I never saw many third-generation Chevrolet Corvette's when I was a kid and when I did it was like seeing a rock star and all that entails. Much like many a rock star, charismatic people as well, if anything these cars were best at garnering attention rather than doing anything other than that particularly well. Ok. Some were actually pretty powerful but for the record, most that were sold were relatively tame powered base models like this well worn but still star struck worthy example from model year 1970.
I believe their apparent scarcity on the part of New York's Long Island I grew up on was due to it being a working class area; a working class area that rubbed elbows with the type of wealth that dreams are made of. So, while traveling with my family in our bone-stripped '68 Ford Ranch Wagon and seeing a car like this was monumental, it was not out of the ordinary.
If that makes any sense you're probably from the Island or similar communities around the country where us riff-raff and the riche literally sit across from one another.
That's one of the many crazy things about Long Island - wherever you are you're never far from folks who are really wealthy. Extremely poor for that matter too. My family slotting in between the two universes albeit, frankly, way, way closer to the have not's.
The weather sucks a good six to nine months out of the year on Long Island too so many of these, not so sure about this one, tucked away in garages and under wraps. They've never been "bad-weather cars".
My parents knew their plot and position in the world and, I guess, as they got older wanted to "live a little". That's why in the late '70's they ditched the station wagon for a 1970 Buick Electra which was subsequently replaced with a 1972 Cadillac. They bought them very used and on the cheap too but oh, how the neighbors were impressed. Young me, of course, appalled at how pretentious the purchases were and worse yet how the neighbors seemingly bought it into it. Maybe they were just being nice.
Purchasing a used Corvette as a frivolous toy in addition to the Buick and Cadillac? I can't even fathom how I would have felt about that had they done that; in fairness, if for no other reason than my father wasn't a "car-person". The old luxury cars were purchased for all the wrong reasons as they salved my mother's desire to appear better off than we actually were.
That notion as off putting to me as it gets. Buy something because you like it and not for what it says about you. Trust me, do so and you run this risk of being sorely disappointed.
This old rock star has seen better days but it's not like it couldn't be restored to its former glory. That would be expensive, though. I guesstimate you'd need thirty-grand to get this it into proper shape. That on top of the fifteen-grand that's the price of admission.
I don't understand why someone would spend that kind of money on something like this but bless their hearts, some people do. As they say, it's better to buy something already restored than buy something and have it restored. Often times that's less expensive too. Forty-give grand or so would also buy a late model Corvette as well which does everything at a world-class level of performance that this 1970 struggled so mightily to do.
Struggled at everything except looking like a rock star.
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