Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / What Should I Buy? - Corvette vs Porsche: The Everyman Sports Car Showdown (Part 1)

Transcript

What Should I Buy? - Corvette vs Porsche: The Everyman Sports Car Showdown (Part 1) · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  Our panel of break fix petrolheads are back for another rousing
• 0:03
  what should I buy debate.
• 0:05
  Using unique shopping criteria, they are challenged to find our first time
• 0:08
  collector the best vehicle that will make their friends go, Where'd you get that?
• 0:13
  or What the hell is wrong with you?
• 0:15
  at the next Cars and Coffee.
• 0:19
  There are so many automotive rivalries, Ford versus Ferrari,
• 0:24
  Honda versus Volkswagen, Chevy versus Ford, and the list goes on and on.
• 0:29
  But there is an extra special one in the sports car and motorsports
• 0:32
  world, and that's Porsche.
• 0:34
  Versus Corvette, both of which recently celebrated their
• 0:37
  respective 75th and 70th birthdays.
• 0:40
  And after all this time, is it possible to agree on whether or not the 911 or
• 0:46
  the Corvette is THE everyman sports car?
• 0:49
  And we're here to answer that very question with our petrolhead
• 0:52
  panel to settle yet another what should I buy debate.
• 0:56
  For the first time, as part of this series, our panelists will be focused
• 0:59
  on a specific set of vehicles.
• 1:01
  In one of our two part Porsche vs.
• 1:03
  Corvette debate, we're joined by Mark Schenk, our 90s expert, along
• 1:08
  with Corvette owners like William Big Money Ross from the Exotic Car
• 1:12
  Marketplace, Rob Parr from Collector Car Guide, and Rick Hoback from
• 1:17
  Auto Interest and Hoback Racing.
• 1:19
  And then there's me!
• 1:20
  expert by way of my work with Mecham Auctions, who sells more Corvettes
• 1:24
  than anyone else on the planet, and I get to write about them.
• 1:27
  Who am I?
• 1:28
  I'm Don Wieberg from Garage Style Magazine.
• 1:30
  Thanks, Don.
• 1:31
  And like all What Should I Buy episodes, we have some shopping criteria.
• 1:35
  So get ready, folks.
• 1:36
  It's time to unbutton your Hawaiian shirt, shine up your gold chains,
• 1:40
  and put on a fresh pair of New Balance sneakers, because we're
• 1:43
  going to talk about Corvettes.
• 1:44
  In our panel of Extraordinary petrol heads are challenged to find our
• 1:48
  first time collector something that will make their friends go Oh, that's
• 1:52
  so you at the next cars and coffee.
• 1:54
  So welcome back to the show guys.
• 1:56
  Thanks.
• 1:56
  Hello.
• 1:57
  Hello.
• 1:57
  Hello You guys know how this works listeners if this is
• 2:00
  your first what should I buy?
• 2:02
  You know We sit and argue for the next hour and a half about what car
• 2:05
  we should buy for our fictitious first time collector But I want to
• 2:08
  kick this off by asking, does anybody know about the history of Corvette?
• 2:12
  Sort of like where it all got started?
• 2:14
  I'm gonna give you a hit.
• 2:14
  My t shirt is a big clue.
• 2:17
  Definitely Road America.
• 2:20
  In the words of Ferris Bueller, anyone, anyone?
• 2:23
  So I got to give a quick nod to our friends at the International
• 2:26
  Motor Racing Research Center.
• 2:27
  If you go back into their history books, and we've done some
• 2:29
  episodes on this on break, fix the.
• 2:31
  Conception point of the C1 started with Harley J Earl.
• 2:35
  It's designer, but it stems from the early Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, when they
• 2:40
  used to race on the streets of Watkins Glen, he came to Watkins Glen to see
• 2:44
  the Grand Prix for the first time in a LeSabre and he said, it would be cool to
• 2:47
  compete in this car, but it's too big.
• 2:49
  It's too heavy.
• 2:50
  It's not fast roadsters and some of the other boutique manufacturers out there.
• 2:56
  Harley J Earl was inspired.
• 2:58
  Day one, the Corvette was designed to compete against all these other cars.
• 3:03
  So what we're going to look at over the course of this episode is how does it
• 3:06
  stack up over the years and where should people focus their attention and their
• 3:11
  money, much like the nine 11, there are eight generations of Corvette to
• 3:16
  talk about over 70 years of production.
• 3:18
  What do we know about the C1?
• 3:20
  Is it worth collecting or is it too much hype, too expensive?
• 3:24
  Are there better options out there?
• 3:25
  If you're a vertically challenged person, you can fit in it.
• 3:27
  They're tight.
• 3:28
  That steering wheel is huge.
• 3:29
  Yeah.
• 3:30
  You got any kind of beer belly, forget about it.
• 3:31
  Or if you have big legs, forget it too.
• 3:33
  Yeah.
• 3:33
  I can't even get my legs on the steering wheel.
• 3:36
  It started with a six cylinder, right?
• 3:38
  And then became a V8.
• 3:39
  53 had a toll boat, six, then since 54.
• 3:42
  And was that the infamous blue flame six or something like that?
• 3:45
  Yeah.
• 3:45
  It's the blue flame six.
• 3:47
  They call it, yes.
• 3:48
  Two carburetors.
• 3:48
  And the first year they only made about 200 of them.
• 3:50
  1955, they adopted the two 65 V8.
• 3:54
  First year, but not high performance by any stretch of the imagination.
• 3:57
  So sort of a dud when the C1 first came out.
• 4:00
  So it took them, let's say 10 years to almost get it right.
• 4:03
  And all is well.
• 4:05
  And the funny thing is when you get right into it, you end up with everybody
• 4:08
  immediately hit that thing against the Jaguar and the Aston Martin here.
• 4:12
  You've got three cards with six cylinder engines, side draft carburetors,
• 4:16
  lightweight body, two seats.
• 4:18
  And yeah, I mean, they were born to compete with each other.
• 4:21
  But when you got into the original Corvette 53, 54, they would move.
• 4:25
  Oh, Hey, compared to other cars at their time, but you're just zero to 60.
• 4:29
  You're still looking at something like 11 or 12 seconds, which in
• 4:33
  that day, really not too bad.
• 4:35
  When you consider the Chevy Bel Air or any of those basic sedans, you're looking
• 4:40
  upwards of 18 seconds for zero to 60.
• 4:42
  Then you take the light weight into it.
• 4:44
  And really when you get right down to it.
• 4:46
  That first generation Corvette was actually pretty heavy
• 4:48
  for having a fiberglass body.
• 4:50
  If I remember correctly, they still came in over 3000 pounds.
• 4:53
  It really wasn't that light at all.
• 4:55
  It was almost equivalent to the Jaguar.
• 4:56
  And another problem that Corvette always faced was when it came out, it was
• 5:01
  actually more expensive than the Jaguar.
• 5:03
  Then the Jag XK, how do you justify that when it was not as quick, not as fast,
• 5:08
  didn't drive as well, didn't have the panache, didn't have a lot of stuff the
• 5:11
  XK did, and yet it costs more money.
• 5:14
  So there's a reason they only sold 300 that first time out.
• 5:16
  Not to mention, remember when they showed that car, they didn't know if
• 5:20
  the public was going to embrace it.
• 5:22
  And the public loved it so much so that Chevrolet, General Motors, everybody
• 5:26
  rushed this thing into production, get it going, get it going, get it going.
• 5:29
  So they did on a makeshift, not even assembly line, but more like a big
• 5:33
  barn where they built these cars largely by hand just to get them out.
• 5:37
  There was no marketing.
• 5:38
  They had no racing history.
• 5:40
  They didn't go racing.
• 5:41
  I mean, it was really kind of a keystone cop.
• 5:44
  Operation when they first started.
• 5:45
  It was pretty funny when you start looking at their real history of
• 5:48
  the actual production Corvette.
• 5:49
  Well, what I think is interesting about the C1 is it started as a convertible.
• 5:53
  It's really interesting that later they're like, Hey, let's put a roof on
• 5:56
  this thing, because obviously we want to go racing, but then the intent was
• 5:59
  to go racing from day one, so I'm like, yeah, I guess I get it, but even the C1
• 6:03
  morphed over the years, because if you look at the later part of 1960, 61, 62,
• 6:08
  towards the tail end of the C1, Things like the Camerati Corvette that went to
• 6:11
  Le Mans and actually placed in the top 10.
• 6:14
  And, you know, we'll talk about that on a whole nother episode.
• 6:16
  Didn't it get bigger though?
• 6:18
  Yeah.
• 6:18
  When you look at 53, 4, and 5 for the same reasons, they kind of fell on
• 6:22
  their face originally, which Zora Arkus Doontov wanted to correct immediately.
• 6:27
  But believe it or not, your designer that you mentioned, as well as Chevrolet
• 6:31
  itself, Did not, they did not want to correct the six cylinder immediately.
• 6:35
  They did not want to correct the, I don't have a crank window.
• 6:38
  They did not want to correct.
• 6:39
  I don't have an outdoor side door handle, all these preacher comforts.
• 6:43
  They didn't want to correct those things.
• 6:44
  They wanted a true diehard died in the world sports car that you can race on
• 6:48
  Sunday all day long against Jags and Ashton Martins and MGs and whatever.
• 6:52
  Sales were just lagging American buyers.
• 6:56
  If they wanted that, guess what kids, they'd go buy a Jag.
• 6:58
  What?
• 6:59
  You're going to tell me Jag sold well?
• 7:00
  They outsold Corvette every single day of the week.
• 7:02
  So they fell on their face.
• 7:04
  It really wasn't until Ford said, well, hell, we need something like that.
• 7:07
  And they brought about the Thunderbird.
• 7:08
  Asked Ford officially?
• 7:09
  No, we never wanted to compete with the Corvette.
• 7:12
  We never wanted to do that.
• 7:13
  What they wanted was a personal luxury convertible car, but it had the crank
• 7:17
  windows, it had the exterior door handles.
• 7:20
  The vet had a radio too, but so too did the Thunderbird.
• 7:22
  The Thunderbird was useful.
• 7:24
  The Thunderbird was one of those cars that, yeah, it was sporty.
• 7:27
  It could move okay, but you could drive it every day comfortably.
• 7:30
  You could take your mom to church in it on Sunday and you
• 7:33
  wouldn't be embarrassed by it.
• 7:34
  Corvette was a different animal.
• 7:35
  Obviously.
• 7:36
  1955, Chevrolet dropped in the V8.
• 7:39
  Now, why'd they do that?
• 7:40
  Did they know Thunderbird was coming out?
• 7:42
  Probably, but that was their first step.
• 7:44
  But also Chevrolet didn't have a V8 until 1955.
• 7:47
  They had that working against them.
• 7:49
  But remember 1956, whoa, baby, the Corvette was a whole different ball game.
• 7:54
  Yes.
• 7:55
  You had a lot of chrome.
• 7:56
  You had a lot of glitz.
• 7:57
  This thing screamed, I'm as American as Superman.
• 8:00
  And that's it.
• 8:00
  You had your VA, you had your crank windows, you had your exterior door
• 8:03
  handles, you had two Tom Pings jobs.
• 8:05
  And what did we have?
• 8:06
  We had almost 8, 000 sold.
• 8:07
  Fantastic.
• 8:08
  The following year, you had a little bit more.
• 8:10
  And remember in 1958, huge recession year, but Corvette grew.
• 8:14
  That was really positive.
• 8:15
  You can definitely thank Thunderbird for that.
• 8:16
  Because that came along and Chevy, everybody got on board
• 8:19
  with more stuff for the Corvette.
• 8:20
  Don's talk.
• 8:21
  I think the Corvette would have died if he wasn't behind it.
• 8:23
  Oh yeah.
• 8:23
  A hundred percent.
• 8:24
  And the racing side, the Pikes Peak 1957 was a big year for that car.
• 8:29
  It won, it got a lot of, some racing involved in and really got inspiration.
• 8:33
  Let's talk about from the collector side.
• 8:35
  So Don, William, Rob, C1's.
• 8:38
  Are people buying those right now?
• 8:40
  Are they sought after Mark?
• 8:41
  Are you seeing anything?
• 8:42
  I'll bring a trailer.
• 8:43
  Like what's the market for the C1 right now?
• 8:46
  I've seen it going through auctions and the 53s are picking up steam.
• 8:50
  People that have collections are picking those up.
• 8:52
  They've had a couple of the last two Coral options.
• 8:54
  Is it just sort of.
• 8:55
  Eh, because the C2, and we're going to talk about the Stingray here in
• 8:59
  a second, the infamous split windows and all those, are those more sought
• 9:03
  after than the original Corvettes because they're just that much better?
• 9:06
  I think they are.
• 9:06
  You're looking at the difference of drivability.
• 9:08
  I think today's market, today's buyers are more interested in friendly
• 9:12
  drivability than collectability.
• 9:15
  I think People that are buying that C one, probably the biggest reason,
• 9:19
  in my opinion, they're balancing out or completing their collection.
• 9:23
  I got C2, C3, I need a C1.
• 9:26
  And I said, they didn't build too many and especially ones that are nice and
• 9:29
  collectible, they don't need tens of thousands of dollars of restoration work.
• 9:33
  But I think a lot of those people buy it because, well, I need to
• 9:35
  have it complete my collection.
• 9:36
  I got every other one.
• 9:38
  I need that one.
• 9:38
  I think that's what they do just so they're lined up.
• 9:40
  They look nice.
• 9:41
  We have on our cover, we have a 57 Corvette, black with a silver
• 9:44
  code, red interior, gorgeous.
• 9:46
  And people are buying them for the look.
• 9:48
  I mean, they'll put them on a trailer, take it to an event and drop it right off.
• 9:50
  They're not driving them around.
• 9:52
  It's really purely for collectability.
• 9:53
  Building on what both of you are saying.
• 9:55
  I've got two friends, one's got a 53, one has a 54.
• 9:58
  One of them.
• 9:59
  You're absolutely right, William.
• 10:01
  He bought it because he did have a C two.
• 10:03
  He had a C four.
• 10:04
  He had very little Corvette.
• 10:06
  He just wanted a C one.
• 10:07
  He drove it, he hated it, and he never drives it.
• 10:10
  He just can't stand that car.
• 10:11
  It's terrible to drive.
• 10:12
  The second guy is more of a blue collar guy, and he like me,
• 10:16
  and I totally agree with him.
• 10:18
  I always thought the 53, 4 and five was one of the most beautiful
• 10:21
  cars Chevrolet ever built.
• 10:22
  I just thought it was.
• 10:23
  Gorgeous the way they laid that car out.
• 10:25
  Very gorgeous.
• 10:25
  It is and it has those same sort of fluid lines like the 356s and
• 10:30
  the Jags and some of the other cars of the era that you mentioned.
• 10:33
  Those really kind of bulbous roadsters that were out there.
• 10:36
  You mentioned the Thunderbird and that was more of a luxury convertible.
• 10:40
  Whether we dive into was Ford trying to compete or trying to keep up
• 10:45
  the Corvette sort of stood alone.
• 10:46
  If you look at American sports cars made by the big manufacturers,
• 10:51
  there weren't many at all.
• 10:52
  Like Corvette was sort of a new territory.
• 10:54
  They got it wrong.
• 10:55
  Then they kept refining.
• 10:56
  And so they didn't just keep going.
• 10:57
  Can it, which was awesome.
• 10:59
  So somebody had the vision and the tenacity to say, you know what?
• 11:02
  Okay.
• 11:02
  The six cylinder, let's get rid of that.
• 11:04
  We got to add door handles, all these kinds of things.
• 11:06
  We're going to keep making it better.
• 11:07
  If you look at the C1 all the way up to 61, 62, when they started to phase it
• 11:12
  out, it went through a metamorphosis.
• 11:14
  Like you line up the 54, 55, 56, you know, sort of like that Johnny Cash song.
• 11:18
  They're just interesting.
• 11:20
  And if I think I was a C1 collector, I'd want to have almost one of every year.
• 11:24
  If I was that nerdy about C1s, but we do have to kind of move the story forward
• 11:28
  into the C2 into this sudden golden age of Corvette, which was interesting
• 11:33
  because it's Corvette versus the world.
• 11:35
  There's nobody else.
• 11:36
  Mustang didn't exist.
• 11:37
  yet.
• 11:37
  Chrysler still hadn't figured its muscle cars out.
• 11:40
  That hadn't happened yet.
• 11:41
  Corvette was in uncharted territory against Porsche and Ferrari and Jaguar and
• 11:46
  all the Europeans that we already knew.
• 11:48
  So C2 was a ground up redo, carries nothing over from the C1, right?
• 11:53
  Other than maybe some rear trailing arms or axles or stuff like that.
• 11:57
  But As far as chassis and design go, it was a redo.
• 12:00
  Yeah.
• 12:01
  The C2 was a groundbreaking car.
• 12:03
  And what's interesting is the C2 for Mark and my generation, I don't want to put
• 12:08
  words in Mark's mouth, but that's the Corvette I fell in love with because when
• 12:11
  I was a kid, the C4 was just still sort of new and we'll get to the Barbie Corvette
• 12:16
  as I like to call it as we go along here and the C3, because it looks so much to me
• 12:20
  like the Trans Am and stuff of that time.
• 12:24
  Jokes aside, the C2 was just so striking.
• 12:27
  It was angular and the split window and it's deceptively large, but then it's
• 12:31
  really small when you compare it to other cars and it had hips, but it didn't, it
• 12:35
  was straight and sort of set slab sided and every angle you look at it, it sort
• 12:41
  of changes, it's mystical in a way.
• 12:43
  It just sucks you in.
• 12:44
  It's such an interesting and unique design.
• 12:47
  There's not another car ever that looks like a C2 Corvette.
• 12:50
  And you forgot.
• 12:52
  Oh, yes.
• 12:52
  Yes.
