of new leather. It sounds like the car is a decent runner but the seller notes some hesitation upon acceleration. Based on his description of things being “stuffed up,” a mechanic he is not.
The door panels also show signs of heat shrinkage, so factor in replacing those as well. Most of these special edition Corvettes seem to be automatic cars, as they were largely purchased by collectors with no intention of actually driving it. This example, with its manual transmission, low price, and great stories already baked into its potentially sordid history, makes someone like me salivate who often puts a car’s past in front of any logical criteria for purchase. What do you think its story is?
Listing has ended.
Good.
Well, it was a title loan company, not a pawnshop. But I digress. Sounds like someone got in trouble at the tables and tried to lose their money back.
Why do you say the manual on this car is desirable?
Maybe based on the fact about 95% of this vintage Corvette had an automatic transmission. And maybe because automatics are boring as hell and have no place in a Corvette. I could be wrong. (But I doubt that)
You are generalizing.
I am asking about this year specifically.
I worked at a Chevy dealer in 1988. I don’t remember one stick shift Corvette that came in all year, or the year before.
There was a reason for that. The 4+3 was not a good transmission and it was not in demand.
Also from what I remember each dealership got two of these cars.
In our dealership, the keys to both were kept in the sales managers desk.
One of our salesmen went into his desk, which was a cardinal sin, and got the keys to one of them, handed them to a “customer” and the guy drove the car off. We never saw it again.
Whenever I see one of these I wonder it is was that car.
The police questioned the salesman, but, as they do best, he played dumb and nothing came of it.
Always good to hear from an expert. I drove my 1984 Corvette with the 4+3 to work today and it shifted flawlessly as it has since 1984. The Crossfire injection system and dashboard also performed flawlessly as they have since 1984. I feel blessed to have access to so many people with so much knowledge about cars they have never owned or driven. I will make an exception in your case as it seems you have owned or driven every car posted on this site. And yes, I am a huge “Richard”
Ike, it is good to hear you got a good one. That doesn’t change the fact of what they were.
Doesn’t the extremely low sales numbers tell you something?
Also I think I have earned the right to comment about, especially this car, as I worked at the dealership that year and it was my job to know all the inventory down to the smallest detail.
Without owning one of these cars, many have passed through my hands, as it were.
My brother had a 1987 Z-51 with the 4+3 and it worked flawlessly.
Miguel, maybe the fact that so few Corvettes were sold with this trans speaks to this trans, or how good the auto trans was, or perhaps something about many of the folks who bought Corvettes. Although the percentage of Corvettes with the stick did increase after the switch to the 6sp., the overwhelming majority of Corvettes both then and now have automatics.
From what I remember , Steve, is that in the two years I worked at the dealership, we did not deliver even one stick shift Corvette. That was January 1987 to December 1988.
We didn’t have anybody come in and order one or even ask about it.
You are right, there were a lot more 6 speeds sold.
I am happy for the people that got a good 4+3 but at the time it was not talked about well.
It is always interesting to somebody post about one car they have driven and then extrapolate that experience to every similar car made that theirs.
Wow….I remember Moneytree from my sad days living in Spokane, Washington. Two week cash loans with 300% interest or you can give them the title to your car and if you can’t pay in 2 weeks they own it.
As to this particular car, the 35th Anniversary edition is only slightly less gaudy than the 1995 Pace Car Edition (which, ironically, I saw one example of driving “in the wild” last Sunday). There really is no reason to restore this one, you will need to redo virtually all the interior pieces, and those are much more expensive than the already pricey standard interior pieces. While this is probably a very rare bird being it has the manual trans and is a 35th Anniversary edition, I can’t imagine there are a lot of asses for this particular seat.
Miguel has a good point about the lack of manuals at this point in the Vette’s history. While I understand that a lot of people did have good experiences with the 4+3, it also had a lot of shade thrown at it and I think a lot of buyers thought “why should I put up with this if I don’t have to?”
Full disclosure: I have an 1988 Vette, not a 35th Anniversary Edition, and not a manual. I enjoy mine, but the white on white on white really hurt my eyes.