A case in point. Jay Leno, well known car collector, wrote a guest editorial in AutoWeek a number of years ago. He spoke about a problem that often plagues celebrities: "hangers on" that do odd things to attach themselves to famous people. In his case, they will call up in response to an ad for a classic car and pretend to be his "representative" and will say something along the lines of "Jay saw your ad and asked me to call for more information". Jay wrote that if someone gets a call like that they are definitely talking to an impostor. He never has anyone call on his behalf when it comes to classic car shopping; if he sees your ad and he is interested, he'll call you himself.Beyond saying something about Jay as a person, the article said a lot about the car collector hobby. It is fun. Lots of it! Researching and deciding what collector car to buy is fun. Shopping for them is fun. Buying them is a real blast. Owning them, maintaining them, driving them, preserving them, showing them and yes, eventually selling them is a source of pleasure.
As the saying goes: "It's not the destination, it's the journey!" Enjoy your search for a Corvette as it is almost as much fun as owning one.
Where to look?
You are best off if you can limit your search to locally available Corvettes. The logic here is simple: investigating and purchasing is much easier if access to the car and the seller can be easily done in person. But that can limit you if
1. You live in a sparsely populated area
2. You are looking for a "special" Corvette, i.e. one that is not commonly available
If your circumstances are such that you cannot find what you want nearby, then a wider search is necessary. There are also the many online auction sites, starting with the industry leader, ebay.
Do not buy a Classic Corvette unless you have inspected it personally.
Avoid the temptation, no matter how busy you are or how good the deal looks. To start with there is the constant possibility of fraud. There have been cases of sellers "fixing" body damage by way of modifying the images on Photoshop (yes, we are serious!). There is always the possibility that while the seller is mostly truthful, they still leave out some negative information. This, in our experience, is what happens most of the time.
Weeding out the Turkeys
While it is not possible or practical to tour the world looking at every available Corvette, you can still do a lot to check out a car even if all you have is a web page and an email contact. Here is what we recommend:
- At your first contact, tell the seller you will be visiting the car in person before you actually purchase it. If the seller balks at this idea, drop the car from consideration immediately.
- Ask the seller to forward to you copies of any documentation they have. If this is a problem, find another car.
- Beware of massive amounts of sales talk, such as "The car is in perfect shape" "You won't be disappointed" and so on. A good car doesn't need that.
- Sellers that profess to not know much about cars in general are a bad sign. Often they know a lot about cars, including the fact that what they are selling has problems.
- Deals that are too good to be true almost always are. Avoid the temptation to go for a "bargain" including "barn finds" and "secret, special deals". While it is true that they have been known to happen, such stories are rare and usually without merit. Other signs of trouble: if the seller is pushing you to act quickly or demands a deposit before you've decided to buy the car.
- Stay away from people who will find you a car for a fee. While there are competent and reputable classic car brokers out there, and they often are an excellent source of cars, they should only be collecting fees from sellers, not buyers.
It is impossible to list all the steps you need to protect yourself from fraud as the bad guys are constantly refining their techniques. Your best bet: stay in touch with the Web message boards or the various club email lists to learn about the latest scams.
Always get a PPI (Pre Purchase Inspection)
This is good advice for any used car purchase, including a classic Corvette. Have a mechanic look over a purchase candidate and make sure they are familiar with Corvettes; since they are a common enough car finding a qualified inspector should not be hard to do. There also are professional auto appraisers qualified to assess older Corvettes.
If you are paying top dollar for a particularly rare or special Corvette, then doing a PPI is even more crucial. If it turns out that the car is, shall we say, "not quite" what it was represented as, then the value will drop dramatically. Let us put it another way. Even when an expert is considering the purchase of a classic Corvette, they will often have another expert look over the car and it's history to prevent them from missing something.
Check the documentation.
Ideally the seller will be able to offer complete documentation for their car. This would include original sales receipts, receipts for all maintenance and repairs and information on previous owners, etc. Photographs backing up the car's history should be available. Documentation of a car is very important and you'll see this reflected in selling prices.