• 12:53
  Geez.
• 12:53
  Maybe the coolest thing a car can have.
• 12:55
  C2.
• 12:55
  You're right.
• 12:56
  It's the golden age.
• 12:57
  Like you mentioned earlier, Eric, like where are these things selling?
• 12:59
  Like if you compare a C1, C2, C3, C3 gets thrown off by the L88 from
• 13:05
  a transaction price perspective.
• 13:07
  Take the L88 out of the data set.
• 13:09
  You struggle to find a C3 that sells over a hundred grand.
• 13:11
  You look at C2s and there's just tons and tons of C2s that transact over 100, 000.
• 13:17
  And your C1s are in that 50 to 200 type range.
• 13:21
  It coincides with the demographic boom, the baby boomers coming of age.
• 13:25
  So it becomes this thing that they want when they actually get some disposable
• 13:28
  income in their 40s and 50s and 60s.
• 13:31
  And so it had that benefit to it.
• 13:32
  But I agree with you.
• 13:33
  Like to me, the C1 was this kind of GT cruiser type car.
• 13:38
  And the C2 was, to me, it was a sports car.
• 13:41
  It was badass.
• 13:41
  And it was, it looked angry and fast.
• 13:43
  You're right.
• 13:44
  The designer C2 knocked people on their butts.
• 13:47
  It was like nothing they'd ever seen before.
• 13:49
  But remember they had to play a little catch up because in 1961, the E type
• 13:53
  was born and there was a car that just, I mean, just talk about a gorgeous car.
• 13:58
  It does everything right by design.
• 14:00
  And like the Jaguar for the first time ever, you could have
• 14:03
  Corvette as a hard top coupe.
• 14:05
  Yeah.
• 14:05
  That beautiful sloping roof with a split design, a boat tail.
• 14:08
  Yeah.
• 14:09
  Well, of course, if I'm remembering correctly, that was Earl, Harley J Earl.
• 14:14
  Huge fan of those early Bugattis or the boat tail cars from the thirties.
• 14:19
  And that's where Boattail came from.
• 14:22
  Right.
• 14:22
  Shinoda was the designer of that car.
• 14:24
  And, and Guntholf totally inspired it.
• 14:26
  But we're forgetting one other designer who was huge on styling.
• 14:30
  In fact, if I'm remembering correctly, he was actually the first one on deck
• 14:34
  to help Harley J Earl style the Vision.
• 14:37
  Shinoda is the one that finished it off.
• 14:40
  And that is Peter Brock.
• 14:41
  My understanding was Peter Brock was first charged by Harley Gerald to help
• 14:46
  him style the vision, which he did.
• 14:47
  Then he left.
• 14:48
  Why?
• 14:49
  Cause he had to go work for Carroll Shelby.
• 14:50
  Then Shinoda stepped in and he finished off the design.
• 14:54
  Shinoda though, he was with Corvette for a long, long time, but to your
• 14:58
  point, it was the first time you can get Corvette in a coupe, which what
• 15:01
  makes it again, much more user friendly.
• 15:04
  It had a larger interior, which again, made it more user friendly.
• 15:08
  I mean, I'll put it this way, six foot three, 330 pounds.
• 15:11
  I don't fit in a lot of cars.
• 15:12
  I fit in a C2, not tremendously well, but I can get in it and I can drive it.
• 15:17
  C1, I really can't drive that car.
• 15:19
  It's just too tight for me.
• 15:21
  So they increased everything, but the styling to your point,
• 15:24
  Eric, you could look at that car all day long and still find new
• 15:27
  nuances that turn you on about it.
• 15:29
  When you look at the side profile of a C2, you have that razor sharp edge
• 15:34
  that breaks the car almost in half.
• 15:37
  And you have this undercut, which is incredible.
• 15:39
  If you look at the 70 to 81 Firebird and Camaro, it too had that sharp cut.
• 15:46
  But what's funny is when you look at De Tomaso, Ghia was huge at using
• 15:50
  that line right down the fender.
• 15:52
  You even saw it in the Granada for God's sake.
• 15:54
  So I think that car, just by a styling standpoint, was
• 15:59
  just absolutely salivating.
• 16:01
  It was wonderful.
• 16:02
  And knocked it out of the park for sure.
• 16:04
  It was fantastic.
• 16:05
  Plus you had that 327, which was as flexible as a rubber band.
• 16:08
  I mean, that thing would do all kinds of crazy stuff.
• 16:10
  Of course, Dunkelhard had the 327, came out in 62, and that really added a lot of
• 16:15
  performance and added more engine options.
• 16:17
  So you could have more power.
• 16:18
  And then they started fuel injection.
• 16:20
  I think back in 57, I want to say.
• 16:22
  That's what they call the fuelies, right?
• 16:23
  Yeah.
• 16:23
  The fuelie.
• 16:24
  Yeah.
• 16:24
  They're Rochester mechanical fuel injector.
• 16:27
  Yes.
• 16:27
  Which you make more power by throwing that in a box and putting
• 16:30
  carburetors back on, right?
• 16:32
  Yeah.
• 16:32
  We have the 23 and 57 when you fuel injected it, if you did what they called
• 16:37
  the Duntov PAM, and when you did the heads, You could make 283 horsepower that
• 16:42
  today doesn't sound like a hell of a lot.
• 16:44
  I mean, I think my Ford flex makes more than that right now.
• 16:47
  No turbo.
• 16:49
  I mean, that's what it's doing, but for 1957 to make one horsepower per
• 16:53
  cubic inch, that was a huge, huge deal.
• 16:56
  Remember those mid to late fifties, who is everyone chasing was Chrysler.
• 17:00
  They had those monster Hemis come on the C300.
• 17:03
  Well, what was it named after?
• 17:04
  300 horsepower.
• 17:05
  And what was it?
• 17:05
  331 cubic inches.
• 17:07
  Then it was 354.
• 17:08
  Then it was 392.
• 17:09
  I think was the last of the, those Hemis.
• 17:11
  So for Chevy to come out with a small block that made 287 horsepower.
• 17:15
  And let's not forget, even the big fat Bel Air weighed a lot less than
• 17:20
  any Chrysler you put it up next to.
• 17:21
  So when you have 287 horsepower with a lightweight body, And
• 17:25
  let's put that in a Corvette.
• 17:27
  Now your Corvette has graduated more to compete against the original Jag, Aston
• 17:32
  Martin, and of course your aforementioned Porsche and all the Italians.
• 17:36
  I hate to say it.
• 17:36
  They were terrified of Corvette.
• 17:37
  They don't admit it, but when you do the history and you look at the
• 17:41
  Italians knew what Corvette was before Corvette knew what Corvette was.
• 17:45
  It's one of those situations where, you know, you have a father who
• 17:48
  sees his son and the father knows.
• 17:50
  He's never going to be like me.
• 17:51
  He's going to be an artist.
• 17:52
  He's going to be some, and the father is not necessarily disappointed.
• 17:56
  It's telling, and yet the son has no clue, no clue yet what they are going to.
• 18:01
  Potential is yeah, exactly.
• 18:02
  Definitely more drivable.
• 18:03
  Even the later C2s versus the early C2s.
• 18:06
  There's a big difference there and just some drivability.
• 18:09
  They're all similar, but maybe the bushings.
• 18:10
  I remember seeing an early C2.
• 18:12
  And it was up on jack stands, no wheels.
• 18:15
  And I'm like, oh my God, drum breaks all the way around.
• 18:17
  You gotta be kidding me.
• 18:18
  Guys, race these cars.
• 18:19
  Like you're out of your mind.
• 18:20
  Yeah.
• 18:21
  They're just not as enjoyable.
• 18:22
  Later ones are better.
• 18:23
  When you go see two, you really, really get to see Zorak or Stuntal's handiwork
• 18:28
  in there because for the first time.
• 18:29
  And I believe it was 1963 with that whole new chassis.
• 18:33
  You had a four wheel independent suspension.
• 18:34
  Yes.
• 18:35
  You had the four wheel drum brakes, you know, GM moves at a glacial pace.
• 18:38
  You know, be thankful.
• 18:39
  We were able to get a four wheel independent suspension, but the
• 18:42
  chassis was completely retuned.
• 18:45
  And Zora had a lot to do with that retuning.
• 18:48
  How does it compare to driving a C3 in your opinion?
• 18:50
  Or is there any noticeable difference?
• 18:51
  They're similar.
• 18:52
  I think the C3 probably drives better.
• 18:54
  I've probably been spoiled on some of the ones I've driven too.
• 18:57
  I've driven some original ones and then some of them had been gone through with,
• 19:01
  we'll say OE style or basic aftermarket bushings and stuff, put back in them.
• 19:06
  And then I've driven some race versions, which is a whole different class.
• 19:09
  I think they're similar.
• 19:10
  I think the three seat drives a little better.
• 19:11
  Better.
• 19:12
  And then obviously when we get to the C4, it's drastically different.
• 19:14
  They're all fun.
• 19:15
  And we'll talk about why that's important.
• 19:17
  That lineage starting with the C2 carries through some other cars.
• 19:22
  And like we said before, the C1 sort of stands on its own.
• 19:25
  And then even though there's been eight generations of the Corvette, that
• 19:27
  can be kind of lumped together, but we'll get into that as we go along.
• 19:31
  So one of the things I want to sort of just pick apart on the C2 is
• 19:34
  C1 was sort of like, well, okay.
• 19:37
  But if you look back.
• 19:39
  And this is where it gets fuzzy for me because it's not my generation, but I
• 19:42
  look at it and go, wow, that's a cool car.
• 19:45
  I see some of these historical pieces, some of these movies, and
• 19:48
  you hear stories about how, like they were given C2s to astronauts and
• 19:52
  then celebrities were driving them.
• 19:54
  And then you got guys like Mark Twain.
• 19:55
  Donahue behind the wheel and Parnelli Jones.
• 19:57
  And it's like, wait a second, who was behind the marketing for C2
• 20:02
  Corvette that suddenly turned it into America's heartthrob sports car.
• 20:06
  How did that happen?
• 20:07
  Zordonta backdoored everything.
• 20:09
  Cause there was the gentleman's agreement for that period that
• 20:13
  the manufacturers wouldn't support racing or put that into it, but.
• 20:17
  Duntov backdoored everything to teams to help support them to do that.
• 20:22
  And if you've got a race team, you're getting free stuff.
• 20:24
  That's what you're going to use.
• 20:25
  I mean, case in point, you brought it up, Eric, the Comorati Corvette.
• 20:29
  There were three other Corvettes entered that year in 1960.
• 20:31
  1960, that was toward the end of the C1's lifespan.
• 20:36
  As William is saying, those three Corvettes, they were
• 20:39
  not backed by General Motors.
• 20:41
  They were backdoored.
• 20:42
  I saw Arcus Duntov and dealerships and some of his fun guys in the
• 20:47
  parts counter building these cars specifically for competition.
• 20:50
  But I think those are the cars that really, especially for racing
• 20:53
  aficionados, I think those were the four cars that 1960 at Le Mans,
• 20:58
  they were the four that really.
• 21:00
  But Corvette on the map, because up to that point, as far as I can
• 21:04
  remember, Corvette really wasn't competing all that much, but for
• 21:07
  the most part, it was pretty quiet.
• 21:09
  It was, you know, a bunch of privateers at Riverside, et cetera.
• 21:12
  And then all of a sudden here's these four that show up at arguably
• 21:16
  the most grueling race that we have.
• 21:19
  They all did pretty good against the world's best sports cars
• 21:22
  with the world's best drivers.
• 21:24
  Here are four Corvettes, four Yankees that come out of nowhere
• 21:26
  and say, we're here to play.
• 21:28
  We want to play ball too.
• 21:29
  We want you to take us seriously.
• 21:31
  But I think that's what put them on the map.
• 21:33
  So I'll actually want to turn this back to Rick and Mark for a second,
• 21:36
  because Mark was talking about how C2s are transacting in the collector world.
• 21:39
  And there's a lot more of them than I think we realize.
• 21:42
  There's tons of them in collections.
• 21:44
  You see them at car shows, you see them at car week, you see them in private.
• 21:47
  Do they hold their value when they're modded?
• 21:50
  Are people still resto modding them?
• 21:52
  Has the C2 hit a point where it's now unobtainium, you're
• 21:56
  better off with a virgin one.
• 21:58
  Where are we in the collector space with C2?
• 22:00
  The demographic of who likes them and who was around them in the age group and their
• 22:05
  availability of having plan to buy one.
• 22:07
  I think there's way more C2s than C1s on the market for
• 22:11
  sale and they were affordable.
• 22:13
  I mean, I've owned three of them and I was picking these up for
• 22:17
  a quarter of the price of a C1.
• 22:18
  C1s weren't even in my range.
• 22:20
  I would have bought one.
• 22:21
  Couldn't find them.
• 22:22
  Couldn't afford them.
• 22:23
  They were way different than that C2.
• 22:25
  So I think those are some of the reasons there.
• 22:27
  I don't want to call them better.
• 22:28
  They're just more available, more collectors have them in their collections.
• 22:32
  Digging through some of the data on bring a trailer and comparing the generational
• 22:36
  sale, they kind of track the volumes.
• 22:38
  You've got more than twice as many C2 transactions on that as you do C1.
• 22:43
  The C1s, they're in a more narrow band in the 50 to 100k range.
• 22:47
  They certainly have ones trading in the 100 to 250 for particularly, uh, special
• 22:52
  stuff, usually 53s, kind of first year.
• 22:55
  Collector items.
• 22:56
  Whereas in the C2s, your 67 and your 63 split windows are the ones
• 23:00
  that really demand the premiums.
• 23:02
  And those are the ones that are in your 300, 000 range,
• 23:06
  but there's a bunch, right.
• 23:07
  You know, just looking at the transactions.
• 23:09
  It's like, if you just have one and it's in good, reasonably original
• 23:12
  condition, then, then it's a very valuable thing, but they had good
• 23:15
  sales volumes for the other years.
• 23:17
  I've noticed a couple of things about the C2.
• 23:20
  I frequent the Corvette forum quite a bit.
• 23:22
  And I find that the convertibles sell for less than the coupes.
• 23:26
  It was for a while, the big blocks were going from a lot more, but now some
• 23:30
  of the people, because of the handling and the heavy weight of the 65 at 396
• 23:34
  and 427 and six and seven, some of the people are going back to this 327 motors.
• 23:39
  Because the handling, it's just easy to drive corners better, but
• 23:42
  yeah, definitely convertibles.
• 23:43
  If you're trying to find one for a better price, you're going to be better
• 23:46
  off getting a convertible than a coupe.
• 23:47
  My 67 that I currently still own that I am probably looking to sell
• 23:51
  this year because it's a pro street professionally built and done drag car.
• 23:57
  By a gentleman that owned multiple, I forget at one point, I had like 14
• 24:01
  Bloomington gold Corvettes, which is the top of the top Corvettes in his
• 24:04
  collection, a gentleman named Mark Tate.
• 24:06
  I bought this car off of, I worked on his team when I was a kid and they
• 24:10
  taught me a whole bunch of stuff.
• 24:11
  So I'm hoping that the modded market is still holding on.
• 24:17
  But to be honest, I had a 1967 big black car that was all original.
• 24:21
  It would probably be worth three times as much, at least.
• 24:24
  This car still may be worth up to 100, 000, but an all
• 24:26
  original one would be 300, 000.
• 24:28
  I see a lot of these cars coming out in the autocross world and honestly
• 24:33
  the road racing world a little bit, but more in the autocross world.
• 24:36
  Guys are finding beat up bodies and throwing chassis or tons of
• 24:40
  suspension pieces underneath them.
• 24:42
  There's a lot of them.
• 24:43
  I mean, if you go to a good guy's, uh, event, you're going to probably
• 24:46
  see four C2 Corvettes running versus all kinds of other stuff, including,
• 24:52
  you know, the C5 Corvette is a lot of good guys and they race each other.
• 24:56
  And I watched Danny Pop this weekend in his 1972 Corvette
• 25:00
  beat everybody, including C5s.
• 25:02
  In the autocross.
• 25:03
  So I think there's a lot of action with that C2 going on coming out of Barnes.
• 25:07
  People are finding them.
• 25:08
  They're just beat down and haven't been on the streets in decades.
• 25:12
  That's really what we're going to continue to see.
• 25:14
  People will try to restore them, but some of them, I just, I think
• 25:17
  the pro touring world is going to start gobbling the really bad ones
• 25:20
  up and people are going to start modifying these things right or wrong.
• 25:24
  I don't know the values in an original, but they're only original ones.
• 25:27
  And once they're not, it seems to pull the pricing down quite a bit,
• 25:31
  unless you invest a ton of money to make them extraordinarily original.
• 25:35
  You might be seeing a lot more pro touring modified vehicles out there, but when
• 25:39
  you go back in the day, that chassis was world class, and coming off the C1
• 25:45
  into the C2, what really made that car?
• 25:47
  Well, hell, the whole damn thing.
• 25:48
  I mean, you had a body that was spectacular.
• 25:51
  You had a choice of a real hardtop body.
• 25:53
  Poop for the day, there was nothing that could touch it in that price range.
• 25:56
  Yeah.
• 25:57
  The Jag was there and the Jag did damn good, but the Jag was finicky and
• 26:01
  the Jag was still a six cylinder car.
• 26:03
  So for that torque, you weren't going to beat the 327, not with that car.
• 26:07
  You know, the C3 is a different beast because it was around for so long and
• 26:11
  they actually did sell the snot out of it throughout the seventies, 40, 000 units
• 26:16
  a year, and just a ton of them sitting around, but it's not as love of a model.
• 26:21
  By any means.
• 26:21
  And that's a great segue into 1968 at the birth of the C3s.
• 26:26
  And the C3, yeah, they were selling in volume, but they were
• 26:29
  entering the dark era of the 1970s.
