United at last! At long last!

So I there I am, already late for my 2nd year anniversary dinner with my ex-girlfriend (because she's now my fiance and soon-to-be wife), and I’m setting up an ebay account for the sole purpose of landing me my baby. I rush through the details and manage to set one up, and the next thing I know, I’m already making blind bids for really nice looking ones. I start with those listings which have low running bids, and at one time, have a bid on about 5 cars where I am in the lead. My logic is telling me to just wait and sit them out, but my zealousness keeps me shopping for more. Just like a baby first discovering the sensations from learning how to pick his nose, you can’t stop yourself from checking out post after post, and the draw from the possibility of buying yourself an American classic for US$2,000 is overwhelming. Days pass, weeks pass, and I find myself sucked into the entire ebay process. I'm convinced that I had at one point, morphed into an ebay junkie – checking my emails for bid notifications and for new C3 postings almost every other hour.

After about 4 weeks, I manage to find a yellow 1973 matching numbers small block in Colorado with a bid running at about US$4,500. Jackpot.

There were only 30,464 units produced then (half of which has probably ended up in scrap heaven) and from the pictures, it didn’t look half as bad as some others that I threw my reckless bids on. So I decide to click the “Buy Now” button at US$6,000 just to kill other bids. Did I pay too much for it? Who cares..

I get a notification from the seller, Colin, who’s a Kiwi married to an Australian on a permit in the States, and of course, a confirmation from ebay. We make contact. And Colin gives me more information on the car. I check out his trade history, and notice that he’s already sold a light blue 1968 Mustang to a buyer who’s satisfied and validated the trade with a positive comment. There were also other trades on other stuff which gained him quite favorable feedback. Colin also didn’t hard sell, but reminded me that I was buying an unrestored relatively beat-up barn car which needed work. I felt comforted with his honesty, and it was a real confidence booster when it came down to me putting down a 50% deposit via my PayPal account to Colin’s, and so I did fully aware of the risks of what could go wrong.

When my funds were transferred out of my credit card to PayPal, I knew I had just bought myself a big endorphin rush and many many sleepless nights to come in the form of a 1973 small-block 350cui yellow (and at the time, mellow) Corvette Stingray.

(note: Throughout the 15 years that the C3 was in production (i.e. 1968-1982), there were a total of 542,741 units that ran off the GM production floor. And the thing with the C3s now is that the older they are, the pricier they get. For example, an early stock standard 1970 LT1 would cost about 50% more than that of a similarly stock 1982 L83. For a numbers matching unit (i.e. the engine block number matches the chassis number), a slight premium is normally attached with it.)