It is possible that a good purchase candidate will only have minimal documentation; this can happen if previous owners were not aware of the value of good documentation or for any number of other reasons. But it is more likely that the lack of documentation is purposely done to hide problems.
Do Your Research
Find out as much as possible about the type of Corvette you are interested in. Do more than just read the message boards and various Corvette email lists; post your questions to them. Find out the weaknesses and various "things to look for" regarding the Corvettes you are considering .
Join your local Corvette club
If you're not the club joining type, change your ways, sign up and be active. A Corvette club can be your best resource. You can learn a lot with first hand and in person contacts, including Corvettes available for purchase, recommendations for vendors and repair shops and so on.
Be Realistic with your Expectations
With the possible exception of Corvettes that have been recently restored by a qualified entity, almost all available classic Corvettes will, to some extent, have issues. If you won't consider anything with a tiny amount of dirt on it yet you are not willing to pay the top dollar that the best Corvettes can bring then your search may not come to a conclusion.
How Correct?
The market has a definite opinion here as only those Corvettes that can pass the "Is it correct?" test get the high dollars. Correct means that what is on the car is what was on it when it left the factory.
The term can be controversial as it is sometimes not clear what is "correct". There is also the "period correct" concept which refers to equipment on the car that was not produced by the factory but which was often added by owners at the time the car was new.
There are areas where the "is it correct?" debate gets thorny. If something is changed on a car for the sake of improvement, is it still a negative? For example: the installation of an alternator and a 12 volt electrical system on a 1954 Corvette which was originally a six volt system equipped with a generator. All will agree that the 12 volt alternator system is technically superior. Owners can preserve the value of the car by performing only "bolt on" modifications. In the case of the electrical system update, all the original six volt parts and the generator are retained. When the car is put on the marketplace, the seller can offer to return it to the original system and also include the extra parts in the deal. The best of both worlds perhaps?
Many early Corvettes had uneven panels with a fair amount of waviness especially in flat areas. That was the nature of fiberglass technology of the time. The question for the owner of a Corvette about to be painted is "Do the wavy panels stay or do they go?". Some may feel that the car looks better without the waves. But it would not to be correct.
About "Numbers Matching"
If you have done even a minimal amount of shopping for a classic Corvette, you have come across the term "Matching Numbers". What this means, in the strictest sense, is that the major components that were on the car the day it left the factory are still on the car. All Corvettes had at least some parts numbered, and these include the body (VIN), engine, bellhousing, transmission, differential, alternator or generator, water pump, radiator, distributor, window glass, carburetor, early fuel injection and cylinder heads. Not all these items are relevant to all years.
A Corvette that is "numbers matching" will have the correct numbers on all applicable components as listed on the build sheet.
Since many classic Corvettes are 40 or more years old, there is a problem. Most of these parts required servicing over the years and they were usually replaced rather than rebuilt as that would be fastest and cheapest. Remember that "matching numbers" is only a recent concept; back when a mid-years Corvette was first owned and maintained the ideology wasn't a priority and most owners were not aware of it. Also keep in mind that "matching numbers" Corvettes command higher prices than those that do not have matching numbers.
So how is it that these days there are so many "matching numbers" Corvettes? It is because of a magic process called "renumbering". The tools to accomplish this are easy to come by.
This brings up some interesting questions. Consider the following scenario:
1. An engine block on a given Corvette is replaced with a new or remanufactured block.
2. The engine block removed from the Corvette (commonly known as a "core") is rebuilt, sold and installed in another car.
3. Years later, a subsequent owner of the Corvette "renumbers" the new engine block so that their car is "numbers matching".
Does this mean that it is possible that there are two cars out there with engine blocks that have the same number? The answer is yes.
You can see where the controversy is. This is also why many seasoned Corvette fans are a bit wary of the "numbers matching" claim. Despite all this, the marketplace does put an emphasis on the concept.
Our advice is to keep these realities in mind when your are shopping for a classic Corvette. And don't let a few digits on a water pump, be they correct or not, prevent you from enjoying the ride."
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