• 26:32
  You had your emissions controls.
• 26:33
  You had your efficiencies worried.
• 26:35
  You had your heavyweight bumpers.
• 26:36
  We were going into a whole experimental era for the government's demands.
• 26:40
  And yeah, we weren't sure what we could do.
• 26:43
  Corvette still held it alive.
• 26:44
  They were relying heavily on the C2 chassis.
• 26:47
  Which gives you an idea of how good it was.
• 26:50
  They didn't have to change very much for the C3.
• 26:53
  That motor sit back behind it for an axle.
• 26:56
  Is there a little bit?
• 26:56
  No, it's kind of right there.
• 26:58
  It looks like it would sit back because the hood's so long.
• 27:01
  It's not really, if you're kind of stretching for like,
• 27:03
  is it close to mid engine?
• 27:05
  Not really.
• 27:06
  The C4 is the one that brought that engine back into the firewall.
• 27:09
  That said, you had this drastically changed body.
• 27:12
  Again, the 427 segued into the 454, but we had the LT1, which was an incredible 350.
• 27:19
  So now you've got almost the power of a big block, but in a small
• 27:23
  block package revved like crazy.
• 27:25
  It was a fantastic car.
• 27:27
  I think the C3 is one of the most amazing Forbats ever made.
• 27:30
  If for no other reason.
• 27:32
  All the advances it gave to the point to where they segwayed over
• 27:35
  into the next Corvette's body style.
• 27:37
  C3, the longest production run of a Corvette by any
• 27:42
  stretch of the imagination.
• 27:43
  The only one that comes even close to that after that is the C4.
• 27:47
  But C3, 1968, All the way to 1982.
• 27:51
  And as you said, Don, based on the C2 chassis, continuing to
• 27:54
  evolve that, but we sort of got that long hot dog sheet, right?
• 27:58
  And that's why I always equate it with the Trans Am.
• 28:00
  And I know that they're not similar, but there's so many design cues
• 28:04
  and so much design language that's shared between the Trans Am.
• 28:08
  The Firebird, the Corvette at that time, it's the T tops, it's the rake
• 28:12
  of the windshield, things like that.
• 28:13
  Now, the early C3s with the little bobtail, with the 427, with, you know,
• 28:18
  Mako shark nose, because if you look at some of the Corvette prototype that
• 28:22
  came out in between, you know, there's the Aerovette and all these other things
• 28:25
  that they were working on at the time.
• 28:26
  Those early C3s were really cool, but as they got older, 20 plus years
• 28:31
  of production, you're like, they got bigger and they got heavier and
• 28:34
  they got rounder and they, you know, started to hide the five mile an hour
• 28:37
  bumpers and all those kinds of things.
• 28:39
  So C3s, good, bad, or indifferent.
• 28:42
  Are they the soft spot in the market?
• 28:44
  Are they even worth considering?
• 28:45
  What can you do with the C3?
• 28:47
  So for me, I segment the C3 into like two groups, 68 through 72, the chrome
• 28:52
  bumper stuff, kind of the evolution of that C2, they still have very sharp lines.
• 28:57
  If you look at the front and rear haunches and the way they designed
• 29:00
  it, they still have very sharp.
• 29:02
  Edges when you sit in one, like you can see the front fenders rise up over.
• 29:06
  It's just a great view from sitting back in one of those cars.
• 29:10
  The dashboards are amazing and see one, two, and three.
• 29:12
  I think there's some of the coolest dashboards that have been out the
• 29:16
  waterfall design down the center.
• 29:17
  There's a lot of cool things about those cars that they designed into them.
• 29:21
  The C3 got that fiber optic connected to the lights to kind of show you
• 29:26
  what's going on inside the car.
• 29:27
  And I really enjoy, like I said, the early, the first four years that
• 29:31
  73 has got a half a Chrome bumper.
• 29:33
  It's got a Chrome rear and a fiberglass rubber front,
• 29:35
  whatever you want to call that.
• 29:36
  And then they kind of did get a little bit, I don't know, boring, I guess.
• 29:40
  I mean, they can be exciting, but I kind of draw that line in those first four
• 29:43
  years of, to me, those are the ones that.
• 29:46
  Either I choose to focus on, or you know, my family maybe birthed me into that.
• 29:50
  And Chrome is where it's at.
• 29:51
  And anything without Chrome doesn't count.
• 29:53
  And it, it's interesting that if you look at the C3, especially the earlier
• 29:56
  one, you'll see the evolution from C two.
• 29:59
  Yeah, those haunches, they were in the C two, they're just
• 30:02
  much more pronounced in the C3.
• 30:04
  The C3 was like a Batmobile.
• 30:06
  I mean, that thing was just.
• 30:07
  all over the board.
• 30:08
  And when you looked at it from the side, you had that what they
• 30:10
  call the coke bottle body shape.
• 30:12
  But when you talk to some people, no, they see a woman laying on her side,
• 30:16
  you know, they see that half hourglass shape, which is very interesting.
• 30:19
  So they made the Corvette very voluptuous.
• 30:22
  And when you look down on the top, Again, you have a sort of hourglass shape.
• 30:27
  That car is incredible.
• 30:28
  I've come in the last couple years to like the later years more but I still
• 30:32
  don't love them as much as the first four years and I just am kind of okay with the
• 30:37
  Rest and i'm with you those later ones.
• 30:39
  I always kind of fall back to the movie with Mark Hamill and Annie Potts, exactly.
• 30:45
  Right?
• 30:45
  Like how much more gaudy could you make a C3?
• 30:48
  And that's the movie that sort of does it for you.
• 30:51
  I'm a big fan of the 81 Corvette because my dad actually bought my mom that car.
• 30:56
  And she had that.
• 30:56
  And I love those things.
• 30:57
  I remember riding in the back, no back seat, but in the hatch, you
• 31:00
  know, back days, it didn't matter.
• 31:01
  My brother took his driving test in that car, but I always
• 31:03
  have a soft spot for those.
• 31:04
  I'd love those too.
• 31:05
  And every time you see one of those, it reminds me of like something from
• 31:08
  Death Race or it's just, I don't know.
• 31:10
  I can't get over it.
• 31:11
  Believe it or not, when it comes to the C3 outside of the LT1, my
• 31:15
  favorite one was in fact, the 82.
• 31:17
  The last of the generation, the gaudiest, the biggest fenders,
• 31:21
  the aero flares every which way, frost fire injection on the side.
• 31:25
  That car was so proudly in your face.
• 31:28
  I am trash.
• 31:29
  I had to love it.
• 31:30
  I just absolutely had to love that car.
• 31:33
  Having driven Trans Ams and stuff.
• 31:35
  It's just like, God, are these cars.
• 31:37
  So alike to me now, you know eric you brought up trans am you brought a firebird
• 31:42
  camaro, etc And isn't it interesting and nobody wants to talk about this.
• 31:46
  Sorry guys I am a trans am guy to the core trans am hot corvette a lot about
• 31:51
  downforce and that was something that You just don't hear about because if
• 31:55
  anything, Corvette taught Trans Am.
• 31:57
  No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 31:58
  Who was the first one to be wearing all the skirts for downforce?
• 32:01
  Who had the spoiler?
• 32:02
  Who had all that stuff?
• 32:03
  Sorry, guys, that was Trans Am.
• 32:05
  And why did they do it?
• 32:06
  They figured out that downforce is a good thing and it would
• 32:08
  hold those Trans Ams down.
• 32:10
  Trans Ams were heavy enough to hold themselves down.
• 32:12
  They didn't need a hell of a lot of help.
• 32:13
  Corvettes did, and that largely came from the Pontiac school.
• 32:17
  You know, it was interesting you mentioned that, Don, about the Trans
• 32:20
  Am, because even the formula that you could get a 400 engine, even a
• 32:24
  455 up until 76 versus Chevy dropped the 454 after 74, and you could get
• 32:30
  a Pontiac 400 all the way up to 1979.
• 32:33
  So it was actually ahead of the Corvette in some ways.
• 32:36
  And they fought him a long time ago.
• 32:37
  It was a battle inside the General Motors.
• 32:39
  Yeah, the Trans Am was definitely Corvette's number one enemy in terms of,
• 32:42
  you know, the two brothers who fight all the time, you definitely had to fight.
• 32:46
  I mean, I mean, let's face it.
• 32:47
  It was Pontiac versus Chevy for a long time, you know, Trans Am
• 32:51
  and Corvette were really where it came down to neck and neck.
• 32:54
  And yeah, they had the 455.
• 32:56
  They had the 400, they had the four speed.
• 32:58
  They, I mean, they were, and the downforce again, when it came to the
• 33:01
  aerodynamics and a lot of people made fun of Trans Am, because it was so garish.
• 33:05
  It was so outlandish.
• 33:06
  It had all these scoops and flares and spoilers and wings and whatever.
• 33:09
  But when you drive a Trans Am and I mean, when you actually, and okay,
• 33:13
  Eric and Rick, because both of you were race car drivers, I'm just a putz who's
• 33:17
  running around trying to piss off cops.
• 33:19
  When you drive it around trying to piss off cops, you realize, God damn,
• 33:22
  this thing really does hold the road.
• 33:24
  This thing anticipates your every move.
• 33:27
  And then when you move over to a Corvette, you feel that DNA.
• 33:31
  You feel that and you wonder, okay, who had it first?
• 33:33
  Was it Corvette or was it Trans Am?
• 33:35
  Nobody wants to talk about that, but it's the truth.
• 33:37
  And the one with all the flares and all the scoops was the 82, which
• 33:41
  is ironic because it was, Probably the slowest one that they ever made
• 33:45
  easily fixable now when you get in that 82 Because it's so slow.
• 33:50
  It holds the road really really well Rick if you haven't had the opportunity
• 33:55
  get yourself an 82 and get out there on that track and you run the bejesus out
• 34:00
  of it Now don't mind when the beetles outrun you because they will right they
• 34:04
  will but you're gonna look cooler Losing.
• 34:07
  Okay, you're going to look cooler losing.
• 34:09
  My C3 is a little bit, again, if you don't know by now, guys, I like to modify cars.
• 34:15
  My 68 has full suspension from van steel.
• 34:19
  It's a big block car, but it's a more powerful big block and
• 34:22
  it has a pro charger on it.
• 34:23
  It's very rowdy.
• 34:24
  And so I don't really stick to the purest, even though again, they're worth
• 34:27
  more money, but I just can't do it.
• 34:30
  I think I enjoyed the C2 experience a little bit more, but it is nice to
• 34:33
  have the variety of having those big front wheel wells that pop up over
• 34:38
  everything else when you're driving a C3.
• 34:40
  That fender view alone is worth the price of admission.
• 34:43
  From a performance perspective, let's say taking a C3 to the track or to
• 34:46
  autocross, I mean, I grew up watching my dad compete against early bodied C3s.
• 34:52
  Well, 914 versus a C3 Corvette, that was like David versus Goliath, but they
• 34:57
  were amazing to watch those guys drive those cars at speed to see the footage
• 35:02
  of the early days of C3s at the track.
• 35:04
  But I don't see them anymore.
• 35:06
  I don't see them really at car shows that often anymore.
• 35:09
  What's happened to all the C3s?
• 35:10
  They made them for so long.
• 35:12
  Where have they all gone?
• 35:13
  That's a great question.
• 35:14
  And I think right now, especially if you look on the market, except for the C4.
• 35:19
  You can get a tremendous bargain for a C3, even some of the earlier
• 35:23
  ones, even the LT1s, they're getting up there as the big blocks are.
• 35:27
  They're almost all basket cases though, that's the thing.
• 35:30
  It's not like the car that got maintained.
• 35:32
  But I'm with you by the way, I just would like to point out, I would
• 35:35
  rather a pre emissions era C3.
• 35:38
  Post emissions era C3?
• 35:39
  Yeah, 1982.
• 35:41
  All the way.
• 35:41
  Full stand.
• 35:42
  Full mullet.
• 35:43
  Mullets are back now, by the way.
• 35:44
  Like, you see all these teenagers just running around with their damn mullets?
• 35:47
  They have no idea what they're doing.
• 35:48
  Put that kid in an 82 vet.
• 35:50
  He could afford it, too.
• 35:51
  When you go back to the 70s or those extreme early 80s, too,
• 35:54
  remember we were all crippled by Emissions, efficiency and safety.
• 36:00
  Corvette was trying to keep its head above water.
• 36:02
  Corvette was trying to be the performance car of America.
• 36:05
  And that's just my 10 cents, but you can get one hell of a bargain.
• 36:08
  You really can.
• 36:08
  Well, you have to understand too, in the, in what we call the Malays
• 36:11
  era, you had situation where.
• 36:13
  They were having this transition, the luxury car versus a sports car in order
• 36:17
  to keep it going and keep continuing to produce those units, you know, I
• 36:20
  keep rooting for the LT one 70 or 71.
• 36:22
  The first year for the LT one, and then 72 was the last year.
• 36:27
  And 72, if I remember correctly, it was the only year available with.
• 36:30
  Air conditioning, which Rob plays right into your conversation of, we
• 36:35
  had to make them more luxurious because we're selling a high end sports car.
• 36:39
  We can't justify the price because it's not so fast anymore.
• 36:42
  The LT1 kind of held that flag, but it came with air conditioning in 72.
• 36:46
  Now here's the funny part about the C3.
• 36:49
  I have grown to appreciate it more.
• 36:52
  As I've gotten older, maybe it's cause, you know, you lose taste buds as you get
• 36:56
  older, you know, you like more bitter things and you look at the C3 and go,
• 36:59
  you know, it doesn't taste so bad, but realistically the design language of the
• 37:03
  C3 changed so much in those 20 plus years.
• 37:07
  You had the T tops, you had the convertible, you had the
• 37:10
  fixed roof coupe, you had the one with the glass in the back.
• 37:13
  Like there's these things that carried from the C2 all the way into the C4.
• 37:18
  Those rear lights.
• 37:19
  Especially in the later C3s became iconic to Corvette from the C4 onwards.
• 37:24
  That was not a design cue from the early cars, those four round rear taillights.
• 37:29
  And so what I've noticed about a C3 is I check the door at the plane
• 37:34
  Jane, you know, with the rally wheels.
• 37:37
  I'm like, I'm not interested in those.
• 37:38
  What I'm interested in are the lowered wide body GTU M suspension.
• 37:44
  Bondurant, there's these crazy Resto modded c3s, especially in black the c3
• 37:50
  looks really good and i've come around on them And every time I see like another
• 37:55
  sima c3 or something on, you know, one of these restoration shows on netflix I'm,
• 38:00
  like man, I want a c3 but is it worth it?
• 38:04
  No Financially, it's not.
• 38:06
  I'd say that almost about any car.
• 38:08
  They're never worth throwing 20, 30, 50 grand at.
• 38:12
  Never.
• 38:13
  But, they are cool.
• 38:14
  I do agree with that.
• 38:15
  When you widen the already wide body, or the wide appearance, and you make
• 38:20
  them fit a big tire, you lower them down, you make them look real sexy,
• 38:24
  throw in a couple hundred extra horsepower, they really are cool and fun.
• 38:28
  They really are.
• 38:29
  If you just want a cruiser, the 180 horsepower, Perfect.
• 38:32
  If you want to have some fun, they can be very fun.
• 38:34
  They really can.
• 38:35
  The trick is to buy one that's already been done and only use the next
• 38:38
  person buying it because you never get back the money you dump into it.
• 38:41
  Very true.
• 38:42
  You've got to be really careful with those LT1s because yeah,
• 38:45
  a lot of them are trashed out.
• 38:47
  And the LT1 had a lot of very special parts in that engine
• 38:50
  that made it do what it did.
• 38:52
  If they're not rebuilt correctly, you're ruining the whole thing.
• 38:55
  And that's really tragic.
• 38:56
  They're going up to 70, 000.
• 38:58
  I mean, the value of those are really going through the roof right now.
• 39:01
  We'll probably hit six figures in the next couple of years.
• 39:03
  Wait, wait, wait.
• 39:03
  You're saying one of the most.
• 39:05
  Special.
• 39:06
  C threes is under a hundred grand.
• 39:08
  Isn't that a bargain?
• 39:09
  Yeah, that's a bargain.
• 39:10
  Yeah.
• 39:10
  So how soft is the C3 market then?
• 39:13
  Like how cheap can you get one of these things?
• 39:15
  Think about a regular C3.
• 39:17
  My God, if you go to 1975, if you get a 75 C3, what?
• 39:21
  Mark, Rick Rob?
• 39:22
  All day long.
• 39:23
  75.
• 39:24
  Five.
• 39:24
  10.
• 39:25
  15,000.
• 39:26
  10,000 For a mint condition?
• 39:28
  One.
• 39:28
  Yeah.
• 39:28
  Yeah.
• 39:29
  Maybe 12.
• 39:29
  And yet you've still got the chassis.
• 39:31
  And you've still got the look.
• 39:32
  So to Rick's point, you could modify the bejesus out of that Corvette and you've
• 39:36
  still got a great chassis already, but if you make it even better, guess what?
• 39:40
  You've just taken a 10, 000 Corvette.
• 39:42
  I don't know how much money you're going to dump into it, but all of a
• 39:44
  sudden you've got a performance car.
• 39:46
  Okay.
• 39:46
  So, so Rick, I know it's not worth it, but what's the aftermarket like on a C3?
• 39:50
  How moddable are they?
• 39:51
  They're pretty good.
• 39:52
  So there's a company in Florida called Van Steel that makes almost anything
• 39:55
  you need to put underneath those things.
• 39:57
  They make remarkable, beautiful.
• 39:59
  Stuff I've raced against cars.
• 40:00
  I've driven a few, but I probably raced against more that
• 40:03
  have pretty simple packages.
• 40:05
  I mean, they use the same frame and typically like the same arms,
• 40:09
  but they'll put a really good set of like JRI shocks under it,
• 40:12
  they'll do some spring adjustments.
