Like I mentioned in my soliloquy about a 1986 fourth generation Corvette last November, I like C4 convertibles. I like them a lot. So much so that I've put myself on a quasi-serious on-and-off search to find one. To that end, I found this 1990 last week for sale down in Akron. Just 39,000 miles on its thirty-two-year-old digital ticker and what I deduced was a more than reasonable asking price of $13,995. My wife agreed to come along for a looksee south to kick its tires. I promised a round on the links afterwards so that helped convince her.
I was a taken back by her reaction to old red here; she was smitten. Big time. So much so that she mouthed silently to me, "I want this" as we sauntered around it. She added that she liked this better "than our car" referring to our 1977 Corvette that we've had for ten-years now.
I liked it too although I stop short of saying I like it better than our '77. C4's aren't everyone's cup of tea and I'm not the biggest fan of them either but there is something about the convertibles that's very "Hollywood". Throw in ones that have the optional and very expensive removable hard top, like this one has, and you've got a cross between Scarlett Johanson and Sophia Vergara. They're still no C2 or C3 convertible, but the removable or droppable roof does whittle away most of the design sins of C4's.
Chevrolet built these fourth generation Corvettes from 1984 through 1996 incrementally improving them every two to three years or so. Convertibles came along starting in 1986. For 1990, the dashboard was redesigned, and the driver's steering wheel now had an airbag. 1990 Corvette's also benefitted from the 5.7-liter, 240-horsepower V-8 engine, code-named "L98", that replaced the dubious "Cross Fire Injection" engine of 1982-1985 infamy. And the L98, while less powerful than the "LT1" engine sold in Corvettes from 1992-1996, was less problematic too.
Somewhat ironic then that what made our test drive less than earth moving was the L98 had a very noticeable misfire. So much so that it muted a considerable amount of the engine's performance. I could tell the engine still had some serious poke, but it's hard to tell how much gusto the engine actually had.
While this car wasn't nearly the disappointment that '86 last fall was, after a fairly long test drive, my takeaway was more "meh" than "I must have this thing". And the culprit for my ambivalence had more to do than a phlegmy, out of tune engine. A lot of my sentiment stems from that after my rebuilding of the front and rear suspension on our '77, it rides like new now. Sure, this car handled better, actually much, much better, but not to the point it made our '77 weak-kneed in comparison. Well, on the street at least. On a track it would be a different story but who takes their car on a track anyway? The brakes didn't grab with the tenacity that our '77's do either. They worked fine in Caprice or Impala kind of way but they didn't have the kind of herculean grab I would expect.
We thanked our salesman for his time and for him to give me call when the engine's tuned up so I can take it for another spin. Even if I found it flawless, I wasn't about to say, "shit, I'll take it"! Part of me was thankful the car was somewhat of disappointment; it not only made my getting out of the dealership easy, I also don't have to be concerned about making a decision or divorcing ourselves from our '77.
On the way back north for a round of golf my wife said, appropriately, that with regards to taking a C4 convertible for a serious spin, "I got it out of my system". She was so right. I still want a "C4 convertible", but this pretty red head didn't make me want to rush into anything. Despite what Covid has done to the used car market, $15,000 is still $15,000 and that along with the little things here and there didn't make it the "gotta have it" it needed to be.
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