• 40:15
  They'll do some solid bushing or blocks in the back of them to kind of soak
• 40:20
  up some of the rubbery, squishy stuff.
• 40:22
  And they're fast stock brakes with a good pad.
• 40:25
  They are really fast specifically on an autocross.
• 40:27
  I mean, road course is a little different, but on an autocross, they can compete.
• 40:32
  They're a lot of fun.
• 40:32
  Are you a sinner because it's no longer original?
• 40:35
  I don't think so because you've got the darkest era of Corvette
• 40:39
  and now you're making it fun.
• 40:40
  Now you're making it more enjoyable.
• 40:42
  Now you're making it.
• 40:42
  I mean, Eric will tell you all day long.
• 40:44
  I'm more of a handling guy than a speed guy.
• 40:46
  I really don't give a shit about horsepower, torque, all that stuff.
• 40:48
  It's fun.
• 40:49
  It's cool.
• 40:50
  I grew up Fiat.
• 40:50
  Believe me, I have the art of driving slow mastered, but I know about handling.
• 40:55
  And I think that's why I celebrate the 82 Corvette so much, because if you drive
• 40:59
  one, you'll see what I'm talking about.
• 41:00
  They're absolutely incredible the way they're put together.
• 41:03
  I don't know if it's that whole last of the breed thing or what, but
• 41:06
  they're You take a 74, five or six, modify it to where it's just fun.
• 41:11
  I'm not even talking about competing with racing or the under thing.
• 41:14
  Make it fun.
• 41:14
  If you're keeping her on the road, then you're doing a good thing, right?
• 41:17
  I mean, especially for something in that volume, I think in the C3,
• 41:20
  you know, look at sales volume.
• 41:22
  So the biggest year was 79 sold over 50, 000 Corvettes.
• 41:26
  So I think those late seventies models.
• 41:28
  A 1979 four speed looked really clean, clean interior,
• 41:32
  look good on bring a trailer.
• 41:34
  Not exactly the most value conscious buyers on bring a trailer transacted
• 41:39
  just two months ago for 13, 000.
• 41:43
  What?
• 41:44
  That's a lot.
• 41:44
  What?
• 41:45
  To me, that's a steal.
• 41:47
  I can't buy a WRX for 13 grand.
• 41:49
  Are you kidding me?
• 41:51
  I mean, and you know, yeah, of course, if you're not in California, you can
• 41:55
  rip all the emissions crap off that.
• 41:56
  And I mean, without even doing any real modifications, you can
• 41:59
  make that a nasty, nasty platform.
• 42:01
  You should buy everybody a C3 for Christmas.
• 42:04
  It was clean.
• 42:05
  It looked good.
• 42:05
  It was black.
• 42:06
  I mean, it's not amazing.
• 42:07
  I'm not trying to say it was made, but it was clean.
• 42:09
  You know, the good interior was clean and all together and looked good.
• 42:12
  It wasn't like torn and ratted out or anything at all.
• 42:15
  You know, what's interesting now, going back to the Trans Am versus Corvette.
• 42:18
  Is the fact that the Trans Am in 1979 is worth easily double the price of a
• 42:22
  Corvette, the nicest Corvette, unless you have an anniversary model from
• 42:25
  78, you might get a little closer, but they always were lower in value.
• 42:29
  They never came back up to the hype amount when they were back in the day.
• 42:32
  The Trans Am though fell in the shadow.
• 42:34
  If you remember a few years ago, when.
• 42:36
  Mopar went absolutely psychotic.
• 42:39
  You couldn't touch a Cuda.
• 42:40
  You couldn't touch a Challenger.
• 42:41
  You couldn't touch any of that.
• 42:42
  Well, guys, realize, well, I'm not going to spend that on
• 42:45
  the Charger, whatever it was.
• 42:47
  I'm not going to spend it because of whatever reason I've got.
• 42:49
  They started scoping out the Trans Ams.
• 42:51
  All of you will remember for the longest time, nobody wanted a Trans Am.
• 42:54
  That was the Rednecks muscle car.
• 42:56
  That was the Maserati of the trailer park, the car nobody wanted.
• 42:59
  It was embarrassing to have a Trans Am.
• 43:01
  Now, all of a sudden, and I think largely because of those Chryslers,
• 43:05
  Grand van got caught up in it and all of a sudden the prices are going up.
• 43:07
  Rob, you brought it up too.
• 43:09
  They, in my opinion, they were the last of the Mohicans, man.
• 43:12
  They had their 400 cubic inches in 1979.
• 43:15
  If you had a four speed, you had a Pontiac 400.
• 43:18
  If you had the automatic, you had the Oldsmobile, which is
• 43:21
  a very, very durable motor.
• 43:23
  It's just not very exciting.
• 43:25
  The Pontiac.
• 43:26
  Had more pep to it.
• 43:27
  Long live Burt Reynolds!
• 43:29
  Yeah, and it's true.
• 43:31
  Smoking the bandit put those cards on the map.
• 43:33
  And I don't want to open Pandora's box here, but that sort of legacy
• 43:37
  for Pania continues in 1982 with the advent of Knight Rider.
• 43:42
  But we won't go there.
• 43:43
  Cause I know that's an hour long presentation to itself.
• 43:46
  But what I want to do is jump us sort of now into the digital age, because we
• 43:50
  could probably talk about CA3 for the rest of the night and what we could do
• 43:53
  with it and where we could go with it.
• 43:54
  And I think there's a lot of potential there.
• 43:56
  So I want to put a pin in it, but 1983, I think a lot of our
• 43:59
  listeners may or may not know.
• 44:01
  There is no Corvette.
• 44:02
  In 1983, there is only one in existence.
• 44:05
  Apparently, allegedly it's at NCM and it ended up in the sinkhole when the middle
• 44:10
  of the museum collapsed or whatever.
• 44:12
  It was a prototype in 1983, but there were no Corvettes built in 1983.
• 44:17
  The first year of the C4, a whole new car designed from the
• 44:21
  ground up yet again, like the C2.
• 44:23
  But taking some of the design language from the C3 forward into the digital
• 44:27
  era in 1984 and what I like to call the Barbie Corvette, because Barbie
• 44:32
  was associated with the C4 Corvette.
• 44:34
  A lot of things were associated with the C4 Corvette.
• 44:36
  You started seeing it on television.
• 44:38
  You started seeing it with celebrities, much like the C2.
• 44:40
  Suddenly there's this marketing machine behind the all new Corvette.
• 44:45
  And one of the things I've learned, and I've come to respect about the
• 44:48
  C4 Corvette, and I've coached in a lot of them, you know, with its funky
• 44:51
  digital dashboard and all this fun stuff, there's a lot of restomotors,
• 44:56
  Mark Talley being one of them out west, you know, Gotham Garage and all that.
• 44:59
  A lot of guys love to harvest the C4 to build other things, because it's probably
• 45:05
  one of the most versatile chassis.
• 45:07
  The Corvette ever built?
• 45:08
  Am I wrong in this?
• 45:09
  Part of it's the A arms, the leaf spring design.
• 45:13
  I think they lend themselves very easily to, we'll call that the pro
• 45:17
  touring world, or other vehicles.
• 45:19
  Plus I think it's the time frame, as those were kind of expiring in the later 90s,
• 45:25
  the pro touring really started picking up.
• 45:26
  I think people were just scavenging those pieces off of a high, high, high
• 45:31
  performance vehicle in their minds.
• 45:33
  And putting it in their older vehicles.
• 45:35
  It was good timing and a great product.
• 45:38
  The C4 is to Corvette what the C2 was to Corvette.
• 45:43
  The chassis was completely re engineered.
• 45:45
  It was a whole new car from the ground up.
• 45:47
  It was very exciting.
• 45:48
  Chevrolet dumped a lot of money.
• 45:50
  Into developing that car.
• 45:51
  And if I remember correctly, part of the reason you mentioned
• 45:54
  83, they didn't build it.
• 45:55
  They had a huge changeover.
• 45:57
  It was such a drastic changeover.
• 45:58
  They couldn't go into production.
• 46:00
  The retooling costs and everything.
• 46:02
  Yeah.
• 46:02
  The assembly line loan went through such a absolute change.
• 46:06
  It was incredible.
• 46:07
  But also the key bar roof suddenly became a Targa.
• 46:10
  And what's interesting about that, that wasn't supposed to be the C4
• 46:14
  originally was supposed to have.
• 46:17
  And there was one guy at Chevrolet and one guy specifically at Corvette and
• 46:21
  they both had the same idea at the same time, but came from different schools
• 46:24
  of thought, one guy was looking at an ad and he saw a Trans Am and he saw the T
• 46:29
  bar and, you know, it was a dealership ad, whatever, but there's that T bar.
• 46:33
  And he thought, you know, Corvette should be better than Trans Am.
• 46:36
  We shouldn't have to rely on a T bar roof.
• 46:38
  We should have full open section up there.
• 46:40
  That'd be better.
• 46:41
  The other side of the factory, there's another guy.
• 46:44
  Who's watching Magnum PI and he's seeing that Ferrari 308 with the open roof.
• 46:49
  And he's thinking that is what we need.
• 46:51
  That is exactly what we should be doing.
• 46:53
  And as it turned out, they had an engineer who was very big on Porsche.
• 46:56
  Well, gee, golly, gosh, guess who put the Targa on the map?
• 47:00
  Portia.
• 47:00
  So you had these three minds coming together and they realized, yeah, yeah,
• 47:04
  yeah, we got to get rid of that bar.
• 47:05
  Let's open this up.
• 47:06
  Well, how do we do that?
• 47:07
  Well, you got to stiffen that frame.
• 47:09
  You got to stiffen that chassis.
• 47:10
  You got to stiffen that body.
• 47:11
  A lot of re engineering went into the Corvette, which slowed it down again.
• 47:16
  So you had the factory on one side, slowing everything down, and then
• 47:19
  you had a slight re engineering of an already seriously amazing chassis.
• 47:24
  I mean, that chassis was so amazing.
• 47:26
  But when they brought out ZR1, there was not a lot of
• 47:29
  modifications that had to be done.
• 47:30
  No, they really weren't, but we'll get to ZR1, but I want to turn to William
• 47:35
  for a moment and I want him to explain to us as a previous C4 owner, how did
• 47:39
  you make the transition from Fiero to C4?
• 47:42
  What was that like?
• 47:44
  You know, done with college and whatnot, and I wanted to get a car.
• 47:48
  At first I was going to get an M3.
• 47:49
  I was at the dealership and I looked at M3 and the sales individual was attractive.
• 47:54
  I asked her out.
• 47:55
  She said, no.
• 47:56
  So I said, all right, I went and bought a C4 vet instead.
• 48:01
  Man.
• 48:02
  Yeah.
• 48:03
  So I got myself a black on black six feet, man.
• 48:06
  That thing was crap.
• 48:06
  I met my wife with that car.
• 48:08
  I think it was great.
• 48:09
  It was a great car.
• 48:10
  It wasn't like crazy powerful.
• 48:12
  I mean, 300 horsepower now, but I mean.
• 48:13
  Still a crap load of fun, man.
• 48:15
  I had some really good times at being 24 years old and having that car and single.
• 48:19
  Oof.
• 48:20
  You were pretending to be Ian Ziering in the 90210, you know,
• 48:24
  showing up in the black Corvette.
• 48:25
  Oh yeah.
• 48:26
  Did your mullet get longer or shorter when you went from the Fiero to the C4?
• 48:30
  Oh, it got shorter.
• 48:31
  No, my Fiero, man, my mullet, I even permed that thing, man.
• 48:35
  Make it curly.
• 48:35
  I bleached the top and then like I'd make it permed.
• 48:38
  in the back.
• 48:38
  Oh, yeah, man.
• 48:39
  But we make fun.
• 48:41
  It is par for the era.
• 48:43
  But the reason I bring up the comparison between the Fiero and the Corvette is you
• 48:46
  went from a mid engine sports car unique into itself to this front mount rear
• 48:52
  drive near 50, 50 weight distribution.
• 48:54
  Cause they were shooting for that back then, you know, again, like Don
• 48:57
  said, alluding to Porsche and the nine 44 and some of the other stuff that
• 49:00
  was happening, you know, around the world in that type of vehicle design.
• 49:04
  What was it like making the jump?
• 49:06
  Did you enjoy driving the C4 more or did you kind of look back and go,
• 49:10
  man, that Fiero was a lot more fun?
• 49:12
  Well, you got to understand.
• 49:12
  I also, I had a Mustang GT between those two.
• 49:15
  Oh boy.
• 49:16
  I'll put it this way.
• 49:17
  If I had my options looking at, and I'm not worried about price looking at, but
• 49:21
  if I, it was a beautiful Fiero GT 88 with the fastback look to it, not the
• 49:26
  notchback, I had a notchback one, or a C4, but I'd probably take the Fiero.
• 49:30
  Cause like to Don's point, it's not about the speed stuff.
• 49:32
  That Fiero handled.
• 49:34
  Like a go kart, no horsepower, but that thing was so fun to drive.
• 49:38
  So fun to drive.
• 49:39
  I mean, it was small, it was tight, you know, and it's unfortunate that they
• 49:43
  got killed off from my understanding.
• 49:44
  You know, they had something going in the works that was going to
• 49:48
  be the next generation one that was going to just be phenomenal.
• 49:52
  They're going to fix everything more horsepower.
• 49:53
  I mean, just do what they want to do.
• 49:55
  Basically be a mid engine Corvette with the Pontiac badge, but I ain't happening.
• 50:00
  So I just went by the wayside.
• 50:02
  I love that for him.
• 50:03
  I mean, it's just, it's phenomenal.
• 50:05
  And I'm glad you went there because that is something that we're going to talk
• 50:08
  about, even on the Porsche side of this conversation, it's that point at which
• 50:13
  no other car in the fleet can outperform, let's say the nine 11 or the Corvette.
• 50:19
  They're not the flagship because there's other cars.
• 50:21
  In the portfolio, like the Cadillacs and this and that, they can generate more
• 50:25
  revenue and more prestige and all this, but from a sports car, from a performance
• 50:30
  perspective, you don't want the little brother outperforming the flagship sports
• 50:36
  car because Corvette, at this point, C4.
• 50:39
  You saw a ton of people get behind the C4, like we mentioned
• 50:42
  earlier, just like the C2.
• 50:43
  Now you had Bondurant cars and you had guys like Andy Pilgrim and
• 50:47
  Johnny O'Connell and Brutal Roots.
• 50:49
  I mean, you name it.
• 50:50
  All these famous names running C4 Corvettes.
• 50:53
  They were freaking everywhere.
• 50:54
  Everybody had a C4 Corvette.
• 50:56
  There were series designed around that car in the 80s.
• 51:00
  Nobody's going to build anything from a GM parts bin that's going
• 51:03
  to be better than the Corvette.
• 51:05
  Even if the C4 by today's standards is sort of a dog at 300 horsepower, it
• 51:10
  wasn't really anything to write home about even then, because everybody
• 51:13
  else was making 300 horsepower as well.
• 51:15
  Think about the middle eighties.
• 51:17
  Nissan's making 300, Porsche's making 300.
• 51:19
  Everybody's making all these power numbers, but we got this new Corvette
• 51:23
  and people are rallying behind it.
• 51:25
  And it's exciting.
• 51:26
  I had an 85 Corvette.
• 51:27
  And it had a very quirky four plus three transmission.
• 51:30
  The early ones had a lot of problems, a lot of recalls, and
• 51:32
  we're kind of trashy, unfortunately.
• 51:34
  Here they have horrible rear main seal leak problems and
• 51:37
  all sorts of issues like that.
• 51:38
  You just have to watch the electronics.
• 51:40
  The electronics are real tricky.
• 51:41
  Those digital dashboards are so cool.
• 51:43
  They're very Knight Rider.
• 51:44
  But man, there's a lot of wires.
• 51:47
  And the thing I don't like about cars of this era or GM or whatever, is when
• 51:52
  they started to be so technologically advanced that they almost made them
• 51:56
  so difficult to work on so much stuff in their redundancies and one thing
• 52:01
  fails and it's pointing you in 17 different directions to try to fix it.
• 52:05
  They're a little quirky, but a little goofy, but they're neat.
• 52:08
  If you sit in one, they sit differently.
• 52:10
  You sit like in an inside a bathtub, like your arm.
• 52:13
  It's almost resting on the door sill.
• 52:15
  It's a very unique feel.
• 52:16
  I do enjoy driving them again.
• 52:18
  They're not fast by my definition.
• 52:19
  They're just not fast, but you can make anything fast, but they're fun.
• 52:23
  They're beautiful cars.
• 52:24
  They wrote nicely.
• 52:25
  In fact, I had driven a Fiero and it was felt similar to the Corvette, even
• 52:28
  though it was rear engine and less power.
• 52:30
  Chassis wise it felt similar, but the question is, is the C4 second longest
• 52:34
  running production Corvette ever?
• 52:36
  They made a gajillion of them.
• 52:38
  How soft is the market?
• 52:39
  Are they worth owning today?
• 52:41
  And what can you really do with a C4 Corvette?
• 52:43
  The secret sauce for the C4 is to get a 96.
• 52:46
  With a six speed because you have 330 horsepower also comes in the, in the
• 52:50
  grand sport version, the grand sport version costs 40, 000 now to buy on
• 52:54
  a used market, but you can pick up a 96 with a six speed in the teens.
• 52:58
  That's the real secret of all that whole era to get that one year.
• 53:01
  What's nice with the 96 too, it's got the widened back end.
• 53:05
  It's got the ZR1 body base.
• 53:06
  Is what it has on it.
• 53:07
  I agree to it.
• 53:08
  If the 96 way to go.
• 53:09
  Grand sports are gorgeous cars.
• 53:11
  If the market is soft on a C4, C4, C3, where's our investment money going?
• 53:15
  If you want to take a C4 and just do whatever the hell you want,
• 53:19
  just buy the hell out of it, whatever, you know, 94 or older.
• 53:23
  I like Rob said, you know, 96, especially if you're buying the grand
• 53:26
  sport, even got the collector edition one, those are the ones, if you're
• 53:29
  going to want to buy it, keep value.
• 53:31
  But again, you're not going to drive it a ton because you don't
• 53:33
  want to be putting the miles on it.
• 53:35
  They look phenomenal.
• 53:36
  I love the paint jobs on the grand sports.
• 53:38
  They just look great.
• 53:39
  But if you're going to go 94 or older, I mean, you could have at it because I
• 53:42
  mean, they just build a crap load of them.
• 53:44
  There's so many aftermarket things out there you can do with them.
• 53:47
  Companies that can supply you with whatever the hell you want.
• 53:50
  Absolutely.
• 53:51
  They're a modern car.
• 53:53
  They're fast.
• 53:54
  They're fun.
• 53:54
  They're dirt cheap.
• 53:55
  One sold last month, 40th anniversary edition, six speed, 80, 000 miles,
• 54:00
  pretty clean all the way around.
• 54:02
  Six grand.
• 54:03
  Six?
• 54:03
  Six grand on bring a trailer.
• 54:05
  That's super cheap.
• 54:06
  So I just worked on a 93.
• 54:09
  Again, nothing that comes in my place is normal.
• 54:11
  So it has like 23, 000 miles and a supercharger on it, like
• 54:15
  a Paxton stuffed under the hood.
• 54:17
  Sat for like 10 years and they're really debating whether to sell it or to fix it.
• 54:21
  And I'm like, well, if I fix it, you're going to have thousands and
• 54:23
  thousands of dollars to fix it.
• 54:26
  Nobody wanted to work on it because they're a nightmare to work on.
• 54:28
  Especially with this much 1990s antiquated technology.
• 54:36
  It's very cool.
• 54:38
  And the only reason I really took that on is because I had built one
• 54:41
  prior with similar same stuff on it.
• 54:44
  So I was familiar with everything about that.
• 54:46
  Era of performance parts true speed parts from that era But I'm blown away
• 54:51
  by your six thousand dollar price tag because I was trying to talk to them
• 54:53
  about pricing and i'm like I don't know if you're gonna get what you want out
• 54:56
  of it, but it could if you get the right buyer I didn't know I don't I don't need
• 55:01
  anymore, but they end up keeping it.
• 55:03
  I fix it for them They keep it.
• 55:04
  They drive it.
• 55:05
  They love it But six grand is a steal for that era of car.
• 55:09
  If it's transacting for that on that, then what are you going to find on
• 55:13
  Facebook marketplace or, or whatever?
• 55:16
  All right.
• 55:16
  So the grant sports untouchable in some respects and the ZR1 is as well.
• 55:20
  Don mentioned it earlier.
• 55:21
  The ZR1 was sort of the crescendo for the C4.
• 55:24
  We're going to throw as much horsepower as we can, all the good stuff,
• 55:26
  all the bells, all the whistles.
• 55:27
  And even more special paint than the grand sport.
• 55:29
  It came in some really amazing colors.
• 55:31
  Like one of my favorites is C4 ZR1 holo green, which is a dark, dark green.
• 55:36
  It looks black from far away.
• 55:38
  Absolutely gorgeous.
• 55:39
  You know, special wheels, the whole nine yards.
• 55:41
  That's where we started to see the Genesis.
• 55:43
  Of things like the Z06 and all these other packages.
• 55:46
  Yeah, granted they always existed in the Chevy catalog, but those
• 55:49
  GSs, you know, ZR1, stuff like that.
• 55:51
  Now we're starting to see these new evolutions of Corvettes
• 55:55
  and make them, you know, more special sort of like Porsche has.
• 55:57
  But the one thing I can't get over.
• 55:59
  I look at them and I respect them because I grew up around those cars,
• 56:03
  the Corvette of my generation and Mark's generation, but I look at them now
• 56:07
  because there's one in my neighborhood.
• 56:09
  I passed this guy drives it around.
• 56:10
  It's like his daily driver and he's always working on it and whatever.
• 56:13
  He enjoys it.
• 56:14
  He drives it, but I look at it and it hasn't aged well.
• 56:18
  You know what I mean?
• 56:18
  It feels like something from the eighties.
• 56:20
  It's like looking at a tape deck and you're like, yeah, that's cool.
• 56:24
  But you're like, that's not cool.
• 56:26
  At the exact same time.
• 56:27
  Am I wrong?
• 56:28
  Am I crazy?
• 56:29
  I think what you're dealing with is what we call the Aqua Velva syndrome.
• 56:32
  Oh boy.
• 56:33
  Aqua Velva has been around since world war one, basically.
• 56:36
  And let's face it, we grow up.
• 56:38
  Our dads use it.
• 56:39
  We hate it.
• 56:40
  We have polo.
• 56:41
  We have whatever.
• 56:42
  And ultimately we end Velva at some point in our life because works.
• 56:48
  I really think that's where C4 is going to go because right now, I damn right.
• 56:52
  Okay.
• 56:52
  That car is as eighties as they come.
• 56:55
  There's only one other car that might be more eighties, maybe two, and I'm
• 56:59
  not going to get into them for Eric's sake, but that car falls right in
• 57:03
  there with those two other cars, C3 when C4 was brand new, C3 was okay.
• 57:09
  Break out the bell bottoms, break out the mullet, break out the gold chain.
• 57:12
  Let's get some chest hair going on here because we're going back to the 70s.
• 57:16
  It was a horrible car.
• 57:17
  It suffered from the same problem Trans Am had.
• 57:20
  It was do 70s.
• 57:21
  Nobody wanted anything to do with it.
• 57:23
  And now here we are, the C3 and the Trans Am are both, damn, that's cool.
• 57:28
  But the C4.
• 57:30
  That's why I say it's like Malibu Barbie.
• 57:32
  It's all plastic.
• 57:33
  And you look at it, it's all sort of one piece of fiberglass, but at
• 57:37
  the time it was space age, right?
• 57:40
  It was different.
• 57:41
  It was new.
• 57:41
  It was sleek.
• 57:42
  I don't know.
• 57:43
  I don't think it's aged well.
• 57:44
  So you're saying, is it worth buying?
• 57:46
  I do think it's worth buying.
• 57:47
  I really do.
• 57:48
  And I am a C4 fan and I don't really fit in them very well, but what
• 57:52
  they did for that chassis was art.
• 57:53
  And yes, those 90s C4s, if you can get one, oh my God,
• 57:58
  they are a game changing car.
• 57:59
  In fact, if you drive one of those late C4s and then you drive a C5, there's
• 58:05
  not a hell of a lot of difference.
• 58:06
  And in fact, I would venture to say, I'd rather have the C4.
• 58:09
  It's got more personality.
• 58:10
  I don't think people realize the C5 carried over much like C3 did from C2.
• 58:16
  So it's sort of this repetition.
• 58:18
  We're going to use the C4 chassis.
• 58:19
  We're going to build the C5.
• 58:20
  We're going to make it awesome.
• 58:22
  The only thing I think the C5 suffered from design wise was what
• 58:25
  I call the marshmallow syndrome.
• 58:27
  Everything from the nineties was soft and pillowy and just gooey.
• 58:31
  And C5 is that to me, that's just me personally.
• 58:34
  The C4, where it loses its aqua velveness is the fact that the C5, the C6, and I'll
• 58:42
  even go as far as to say the C7, every single one of them goes back to the C4.
• 58:48
  It's like this.
• 58:49
  never ending story of just generations of Corvette after that.
• 58:53
  In fact, I just had an argument with a guy about this the other day.
• 58:56
  As a Lamborghini fan, again, nothing against Ferrari, but
• 58:58
  I really do love Lamborghini.
• 59:00
  I have a problem with Lamborghini though, which is they've got
• 59:03
  to stop chasing the Countach.
• 59:04
  Yeah.
• 59:05
  Ever since Kuntosh, the Diablo, well, it's still got that flat front end.
• 59:10
  You can see that its father was Kuntosh.
• 59:12
  Well, then there was, what was the one after that?
• 59:14
  Murcielago and the Gallardo.
• 59:16
  Murcielago, that's the one I'm thinking of.
• 59:18
  Same thing, long front end, funny little doors.
• 59:20
  It's still, you know, that its grandfather was Kuntosh.
• 59:23
  And then there was Aventador, which you know, its great grandfather.
• 59:27
  Now it's the same thing over at Corvette.
• 59:29
  They built C4 and it was like, holy cow, we have hit the formula.
• 59:33
  And so the C5 comes along much improved, much better car, but
• 59:38
  it still uses so much of the C4.
• 59:40
  The C6 used a lot of the C5, which it all goes back to the C4.
• 59:45
  So while we still see the C4 as Aqua Velva, much like C2, it begat the C3,
• 59:51
  even though they look nothing alike, underneath they were all the same.
• 59:55
  And I think that's where C4 is going to come on real strong here at some point.
• 59:59
  Nothing against C5.
• 1:00:00
  As you say, it's a marshmallow car, the C5.
• 1:00:03
  I don't know.
• 1:00:03
  It's kind of the tweener.
• 1:00:05
  You know, the C6 came out and was like, now we got a car.
• 1:00:07
  But the C5 was like that stop gap of hold on guys.
• 1:00:10
  We're building something better.
• 1:00:11
  But it's a hell of a car.
• 1:00:13
  It's the car I go back to every time to people that say, I want
• 1:00:17
  to go to the track or I want to autocross, or I want to get into road
• 1:00:20
  racing and the, what should I buy?
• 1:00:21
  You should buy a C5.
• 1:00:23
  That's what you should buy.
• 1:00:24
  But I feel that the C5 sixes and sevens got tighter.
• 1:00:28
  They got more jet fighter.
• 1:00:29
  Like you're in it.
• 1:00:30
  Those cars remind me of what Mazda did with the third gen RX 7s.
• 1:00:34
  You sort of put them on like a glove or a pair of pants.
• 1:00:37
  So C5 did have a short lifespan, right?
• 1:00:40
  97 to 2004.
• 1:00:42
  And we don't need to get into production numbers, but what I think
• 1:00:45
  really puts C5 on the map, two things.
• 1:00:47
  Zero six.
• 1:00:49
  Yes, with a notch back.
• 1:00:50
  Love it.
• 1:00:50
  If I could buy another Corvette, that's what I wanna buy.
• 1:00:52
  I love that car.
• 1:00:53
  The fixed roof coop is another thing we can argue about for a long time.
• 1:00:56
  But I think the other thing is really kind of stepping away from the Firehawk
• 1:01:01
  series, the Bonderant series, all these series that were designed around C four.
• 1:01:06
  Now GM comes to the table and says.
• 1:01:09
  Have you met Jake?
• 1:01:10
  Would you like to be introduced to Team Corvette?
• 1:01:12
  The C5R puts Corvette on the global stage in a big way.
• 1:01:18
  I mean, they were already winning races.
• 1:01:20
  We know that they were competitive, but not until C5 did they just basically
• 1:01:25
  give the full bird salute to everybody and say, we're here to kick ass.
• 1:01:29
  I agree.
• 1:01:30
  That C5R was amazing.
• 1:01:32
  I mean, it got everybody's blood pumping.
• 1:01:35
  And if you liked Corvettes or like American muscle car, sports car, whatever,
• 1:01:41
  you really gravitated towards that thing.
• 1:01:43
  That thing probably sold a lot of C5 Corvettes.
• 1:01:46
  I would venture to say that car converted a lot of people to like Corvette.
• 1:01:50
  Even 911 diehards, whatever your sports car was, you saw that C5R and
• 1:01:54
  you thought, Whoa, wait a minute.
• 1:01:56
  It really was a game changer.
• 1:01:58
  Again, going back to 1960, those four Corvettes at Le Mans, those
• 1:02:02
  were the ones that made people stand up and take notice of, Whoa,
• 1:02:05
  maybe Chevy's got something here.
• 1:02:07
  I think the same thing happened with that C5R.
• 1:02:09
  There is something to the sound of the C5R and the later C6 and C7Rs and so on.
• 1:02:16
  Suddenly you're like, wait, what was that?
• 1:02:17
  You don't just hear the car.
• 1:02:19
  You.
• 1:02:19
  Feel a C5 are on the track.
• 1:02:21
  It's just got this, it's like an AMG Mercedes.
• 1:02:23
  It's like in you when it's going around and the previous Corvettes didn't have
• 1:02:28
  that, yeah, they had a great sound, but it didn't affect you the same way at
• 1:02:31
  the racetrack, you know, when you're there in the middle of all of it.
• 1:02:34
  So I think that's part of the hype, but also there's a new rivalry
• 1:02:38
  that comes to the table, which I think really sets Corvette apart.
• 1:02:42
  It was no longer.
• 1:02:43
  Corvette versus the world, especially Corvette versus Porsche,
• 1:02:46
  it was Corvette versus Viper.
• 1:02:48
  And you saw that with C5 and it was amazing.
• 1:02:52
  I mean, I remember being glued to the television watching what I thought at
• 1:02:55
  the time was one of the hottest battles in, you know, ALMS and Le Mans and
• 1:03:00
  all these different series that they were competing in against each other.
• 1:03:03
  Dodge versus Chevy.
• 1:03:05
  I mean, mind blowing stuff.
• 1:03:06
  Yeah.
• 1:03:06
  I always picture Earnhardt, senior and junior racing that Daytona.
• 1:03:11
  It always sticks in my head with that car.
• 1:03:12
  A hundred percent.
• 1:03:13
  And unfortunately things turned out the way they did for Dale senior.
• 1:03:17
  But oddly enough, C5 also sort of died just shortly thereafter.
• 1:03:21
  So it's sort of weird, like.
• 1:03:22
  How all that worked, but I think C5 left this whole new impression.
• 1:03:26
  You know, they talk about what you imprint on, you know, we imprinted
• 1:03:29
  on C4 or whatever, but the C5, holy crap, that's just a game changer.
• 1:03:34
  But would I buy one today?
• 1:03:36
  The C5s that sell for money are actually bodied as C1 or C2.
• 1:03:42
  They do one of those conversions.
• 1:03:44
  Like they take the C5 chassis and they put like a C1 or C2 body on top of it.
• 1:03:48
  And then you can sell it for 150 K.
• 1:03:50
  Of course, you probably spent 200 grand building.
• 1:03:53
  So where does that put the base model?
• 1:03:56
  Let's say Z51 versus the Z06 in the market.
• 1:04:00
  In the last 12 months, we've got 181 transactions on bring a trailer for C5.
• 1:04:06
  It's kind of funny.
• 1:04:07
  Like your Z06 is transacting for the same as you're like
• 1:04:11
  commemorative edition convertible.
• 1:04:14
  You know, they're all kind of in the mid twenties.
• 1:04:15
  That's really good for a Z06.
• 1:04:17
  So the early C5.
• 1:04:19
  The higher mile ones going for in the teens, 95 percent of
• 1:04:23
  transactions are between 20 and 40 K most of them between 20 and 30.
• 1:04:28
  And this is why we say as a starter track car, they're fantastic because you could
• 1:04:32
  go out today and buy a spec Miata for 30, 000, or you could buy a Z06 and slap tires
• 1:04:38
  on it and do nothing else for 30 grand.
• 1:04:41
  And go to the track.
• 1:04:42
  I think I would only look at a C five at the lens of I'm going to the
• 1:04:45
  track and I want a cheap track car.
• 1:04:47
  Yeah, I was gonna say, I wouldn't have one for a daily or just to drive around.
• 1:04:51
  I probably would, to be honest.
• 1:04:52
  If I had a really clean one, I'd drive it for a daily and drive around.
• 1:04:55
  But you're right, it is a today track car.
• 1:04:58
  For people that are starting out, want to have one car that they're going to have
• 1:05:02
  for the next 10 years at track or want to upgrade from their Miata to a real car.
• 1:05:07
  A Corvette.
• 1:05:08
  Oh, so yeah, I think they're very affordable.
• 1:05:11
  They're very durable.
• 1:05:13
  They're phenomenal cars.
• 1:05:14
  They're not terribly difficult to work on.
• 1:05:17
  There is a lot of engineering stuff in that package.
• 1:05:20
  So there are some quirks and some difficulties.
• 1:05:22
  If you're going to change a clutch, it's a major.
• 1:05:24
  Job versus changing a clutch in a traditional car, Camaro
• 1:05:28
  or a Trans Am or something.
• 1:05:30
  It's a lot more intensive because the transmissions in the rear, but you can
• 1:05:34
  see the engineering behind these cars.
• 1:05:37
  You can feel the engineering granted.
• 1:05:39
  They are a little squishy when they're stock.
• 1:05:41
  The seats are terrible.
• 1:05:43
  You know, there's some stuff that makes them soft and poshy and
• 1:05:45
  squishy, but for a couple bucks, you can get all that stuff out of
• 1:05:48
  there and have a fantastic track car.
• 1:05:50
  Fantastic.
• 1:05:51
  Not only that, the numbers that C5 was able to put down, you know,
• 1:05:55
  the 400 400, we talk about the LS2 and all this kind of stuff.
• 1:05:58
  But you're talking now a Corvette that isn't some specially prepared
• 1:06:03
  Calloway or a sledgehammer or something making a gajillion horsepower.
• 1:06:07
  Like they were doing in the C4s.
• 1:06:08
  You've got a, from the factory, 150 plus mile an hour car that can do
• 1:06:13
  way better than 150 mile an hour.
• 1:06:15
  But now you're putting up big numbers and they're fast.
• 1:06:18
  But they were also really heavy.
• 1:06:20
  And the reason I bring that up is I'll never forget the ad campaign for the C6.
• 1:06:25
  When they were teasing it, they're like, we're going back to our roots.
• 1:06:29
  We're making the Corvette light again.
• 1:06:31
  The C6 is going to come in at like 3, 000 pounds or 3, 200 pounds.
• 1:06:34
  I was like, how heavy is the C5?
• 1:06:37
  Is it not made out of fiberglass anymore?
• 1:06:40
  A lot of cars ballooned in weight in that era because of the crash testing
• 1:06:44
  requirements that came in the late 90s.
• 1:06:46
  And this was the first one they designed to work with.
• 1:06:48
  So I think it would make sense that the C6 got lighter than the C5.
• 1:06:51
  They had more time to figure out how they were going to react to the crash
• 1:06:55
  testing and they were able to take some weight out of it to make that happen.
• 1:06:59
  I always thought that was a funny thing about Corvette and I said it for the C1.
• 1:07:03
  They're not light.
• 1:07:03
  They've never been light.
• 1:07:04
  I really don't think Corvette has ever been considered light.
• 1:07:07
  As a DeLorean guy, I'm constantly getting hit with.
• 1:07:10
  Oh, well, those cars were so heavy, but they were 2, 800 pounds.
• 1:07:13
  I mean, they were nothing compared to so many other point is for 1981.
• 1:07:16
  I think the Corvette came in at 3, 300 pounds, almost 3, 400 pounds.
• 1:07:19
  Corvette had never been light.
• 1:07:21
  And that's what I always thought was weird about Corvette.
• 1:07:23
  I got this glass body.
• 1:07:24
  It weighs nothing yet.
• 1:07:26
  The darn thing still weighs as much as a Firebird.
• 1:07:28
  It was small, small footprint, small car.
• 1:07:32
  I mean, yeah, it didn't have a 32 valve cylinder head, adding
• 1:07:35
  weight, you know, it had some things that would help it lighten up.
• 1:07:38
  I'm not sure how much weight that fiberglass really saved.
• 1:07:40
  They're pretty robust.
• 1:07:41
  So a lot of the stuff in the Corvette was probably a little overbuilt.
• 1:07:45
  They used a lot of materials that were light.
• 1:07:47
  There's some magnesium in them.
• 1:07:48
  There's a lot of aluminum in them from the factory.
• 1:07:51
  The fiberglass could have been a little lighter, but in the later, in the,
• 1:07:54
  in the C5s, like the Z06s had like lighter glass in them for a few pounds.
• 1:07:59
  The engineers really did a lot to lighten them up.
• 1:08:01
  And I think it was a lot of, I don't know if it's marketing.
• 1:08:03
  Yes.
• 1:08:04
  They, they were still over 3000 pounds, but they were a beefy 3000
• 1:08:08
  pounds and like the knuckles in them and the arms are strong and they're
• 1:08:12
  thicker, they're aluminum, but they're still thick and take a lot of abuse.
• 1:08:16
  If Corvette really took the stance of let's lighten it up, they definitely would
• 1:08:20
  have come in under 3000 pounds easily.
• 1:08:23
  But because they wanted them to be robust and strong and durable, I think that's
• 1:08:27
  where that extra heft, those couple extra hundred pounds are just for durability.
• 1:08:31
  Yeah.
• 1:08:31
  And I think it was worth it because, I mean, let's face it, you put on
• 1:08:34
  a watch and it weighs 20 pounds.
• 1:08:35
  You think a whole, I've got a hell of a watch here, you know?
• 1:08:38
  And when you drive a lightweight car, you feel it.
• 1:08:40
  You don't want to feel it when you're paying that much money for a Corvette.
• 1:08:43
  And I don't care what I'm a C5R.
• 1:08:44
  We're just talking about the doctor wants to commute to
• 1:08:47
  work in his midlife crisis car.
• 1:08:49
  And it's an automatic transmission.
• 1:08:51
  Corvette, they don't want to spend that kind of money and feel vibration.
• 1:08:54
  They don't want to see the hood, you know, flexing around.
• 1:08:56
  They want to feel quality.
• 1:08:58
  They want to feel something nice and Corvette delivers it.
• 1:09:01
  I thought they all bought Cadillac XLRs.
• 1:09:03
  So I thought that was the point, right?
• 1:09:05
  The kissing cousin.
• 1:09:06
  Yeah.
• 1:09:07
  C4, baguette, C5, C5, baguette, C6.
• 1:09:12
  C6 is.
• 1:09:13
  It's still sort of the same evolution.
• 1:09:15
  I think it got physically smaller.
• 1:09:17
  The C5 to me, when you line them all up, it's big, it's wide, it's long.
• 1:09:22
  It's also exaggerated by that very flat rear end, which became a design cue for
• 1:09:27
  all the Corvettes from the C4 forward.
• 1:09:29
  It's like, well, the pencil broke at the back.
• 1:09:30
  We're just going to just make it just a wall with these
• 1:09:33
  four round lights in the back.
• 1:09:34
  So C5 is in my opinion, kind of soft.
• 1:09:37
  And then we get C6.
• 1:09:39
  We go back to those razor sharp edges, angular corners.
• 1:09:44
  And then we get rid of the pop up headlights for the first
• 1:09:47
  time in like Corvette history.
• 1:09:48
  Since the C1, C2 through C5, we've got rollovers.
• 1:09:52
  We got pop ups.
• 1:09:53
  We got, you know, all this stuff.
• 1:09:55
  And we go to the fixed headlights built into the bonnet and the
• 1:09:58
  fenders and all this kind of thing.
• 1:09:59
  Is it me?
• 1:10:00
  I feel like it'd be scary.
• 1:10:01
  When the C6 looks like a C5, I'll agree, right?
• 1:10:03
  I mean, the ZR1 and everything with the C6 was a huge deal, you know,
• 1:10:07
  and obviously the C6R was great.
• 1:10:10
  It's sleek.
• 1:10:11
  It looks modern, a supercar of the time, right?
• 1:10:14
  Corvette's trying to elevate itself.
• 1:10:16
  I feel like it transcended more than just chassis, et cetera.
• 1:10:19
  When you look at.
• 1:10:20
  The two interiors between a C5 and a C6, the C6 has such better
• 1:10:25
  detailing, such better materials usage.
• 1:10:28
  C5 to C6.
• 1:10:29
  The C5 is a very 90s interior, right?
• 1:10:32
  To me, anyway.
• 1:10:33
  C5 felt like you were stepping into a Beretta or a Trailblazer
• 1:10:37
  or anything else that was on the GM assembly line at the time.
• 1:10:40
  It really does.
• 1:10:41
  Every time I think, I'm like, C5, C06, like, that'd be a blast.
• 1:10:44
  And then I'm like, wait, I don't want to sit in that.
• 1:10:46
  Like, no, I'm with Don.
• 1:10:48
  If you're going to actually drive and sit in the car and move around, the C6
• 1:10:51
  is a much nicer cabin to be in for sure.
• 1:10:54
  It is.
• 1:10:54
  I mean, they're all evolutions, right?
• 1:10:56
  But I think it's very, very, very similar to the C5.
• 1:10:59
  It's almost like a 55, six and seven Chevy.
• 1:11:02
  How.
• 1:11:02
  You can tell it's the same, but they've changed the body a little bit, evolved
• 1:11:06
  the engine, there's more horsepower, it's an upgrade from an LS1 to an LS3, the
• 1:11:10
  transmissions are a little more robust, they're just a little better, a lot
• 1:11:14
  of the parts transfer between the two cars, the two generations, you can take
• 1:11:18
  almost All of the parts and swap them.
• 1:11:20
  The knuckles, the knuckles in the C6 are a little bit stronger, but
• 1:11:23
  they still fit C5 and vice versa.
• 1:11:26
  It's almost like a half generation change for me.
• 1:11:28
  There's a change, but it's not as dressed as a C7 or the C4 change.
• 1:11:33
  C4 to C5.
• 1:11:35
  Pretty good change there.
• 1:11:36
  C6 to C7, pretty big change there, but I think that C5 to C6 is pretty muted.
• 1:11:41
  It's just kind of an evolution of more horsepower, a little
• 1:11:44
  more refinement, a little more robust, and keep that train going.
• 1:11:47
  They're same, same, but different.
• 1:11:49
  It's sort of like, you can make your bed and it looks nice, or you can go all out
• 1:11:53
  and do, you know, the hospital folds and the cuffing and the turndown service.
• 1:11:56
  It's different.
• 1:11:57
  The same bed, it's the same sheets, it's the same bedspread.
• 1:11:59
  And you're like, man, it looks so much better.
• 1:12:01
  Right?
• 1:12:02
  So it's sort of like taking that wrinkled shirt that was the C5
• 1:12:05
  and sort of stretching it out and pressing it and going, here's
• 1:12:07
  what we can do with this before we completely go insane with the C7.
• 1:12:11
  That's a good way to put the wrinkled shirts.
• 1:12:12
  A great analogy for that one.
• 1:12:13
  Feeling personally attacked right now, my wrinkled shirt.
• 1:12:16
  But no, but I mean, the C6 to me is very similar with the exception
• 1:12:21
  of the models, you know, that were obviously unique to that generation.
• 1:12:24
  But the one thing I walked away with from C6, and I've heard it from
• 1:12:28
  plenty of owners that track them and I've experienced it myself, they're
• 1:12:32
  extremely Twitchy the C5 being bigger and heavier and just longer.
• 1:12:37
  It's a much more planted car.
• 1:12:39
  It's not as nervous.
• 1:12:40
  That's the word I like to use for a C6.
• 1:12:42
  They're nervous, right?
• 1:12:43
  They're always on edge.
• 1:12:44
  I never was comfortable in a C6, but C6 prices.
• 1:12:48
  So Mark, all the data you've brought to the table so far has sort of
• 1:12:52
  represented the C3s, the 4s and the 5s as the soft spot in the market.
• 1:12:57
  Value for dollar and performance.
• 1:12:58
  I'm probably with you in C5, particularly if you're thinking track.
• 1:13:02
  When I've looked at C6s, it feels like we've suddenly turned a corner
• 1:13:07
  and the Corvette got expensive.
• 1:13:08
  Is that still true today?
• 1:13:10
  Almost same number of transactions C5 to C6 months.
• 1:13:14
  Much broader spread.
• 1:13:15
  And I think we have the 01 to thank for that.
• 1:13:18
  It's a hundred thousand dollar car.
• 1:13:19
  It was when they brought the 01 back, right?
• 1:13:21
  Obviously the first one.
• 1:13:22
  Since the C4, yeah.
• 1:13:24
  So they bring it back.
• 1:13:25
  It's supercharged.
• 1:13:26
  It's, for its time, crazy town power.
• 1:13:28
  You can get a C7 Z06, which is more horsepower than your C6 Z01, for
• 1:13:33
  less than you can get a C6 Z01.
• 1:13:36
  I think that's because the C7 had heat problems from the factory, which
• 1:13:41
  really kind of dampened the aftermarket and dampened the resale values.
• 1:13:45
  And it had a reputation for being very tunable.
• 1:13:47
  So there's lots of thousand horsepower and filter, whoever tuner aftermarket.
• 1:13:52
  I can remember being sold for 15 K under sticker new when they were just
• 1:13:57
  sitting in dealer lots and not moving.
• 1:13:58
  Those were usually the automatics.
• 1:14:00
  So I do think that it's easier to fix those heat soak issues now
• 1:14:06
  with aftermarket parts for cooling.
• 1:14:09
  And so it's not necessarily a flaw.
• 1:14:11
  That is something you're really going to have to deal with as an owner.
• 1:14:14
  Now, it's really just that reputation that's harmed the transaction value.
• 1:14:18
  So your C7 06 transacting for about 60K, C6 01 transacting around the
• 1:14:24
  80K range, at least then bring a trailer with some miles on it.
• 1:14:27
  They go over a hundred gay if you didn't really drive it at all.
• 1:14:30
  The C6 Z06, though, is a really special car.
• 1:14:33
  Yeah.
• 1:14:33
  I mean, those selling for the mid forties.
• 1:14:36
  There's been a bunch of them this year, just in May, they sold three on
• 1:14:39
  bring a trailer, 40 4K, 40 2K, 40 4K.
• 1:14:43
  The last one was 12,000 miles, $44,000, and that's a hell of a car for $44,000.
• 1:14:50
  Is there any delta when you step up to something special like a grand sport?
• 1:14:54
  What I have is a six B with a grand sport.
• 1:14:56
  Which is actually a track car.
• 1:14:58
  Quite an amazing vehicle.
• 1:14:59
  I'm doing a few slight mods to it, but it's been a very fun
• 1:15:02
  car and you can feel it nicely.
• 1:15:04
  You could get the L, the Ls two with 400 horsepower.
• 1:15:07
  And in 2008 they updated it to the LS three, which has 400, was it 35
• 1:15:12
  horsepower with a dual tone exhaust?
• 1:15:14
  And your grand sport has the magneto suspension, right?
• 1:15:17
  It does not.
• 1:15:18
  And actually I'm, as I'm looking on the Corvette forum, I'm better off with
• 1:15:21
  that 'cause you can't get parts for it.
• 1:15:22
  GM is phasing parts out.
• 1:15:24
  This is the aftermarket hasn't picked a lot of them up.
• 1:15:26
  I'm better off without it because there's people in there bleeding for
• 1:15:29
  parts and they have to get used parts.
• 1:15:30
  And the reason I bring it up is I actually drove one with just regular
• 1:15:34
  coils and one with a magneto suspension, both C6s at NCM and I prefer.
• 1:15:39
  Bird, the coil spring car.
• 1:15:41
  I just didn't like the way the magneto worked.
• 1:15:43
  Everybody says it's amazing, but for me, the response, it was
• 1:15:46
  only delayed, but sort of numb.
• 1:15:49
  It was missing a little bit of road feel where yeah, maybe the coil spring
• 1:15:52
  didn't perform as well, but it just felt so much more reactive to me.
• 1:15:56
  Like it communicated to me as a driver better.
• 1:15:58
  So personal preference, but to your point, I didn't hear too much more.
• 1:16:02
  About what people were, you know, were they ripping the magnetos out
• 1:16:05
  and putting regular ones back in?
• 1:16:06
  Because again, it's unobtainium type of stuff.
• 1:16:08
  It's a good idea.
• 1:16:09
  I feel like it was a fad.
• 1:16:10
  I don't hear about it on any of the other manufacturers anymore either.
• 1:16:13
  Well, they continue the production on those later on.
• 1:16:16
  But the thing is, that's me.
• 1:16:17
  If you're driving a lot on the street, yeah.
• 1:16:18
  Like you and I, if you're gonna go, you're driving on a tracker, you're
• 1:16:21
  just gonna go out on the weekend.
• 1:16:22
  You don't need it.
• 1:16:23
  So I'm seeing a disproportionate number of UNT transacted grand sports.
• 1:16:28
  They go for auction, but they don't meet the minimum.
• 1:16:30
  And so 3LT Grand Sport, which is heavily optioned, right?
• 1:16:34
  Not a cheap option package was bid up to 29 grand on bring a trailer
• 1:16:38
  a few months ago, but didn't go higher and it didn't transact.
• 1:16:41
  I'm not seeing a lot of grand sports in the closed sale.
• 1:16:45
  So one grand sports, 48, 000 miles, six speed 3LT, again, heavily
• 1:16:50
  optioned, sold for 31, 000 on.
• 1:16:53
  Bring a trailer just a couple of months ago.
• 1:16:55
  It's kind of the only one I can find that completed it.
• 1:16:57
  I'm not ready to sell it right now.
• 1:16:59
  Even for a C7, I have to very hard to consider trading up to a C7 and
• 1:17:03
  paying one and a half times when I pay for the C6 and you can get a pretty
• 1:17:06
  good bargain than C6 is right now.
• 1:17:08
  So that being said, even the C6 is a really, really good value.
• 1:17:13
  Yeah.
• 1:17:13
  I think since you're such a track guy, you appreciate what the
• 1:17:17
  Grand Sport brings to the table.
• 1:17:18
  It adds a lot of chassis and capability and it already has.
• 1:17:22
  A motor that exceeds the vast majority of the world's talent in regards to
• 1:17:26
  their ability to extract something, which I think is another interesting point.
• 1:17:29
  Again, as you start getting into the later generation, can you really push a T six,
• 1:17:33
  the zero six on a track, whether it's 505 horsepower, or god forbid, a zero one or
• 1:17:37
  a C 7 0 6, whether it's 650 horsepower.
• 1:17:42
  That's starting to get into the realm of like, you know, are you buying your
• 1:17:45
  Widowmaker, hope your life insurance is sorted out, like, do you have the
• 1:17:49
  ability to acknowledge where your talent envelope is and where the car is relative
• 1:17:54
  to that as somebody who personally owns a car who far exceeds my talent,
• 1:17:59
  I have to respect that car's ability.
• 1:18:01
  Don't pull on Superman's cape.
• 1:18:03
  Cause I wouldn't know what to do with it.
• 1:18:04
  I think from a track perspective, an enthusiast perspective, the
• 1:18:07
  Grand Sport represents a really unique value proposition because
• 1:18:10
  it's undervalued by the market.
• 1:18:12
  But because of that, it doesn't really transact for more than a Z51.
• 1:18:17
  Like it's five, 6, 000 more than your Z51.
• 1:18:20
  That's the best 5, 000 you could ever spend.
• 1:18:22
  You can't turn that Z51 into a Grand Sport for five grand with carbon
• 1:18:26
  fiber, fenders, and all of the stuff that came with that Grand Sport.
• 1:18:30
  So there's no way you're doing that for 5k seems like 5, 000.
• 1:18:33
  Well spent, especially if you're going to take it to a track.
• 1:18:36
  So I didn't start this conversation with you thinking that the C6 transport was a
• 1:18:41
  really great idea, but now that I'm kind of, now I'm kind of there and I'm like,
• 1:18:46
  yeah, that's actually five grand more.
• 1:18:48
  Why wouldn't you spend that?
• 1:18:49
  Like, that's a really great deal.
• 1:18:51
  Now let's jump forward.
• 1:18:52
  C7.
• 1:18:52
  When I first saw that car, I said, did this just roll off the Universal Studios
• 1:18:58
  lot for the next Transformers movie?
• 1:18:59
  Because it is a step away from everything we know about Corvette.
• 1:19:04
  It is so angular.
• 1:19:06
  It is so different.
• 1:19:07
  It is so sharp.
• 1:19:08
  It's striking and not necessarily in a bad way or a good way.
• 1:19:12
  And the irony of ironies.
• 1:19:14
  Designed by the same guy that designed the Pontiac Aztec.
• 1:19:18
  So that angular design language comes from years of study.
• 1:19:22
  And there was a lot of hate on the C7 because the classic thought,
• 1:19:25
  Oh, it should look like this.
• 1:19:26
  And it's not a Corvette, but it is a Corvette.
• 1:19:28
  It's so muscular.
• 1:19:29
  It's so this, it's so that.
• 1:19:30
  I hated them when they came out.
• 1:19:31
  Ugly to me.
• 1:19:32
  So foreign.
• 1:19:33
  So not Corvette to me.
• 1:19:35
  And then I drove one and it was all over.
• 1:19:37
  It was the greatest Corvette I ever drove.
• 1:19:39
  It was the greatest car I'd driven at that point.
• 1:19:41
  possibly.
• 1:19:42
  It was really amazing.
• 1:19:43
  And then I don't know if it made me realize what they built
• 1:19:46
  or why they built it that way.
• 1:19:48
  Well, you know, I was like you guys, when C7 first came out,
• 1:19:50
  I just thought they ruined it.
• 1:19:51
  You know, you have a 280Z roofline, you have the rear end
• 1:19:54
  of a Camaro, you just ruined it.
• 1:19:56
  Well, as time went on, I saw more and more and more of them.
• 1:19:59
  And gee, golly gosh, I am so in love with those cars now.
• 1:20:03
  It's unbelievable how much I love C7.
• 1:20:04
  I call it the C7.
• 1:20:05
  Subaru effect.
• 1:20:07
  You hate the current one, which makes you love the previous one, but
• 1:20:11
  you hated the previous one because you love the one before that one.
• 1:20:14
  Right.
• 1:20:14
  And the WRX has the same problem.
• 1:20:16
  And I think Corvette is starting to begin to realize that as well
• 1:20:20
  versus the Porsche where the 911.
• 1:20:22
  You look at it, you go, it's still just a nine 11.
• 1:20:24
  It keeps getting a little bit longer, a little bit wider.
• 1:20:27
  The lights are a little further, but it's still just a nine 11, right?
• 1:20:30
  Corvette has gone through these changes.
• 1:20:32
  It's gone through these evolutions.
• 1:20:33
  I don't know.
• 1:20:33
  It won me off driving that car made me love it.
• 1:20:37
  I became a believer when I went the first year.
• 1:20:40
  C7 came out, I was at National Corvette Museum, and were there
• 1:20:44
  coaching owners of brand new C7s.
• 1:20:46
  That car, for me, could do no wrong.
• 1:20:50
  It is absolutely amazing.
• 1:20:53
  It was like, after all these years, it took them 50 plus years to get that
• 1:20:59
  formula right, and C7 was the answer.
• 1:21:01
  So if you check kind of the cramped cockpit, Pit jet fighter
• 1:21:05
  interior that it has at the door.
• 1:21:07
  Although you could fit really well in those things.
• 1:21:09
  It's an amazing, amazing car.
• 1:21:11
  And it just got better with every package that they added to it.
• 1:21:15
  ZO six and ZR one and everything else.
• 1:21:17
  I have one.
• 1:21:18
  I love it.
• 1:21:19
  It's fantastic.
• 1:21:20
  I like the way it looks.
• 1:21:21
  When it first came out, I would have said the C5 is better.
• 1:21:24
  I think I'm crazy now because the C7 is way sexier than the C5.
• 1:21:28
  But back then, when I first saw it, no, I preferred the C5.
• 1:21:33
  So do you say that about the C7 because of the C8?
• 1:21:36
  We're going to get to that.
• 1:21:37
  We've been holding off talking about the mid engine Corvette.
• 1:21:39
  Is it because that's so different yet again that you look at the C7
• 1:21:43
  and go, well, that's so different.
• 1:21:44
  Corvette that's still front mount rear drive.
• 1:21:47
  I think the timeframe that I hated the C7 was longer than I hated the C8 for some
• 1:21:54
  reason, but that C8 is so impressive.
• 1:21:56
  It's so unbelievably impressive.
• 1:21:59
  If you gave me a choice of racing somebody for a million dollars, but
• 1:22:03
  I take a 650 horsepower C seven, you know, the highest horsepower, one of
• 1:22:08
  the C seven stock, everything stock, or the brand new C eight stock.
• 1:22:12
  I think I can go faster in a C eight stock if that gives it any type
• 1:22:15
  of, I mean, it's 200 horsepower, 150 some horsepower down in power.
• 1:22:20
  It makes up for it.
• 1:22:21
  All day long.
• 1:22:21
  So what I think is interesting about C7, the price point when they launched it,
• 1:22:26
  they were basically giving that car away.
• 1:22:28
  If you were lucky to buy a C7 in the first year, today you are sitting pretty.
• 1:22:33
  Because what we didn't realize as consumers, and when I stepped out of
• 1:22:37
  that car the first time like you did, I turned around and I looked at it, And I
• 1:22:41
  said, that's worth every penny of 80, 000.
• 1:22:44
  And it wasn't an 80, 000 car at that time.
• 1:22:46
  It was a 60, 000 car.
• 1:22:47
  58, 000.
• 1:22:48
  I think it was insane.
• 1:22:49
  They were literally giving them away for that kind of money.
• 1:22:52
  And I'm like, finally, they built a near six figure sports car.
• 1:22:56
  They're there.
• 1:22:56
  They're almost there.
• 1:22:57
  I kind of said in my head, they're going to get there with the ZO six.
• 1:23:00
  But I also feel like even though Chrysler had.
• 1:23:03
  Pulled back Viper.
• 1:23:05
  It was no longer on the track.
• 1:23:06
  That rivalry had died.
• 1:23:08
  I still think there was a little tit for tat happening, because if
• 1:23:11
  you look at the Viper ACR, the very last ones, they were finishing up
• 1:23:16
  as Corvette C7 was coming online.
• 1:23:19
  And it's sort of an answer to that because you're like, who did they
• 1:23:22
  build this car to compete against?
• 1:23:23
  Cause it wasn't against the 9 11 anymore.
• 1:23:25
  Yeah.
• 1:23:26
  I don't know if you're wrong.
• 1:23:26
  I think nobody told Corvette that that rivalry was over.
• 1:23:30
  I think nobody gave them the memo that ACR is dead.
• 1:23:33
  In respect to that, they built a brilliant car.
• 1:23:36
  It lasted one of the shortest, if not the shortest run of Corvettes, period.
• 1:23:41
  Because the C8 is not done yet.
• 1:23:42
  It's only been around for four years.
• 1:23:44
  So C7, five years, and that's it.
• 1:23:46
  As much as I didn't like it, like you in the beginning, at
• 1:23:48
  the I said, I can't believe this.
• 1:23:50
  They finally got it right.
• 1:23:51
  And now that's it.
• 1:23:52
  It's done.
• 1:23:53
  It's over.
• 1:23:53
  Yeah.
• 1:23:53
  It's a shame.
• 1:23:54
  It was gone, but they came out with something better.
• 1:23:56
  They came out with something better, but it really was cool.
• 1:23:59
  Do you think C7, they could have evolved that same design again?
• 1:24:03
  Could it have continued or was there?
• 1:24:05
  The C7 just that good that there was nothing else to give.
• 1:24:08
  I believe that I believe if they were to evolve it, it would have
• 1:24:11
  been like the C5 C6 where it kind of transitioned and just was better.
• 1:24:15
  They could have added more horsepower, little bigger tire.
• 1:24:18
  Wasn't much more to do with suspension.
• 1:24:19
  I think it was at the apex.
• 1:24:21
  I think it was good as it was going to get.
• 1:24:23
  And I've been in a C7.
• 1:24:24
  I've never driven one.
• 1:24:25
  I've ridden in one.
• 1:24:26
  I'm told it's because the last analog car was a C6.
• 1:24:29
  People were selling C7s to go back to C6s, again, because they missed it.
• 1:24:33
  Just a lot of fun, even in a base coupe.
• 1:24:35
  I've been a passenger in one.
• 1:24:36
  Yeah, I mean, it's got creature comforts, everything like that.
• 1:24:38
  And I haven't been in like one of the ZR1s or anything like that.
• 1:24:40
  It's a very well engineered car.
• 1:24:42
  I still love the idea of the C06 C7.
• 1:24:44
  The ZR1 C7 still transacts Sells for more than it was new over MSRP because
• 1:24:49
  it's the last of the front engine.
• 1:24:51
  They fixed the heat problems by the time they got the ZR1.
• 1:24:54
  I think they put 87 radiators in the ZR1.
• 1:24:58
  You know, so they fixed the heat soak issues and it was tunable
• 1:25:02
  and you could add power to it.
• 1:25:04
  And so it just has this great reputation as the last one.
• 1:25:06
  The Z06 though.
• 1:25:07
  It's half the price of the 01 and it is not half the car, as long as
• 1:25:12
  you're not going to kill yourself, realize what you're buying, right?
• 1:25:14
  It's a wide relative to its total wheelbase and length.
• 1:25:17
  So it's going to have some kind of snappy handling characteristics
• 1:25:20
  that you need to be cognizant of, especially when it has 700 horsepower.
• 1:25:24
  But it's got a lot more smarts in it than the earlier Corvettes did.
• 1:25:28
  Yes.
• 1:25:29
  It's got computers.
• 1:25:30
  Don't turn them off.
• 1:25:31
  The nanny's on.
• 1:25:32
  So at what point internally was that decision made C8s?
• 1:25:36
  Mid engine.
• 1:25:37
  What else?
• 1:25:38
  I mean, they made carbon fiber.
• 1:25:39
  I mean, what else?
• 1:25:40
  They can't do much more other than a whole bunch of weight out of it.
• 1:25:43
  I mean, they had 650 horsepower.
• 1:25:45
  It's never enough, but that's enough for a stock car.
• 1:25:48
  650 horsepower in that car.
• 1:25:50
  You know, you got a lot of cars with that horsepower.
• 1:25:52
  I mean, that's stupid horsepower for the street.
• 1:25:54
  We don't need that.
• 1:25:55
  You have to wonder if the C8 was going to be a front engine again.
• 1:25:59
  It would have been interesting to see how they would have, I mean,
• 1:26:00
  how would they improve on that C7?
• 1:26:02
  The C7 is going to have an interesting journey.
• 1:26:06
  Relative to its aesthetics, I think it's one of those things that's going
• 1:26:09
  to look severely dated very soon.
• 1:26:11
  And I can see my kids being like, ew, they like it now give them
• 1:26:15
  eight or 10 years or something.
• 1:26:16
  But then the GTV six or, you know, other cars, they were maybe a little
• 1:26:21
  extreme and styling for the time.
• 1:26:22
  And then they got very dated and then they became cool again.
• 1:26:24
  I can see it being cool again, 20 years down the road or something.
• 1:26:27
  I think there's something to be said for just being the last
• 1:26:30
  generation of the front engine.
• 1:26:31
  Assuming that that's the direction the platform continues to go in.
• 1:26:35
  And that will probably help the C7 from a value perspective
• 1:26:38
  for a long period of time.
• 1:26:39
  Again, for the money though, I mean, I go back, I buy a C5.
• 1:26:42
  I mean, why spend the money on a C7?
• 1:26:44
  I just don't see it.
• 1:26:45
  No, that's just me.
• 1:26:46
  Oh, that's where you and I differ, my friend.
• 1:26:48
  I have C7 all day long.
• 1:26:49
  I'm a believer.
• 1:26:50
  That's for sure.
• 1:26:51
  C5R, C6R, C7R, multiple.
• 1:26:55
  Times over and over and over again, champions of ALMS and
• 1:27:00
  IMSA and Lamar and all the pro racing series that they were in.
• 1:27:03
  I mean, unstoppable team Corvette for 25 years, just kicking butt and taking names.
• 1:27:08
  We decide to go mid engine and I don't think a lot of our listeners maybe know.
• 1:27:13
  And I wrote an article about this a couple of years ago.
• 1:27:15
  C8 is not the first mid engine.
• 1:27:17
  Corvette, it was in the works going way back in the day.
• 1:27:22
  There's three previous prototype attempts at a mid engine Corvette.
• 1:27:26
  They just couldn't ever get it right.
• 1:27:28
  There was just something technologically not there that, which was mind boggling
• 1:27:32
  because you've got people like Porsche and Lotus and Ferrari, and you name it.
• 1:27:37
  That had been building mid engine cars for a millennia.
• 1:27:40
  At this point and Corvette can't figure it out.
• 1:27:43
  Mid engine has always been a ghost in the background at Corvette.
• 1:27:47
  And it was a seed planted by Zora.
• 1:27:49
  We've got to do this.
• 1:27:50
  You're going to have weight distribution, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:27:52
  You know, I don't think it was so much engineering or technological.
• 1:27:55
  I think it was general motors and Chevrolet thing.
• 1:27:57
  Great idea.
• 1:27:58
  It's a fantastic idea.
• 1:27:59
  And we would have the penultimate sports car on the road, but you've got
• 1:28:03
  to think of our buyers and you've got to think of our dealership network.
• 1:28:06
  Who's going to service these cars?
• 1:28:08
  Who's going to fix these things?
• 1:28:09
  Who's going to pay to fix these things?
• 1:28:11
  When you hit a Corvette buyer and you say, yeah, you just paid.
• 1:28:15
  X number of dollars for your Corvette.
• 1:28:17
  You've saved money over a Porsche.
• 1:28:18
  You've certainly saved money over a Ferrari.
• 1:28:20
  You're doing good.
• 1:28:21
  You're ahead of the ball game and you got a performance car
• 1:28:23
  that will kick butt all day long.
• 1:28:25
  Oh, but we got to change the spark plugs.
• 1:28:27
  And guess what?
• 1:28:28
  Motor's got to come out.
• 1:28:29
  That's going to cost money.
• 1:28:30
  We got to disconnect the transmission, the suspension, all the labor,
• 1:28:33
  labor, labor, labor, labor.
• 1:28:34
  Oh, and while you're in there.
• 1:28:36
  You know, let's start singing the European song they're famous for.
• 1:28:39
  While you're in there, let's just rebuild the whole damn car.
• 1:28:42
  American buyers, especially going back to the fifties and sixties.
• 1:28:46
  No, they don't want to hear about that.
• 1:28:48
  So I think GM and Chevrolet kept hitting those brakes on Zora, hitting
• 1:28:51
  the brakes on anybody who wanted to talk about mid engine, and that is why.
• 1:28:55
  William beloved Fiero was killed because it was getting way too dangerously
• 1:29:00
  close to being an ultimate sports car.
• 1:29:02
  They equipped it with a V6.
• 1:29:03
  They were talking about turbos or superchargers in a mid engine sports
• 1:29:07
  car that costs way less than a Corvette.
• 1:29:10
  Corvette couldn't have that.
• 1:29:11
  So they put a contract out on Fiero and that was the end of Fiero.
• 1:29:15
  The same story for the GNX and a bunch of other cars are trying to
• 1:29:19
  take a stab at the Corvette, right?
• 1:29:20
  Again, that shall not pass.
• 1:29:22
  That is, this is not going to happen.
• 1:29:24
  The point is.
• 1:29:25
  It's an evolution of an idea, a dream, a passion, right?
• 1:29:28
  So C7 was the end of an era, and then we brought about C8, the first
• 1:29:32
  production mid engine Corvette.
• 1:29:34
  Like Rick said, I first saw it, I didn't like it.
• 1:29:36
  I don't think a lot of people like it.
• 1:29:37
  I don't think a lot of people still like it.
• 1:29:39
  Wish they'd stuck with a six speed, but I personally, uh, personally like them.
• 1:29:43
  I've talked to folks and they're like, yeah, it's not a Corvette.
• 1:29:46
  It looks like an NSX.
• 1:29:47
  Oh, it looks like a Ferrari.
• 1:29:48
  It looks like this.
• 1:29:49
  It looks like every other hyper car.
• 1:29:51
  That's being produced by McLaren, you name it.
• 1:29:54
  They all look sort of the same because when it comes down to
• 1:29:56
  aerodynamics, there's really only one shape when you have a mid engine
• 1:30:00
  that sort of cheats the wind, the technology really makes that car fast.
• 1:30:04
  It is so smart.
• 1:30:05
  If you put a novice driver in each one, they're going to be faster in the C8.
• 1:30:11
  C8's gonna save them, you know, from killing themselves.
• 1:30:14
  Those things are smart.
• 1:30:15
  I mean, those things are like Tesla Corvettes.
• 1:30:18
  I mean, they're just smart.
• 1:30:19
  The C7 was still, I mean, it was smart, but man, it had some brute force.
• 1:30:23
  I mean, there's a difference between, I guess Everything's
• 1:30:26
  a nail when you're carrying a hammer, is that what you're saying?
• 1:30:29
  Yeah, it's a baseball bat versus a sword.
• 1:30:31
  It's similar.
• 1:30:32
  Way different.
• 1:30:33
  One can slice and dice and the other one can just beat things up.
• 1:30:37
  There feels like there's a gap in the Corvette portfolio which
• 1:30:40
  maybe they'll fill this generation.
• 1:30:41
  They have this amazing opportunity to make a GT3 like car and they've started to fill
• 1:30:47
  that with their naturally aspirated Z06 being the monster of an engine that it is.
• 1:30:53
  Now give me a real proper six speed transmission that's geared
• 1:30:58
  appropriately for the car and just eat the gas guzzler tax.
• 1:31:02
  My personal big disappointment with the C8, the horsepower
• 1:31:07
  being down, I'm a horsepower guy.
• 1:31:08
  I like to use horsepower.
• 1:31:10
  I don't like to use horsepower in a straight line.
• 1:31:12
  I like to use it in twisties, and I like, I like too much horsepower.
• 1:31:15
  So not enough horsepower, which they're fixing, which is something I
• 1:31:19
  love, and then not enough front tire.
• 1:31:21
  They don't have huge front tires.
• 1:31:23
  I know there's less weight up there, there's this, there's that, but come on.
• 1:31:26
  You gotta put a tire, it starts with a three.
• 1:31:28
  three in front of a Corvette, in my opinion.
• 1:31:30
  My kids light up every time one drives by the car.
• 1:31:32
  I enjoy seeing them drive down the road.
• 1:31:34
  I hope they sell 30 to 40, 000 of them a year.
• 1:31:37
  I really do.
• 1:31:37
  You know what kills me about the C8 and even the C8R?
• 1:31:41
  It's the sound.
• 1:31:42
  With C4, Five, it's suddenly transcended.
• 1:31:45
  And it's like, you could pick a Corvette out amongst everybody else on track or on
• 1:31:50
  the road, or it just had this tone to it.
• 1:31:52
  You know, I remember those videos.
• 1:31:53
  We're going to fire up the C8 for the first time.
• 1:31:55
  And they uncover the car and it's in this satin silk red thing.
• 1:31:59
  And they fired.
• 1:32:00
  I'm like, Oh my God, that sounds like a Ferrari 360.
• 1:32:02
  Like, what is that?
• 1:32:03
  It's awful.
• 1:32:04
  It's like two little four cylinders running together because the way
• 1:32:06
  they split the exhaust, even at the track, whether it's on TV or In
• 1:32:11
  person where I've seen him at Lamar, I've seen him at petite Lamar, you
• 1:32:13
  know, all these kinds of things.
• 1:32:14
  It's like, ugh, like I can still pick it out, but it's harder to pick out
• 1:32:18
  from, let's say the Ferrari two 96 and some of the other ones that are
• 1:32:22
  running alongside of it, you know, and I'm just like, it just irks me.
• 1:32:26
  And that's what makes me say to myself, it's, it's not really a Corvette.
• 1:32:30
  Sort of like the new Fiero, right, William?
• 1:32:33
  And the interior of those things is horrendous.
• 1:32:35
  That center thing is just weird.
• 1:32:37
  With the buttons on the passenger side.
• 1:32:39
  I don't get it.
• 1:32:40
  Try to separate the cockpits to make, I don't know.
• 1:32:43
  They made some weird decisions on the design too.
• 1:32:46
  Like, The trunk has to fit a set of golf clubs and who's making these rules up.
• 1:32:51
  Keep in mind though, when it comes to those golf clubs, remember who first
• 1:32:54
  really started pushing that was Nissan with the three 50 Z convertible.
• 1:32:59
  The big thing was you had to have.
• 1:33:01
  Ability to put golf clubs in there.
• 1:33:03
  Well, it started way before that.
• 1:33:05
  Nine 11 kept.
• 1:33:06
  Well, you could put a set of golf clubs in the front of a nine 11.
• 1:33:08
  Right.
• 1:33:09
  Drive by the country club and tell me how many Corvettes where you count on
• 1:33:12
  your hand with gonna play golf on zero.
• 1:33:14
  Right.
• 1:33:15
  Well, that's what I'm saying.
• 1:33:15
  I'm sure they exist, but it's silly.
• 1:33:17
  It's a silly design requirement.
• 1:33:19
  Yeah.
• 1:33:19
  No one's buying it.
• 1:33:20
  You think that's why they do it?
• 1:33:21
  I think they're having fun with it and they're just making fun of the silliness.
• 1:33:24
  I don't think they mean it seriously at all.
• 1:33:26
  Ferrari doesn't do it.
• 1:33:28
  McLaren doesn't do it.
• 1:33:29
  None of those mid engine cars are like, Oh, I got to carry a set of golf clubs.
• 1:33:32
  Really?
• 1:33:32
  No, no, I really think they're doing that as joke.
• 1:33:35
  I really do.
• 1:33:36
  I think the only one who actually meant it seriously was Nissan.
• 1:33:40
  Maybe Porsche took it a little bit seriously because a lot of doctors.
• 1:33:44
  Drive Porsches and a lot of doctors play golf.
• 1:33:46
  And I'm still not sold on the look because there's certain design language that
• 1:33:51
  they carried forward from even the C4.
• 1:33:54
  If we go back that far, it's that slab rear end.
• 1:33:56
  And I kept making the joke that the backside of a C8 looked no different
• 1:34:00
  than a Camaro at the time, right?
• 1:34:01
  It was hard to tell them apart.
• 1:34:02
  If they were going down a straightaway, you know, between a ZL one and a C8.
• 1:34:06
  But what I found interesting was redesigner of redesigners, Chip Foose.
• 1:34:11
  Did one of his things during COVID where he sat down at his desk and, you
• 1:34:15
  know, him and his camera, they sort of asked him if you were going to do this
• 1:34:17
  in your own way, how would you do it?
• 1:34:19
  And when he was done with it, he was able to pull from the C2 and make the C8
• 1:34:25
  look more like a C2 and it was gorgeous.
• 1:34:28
  Now, granted, it was all pen and ink or whatever, but I'm hoping.
• 1:34:31
  That maybe they take from other designers and say, we
• 1:34:34
  can continue to improve the C8.
• 1:34:36
  This is just the beginning, sort of like the C1 we're starting over again.
• 1:34:42
  It's not so great, but maybe the next one, the C9 will be even better.
• 1:34:46
  Yeah.
• 1:34:46
  I think that's what you're faced with your point though.
• 1:34:49
  I think the C8.
• 1:34:50
  It right now has ugly duckling syndrome.
• 1:34:52
  You look at Corvette, when they emerge, the C4 was the one I remember because
• 1:34:57
  I was there when that car came out.
• 1:34:59
  I remember the oohs and ahs and wows and holy cow.
• 1:35:03
  But I also remember, Oh my gosh, this thing's a piece of garbage.
• 1:35:07
  It's a piece of junk.
• 1:35:08
  Because guys were not used to it.
• 1:35:10
  They weren't used to that exotic looking of a car compared to the C3
• 1:35:15
  and certainly compared to the C2.
• 1:35:16
  I think C8 is faced with that right now.
• 1:35:18
  And my wife and I were just behind a C8.
• 1:35:21
  And as we pulled up to it, she said, is that a Corvette?
• 1:35:24
  And I said, yeah, that's the C8.
• 1:35:25
  She said, boy, that rear end really needs some work.
• 1:35:27
  I said, yeah, there's a lot going on there.
• 1:35:29
  It's probably the worst part of that car.
• 1:35:31
  Hands down.
• 1:35:31
  But I think you're right though.
• 1:35:33
  I think Chevrolet, I think General Motors.
• 1:35:34
  They will smooth things out.
• 1:35:36
  They will make things a little less Ferrari, a little less
• 1:35:39
  McLaren, and a lot more Corvette.
• 1:35:41
  And I think they need to do that.
• 1:35:42
  And, and I do think, in fact, I know C7 and C8 have both alienated a lot of
• 1:35:48
  loyal Corvette customers, but they've engaged a lot of younger customers.
• 1:35:53
  And that's just it.
• 1:35:54
  So the target demographic for the C7, C8.
• 1:35:58
  Are the people that saw C4 when it came out that now have the earning potential
• 1:36:03
  and let's say the discretionary income to afford a Corvette, and they're not
• 1:36:07
  going to buy that C4 that they saw as a kid, they're going to buy the new hot
• 1:36:10
  one that's full of technology and gizmos.
• 1:36:13
  What also plagues C8, let's put the design stuff away for a second.
• 1:36:17
  We talked about how C7 was that 75, 000 sports car, although it
• 1:36:23
  was a Under sticker at 58 when it debuted in the Z 51 package and all
• 1:36:27
  that kind of stuff all day long.
• 1:36:28
  That was that near perfect, near 100, 000 sports car that GM had created.
• 1:36:34
  Then CA comes out and they said, well, uh, it's COVID because it came out in 2020.
• 1:36:38
  The world's shut down.
• 1:36:40
  Nobody can get one.
• 1:36:41
  So we will offer it for 65 grand.
• 1:36:44
  Put your orders in today and don't take delivery till 2022.
• 1:36:48
  And then suddenly the price went up and a friend of mine got a C
• 1:36:51
  eight and he kept it for a little while and he wanted to flip it.
• 1:36:53
  He ended up paying something like $92,000 for it before all the
• 1:36:57
  destination charges and all this kind of thing for just a Z 51.
• 1:37:00
  Base C8.
• 1:37:02
  So obviously they're going up from there with the Z07 and all these other
• 1:37:05
  things that they're going to build.
• 1:37:06
  The question becomes, is the C8 a six figure sports car right now?
• 1:37:12
  Is it really as good?
• 1:37:14
  And I know on track, yeah, the gizmos it's technically better to put
• 1:37:17
  down a faster lap time, but for the consumer dollar, is it really as good?
• 1:37:23
  A car to have in your garage is let's say a C7 from maybe
• 1:37:26
  that investment standpoint.
• 1:37:28
  I just looked online.
• 1:37:29
  You can buy a 2024 with 700 miles on it for 66 grand.
• 1:37:32
  Where?
• 1:37:32
  That's cheap.
• 1:37:33
  You know, out in the Amherst, the guy down there was 759 miles,
• 1:37:36
  somebody that's looked at it as.
• 1:37:37
  Were they fire sailing it?
• 1:37:38
  Cause they can't move it.
• 1:37:39
  What's going on?
• 1:37:40
  It's got yellow colors, but I mean, if you know what I like, they're a bunch
• 1:37:43
  of them on there for under 70 grand.
• 1:37:44
  I think we're all thinking the same way, which is C8 is a great engineering idea.
• 1:37:49
  It's a fantastic car for Corvette.
• 1:37:51
  Bye.
• 1:37:52
  I think C seven for a long time is going to be a much better
• 1:37:56
  investment than a C eight.
• 1:37:58
  Oh yeah.
• 1:37:58
  If for no other reason, it's the last of the front engine Corvettes.
• 1:38:03
  Yep.
• 1:38:03
  It's the very last one.
• 1:38:04
  It's like a 9 93.
• 1:38:05
  It's the last of the air cooled nine 11.
• 1:38:08
  Exactly.
• 1:38:08
  The air cooled Porsches, my God.
• 1:38:11
  When the 9, 9 6, the one that was first water cooled when that came out.
• 1:38:15
  Yeah.
• 1:38:15
  9 9 3.
• 1:38:16
  Oh, you couldn't touch them today.
• 1:38:18
  I mean, would you rather have a Ferrari, a Lamborghini?
• 1:38:20
  Cause they're in the same price bracket, basically.
• 1:38:23
  I think C7 is going to be that.
• 1:38:24
  I love C8.
• 1:38:25
  I do think she's a little ugly, but I see good things happening.
• 1:38:30
  I think Chevrolet will clean up C8.
• 1:38:32
  Here we are.
• 1:38:32
  We don't know what the future holds.
• 1:38:34
  Nobody has a crystal ball.
• 1:38:35
  The C8 is still an infant.
• 1:38:37
  They've been making changes.
• 1:38:38
  They've been fixing recalls, different wheels, different packages, paint schemes.
• 1:38:43
  You know, they have the IMSA C8.
• 1:38:44
  R edition, which has nothing to do with the actual C8 R, you know,
• 1:38:48
  you've got the E Ray, you've got some other stuff, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:38:50
  I think the advice we haven't given the Corvette sells insufficient
• 1:38:55
  bump, particularly, you know, the C5 and it's done really pretty well
• 1:38:59
  for itself in the last 20 odd years.
• 1:39:01
  There are enough people out there for whom it is their dream car.
• 1:39:04
  It's the last car they ever want to buy.
• 1:39:05
  Last fun car they ever want to buy.
• 1:39:07
  And so they just dropped so much money in it that they're never going to get back.
• 1:39:11
  And so I think if I'm really giving advice to somebody on this, if I were to do it,
• 1:39:16
  be really patient, it might take you two or three years to find the right vet, but
• 1:39:21
  be patient, know what you're looking for.
• 1:39:23
  Don't be afraid to transact and you probably will have to let a few get
• 1:39:27
  away that a year later, you're kind of like, I should've bought that.
• 1:39:30
  Why didn't I buy that?
• 1:39:31
  I was so dumb.
• 1:39:32
  But then the next time something like that comes around, you have the courage
• 1:39:35
  to pull the trigger and not wait.
• 1:39:36
  Cause there's always a little bit of FOMO in that game of, but what if I find
• 1:39:40
  something else six months from now, 12 months from now, the thing that brought
• 1:39:43
  it home to me, just looking through these transactions is apparently one of my jobs
• 1:39:48
  on this podcast is to reference bad data.
• 1:39:51
  Is this C5 06 that sold a few months ago and bring a trailer for 25K.
• 1:39:57
  This guy has so many mods on it.
• 1:39:59
  It's all supercharged and just built out suspension and everything.
• 1:40:02
  It's like, this guy spent so much money on this stupid car and it
• 1:40:05
  doesn't sell for any more than any other Z06 that's being sold.
• 1:40:10
  You added 0 in value to that car in spite of everything that you dumped in it.
• 1:40:14
  And if you just kind of have the patience, if that's what you want, you know,
• 1:40:17
  maybe you don't want to deal with it.
• 1:40:18
  You want a track car and you don't want a super truck.
• 1:40:19
  Okay, fine.
• 1:40:20
  But even then you could look for somebody who really spent the
• 1:40:22
  money on the suspension and spent the money to get it set up, right.
• 1:40:25
  Because it is in volume.
• 1:40:27
  It is such a dream car.
• 1:40:28
  It's not like a BMW M3, which sells in good volume.
• 1:40:31
  It's kind of like you're a successful executive and you have kids and you
• 1:40:35
  want something that's kind of fast.
• 1:40:36
  You get an M3.
• 1:40:37
  Like no, the Corvette is end game.
• 1:40:39
  So many people.
• 1:40:40
  And because it's their end game, they're not afraid of putting money into it.
• 1:40:43
  Cause they're gonna drive it until their hip goes out and they can't shift gears.
• 1:40:46
  It's this dichotomous advice of don't be afraid to wait, but
• 1:40:49
  when you find something, don't be afraid to pull the trigger.
• 1:40:52
  And that is the needle you have to thread for yourself.
• 1:40:54
  But it comes down to this, because this is what should I buy.
• 1:40:57
  And let's say you have 100, 000 to spend.
• 1:41:00
  Do you buy a C8?
• 1:41:01
  Or all things being equal, taking the extremes off the table, like the LT1,
• 1:41:07
  like the ZR1s, like some of the split window stingrays and things like that.
• 1:41:11
  And you're just kind of looking at Corvette and you
• 1:41:13
  got a hundred grand to spend.
• 1:41:14
  Do you buy new or do you buy old?
• 1:41:17
  And if you buy old, what do you buy?
• 1:41:19
  I would probably seriously consider a C7 ZR1 if no money was no object.
• 1:41:24
  Price has gone way through the roof on those.
• 1:41:26
  They're selling for more than they cost when they were new.
• 1:41:28
  You know, it's such a gamut.
• 1:41:29
  You've got a hundred thousand dollars to spend.
• 1:41:30
  You want a daily driver.
• 1:41:32
  Well, I'll tell you the C5 is sort of the bastard child of all of them.
• 1:41:35
  But that one night in Malibu.
• 1:41:37
  Oh God.
• 1:41:38
  No, seriously.
• 1:41:38
  If you're just looking for a daily driver to go back and forth
• 1:41:41
  to work in, the C5 is fantastic.
• 1:41:43
  I mean, it is really a fantastic car, but that said, you got a hundred grand.
• 1:41:47
  Got a little bit more money to play with.
• 1:41:49
  Is it worth getting a C8?
• 1:41:50
  Honestly, I, I don't know.
• 1:41:52
  I don't know.
• 1:41:53
  Is it daily driver friendly?
• 1:41:54
  Let me throw that out there.
• 1:41:55
  And Eric, you've heard me make this argument before when it comes
• 1:41:58
  to certain other cars that are two seats with nothing behind it.
• 1:42:02
  There's nowhere to put your stuff in a C8.
• 1:42:04
  There's nowhere.
• 1:42:05
  You've got to put it in the little cubby holes and whatever and hope to
• 1:42:07
  God you don't have too much stuff.
• 1:42:09
  A C7?
• 1:42:10
  Well, you've got a station wagon's rear end.
• 1:42:11
  You just throw it over your shoulder, you're done.
• 1:42:13
  Uh, even with The convertible, you've still got that area behind you.
• 1:42:17
  You've got a lot of space.
• 1:42:18
  So in terms of daily driver, I think your C7, C6, C5, I
• 1:42:23
  don't know if I want to go C4.
• 1:42:25
  All of those, I think would be much, much more forgiving, much more enjoyable, much
• 1:42:29
  more practical daily drivers than a C8.
• 1:42:32
  One of the things I like so much about the Corvette platform is there
• 1:42:35
  are so many really great cars for less than a hundred thousand dollars.
• 1:42:38
  So that's my first.
• 1:42:40
  Kind of reactions to our quick take.
• 1:42:41
  So, okay, I'm going to spend a hundred grand, you know, number
• 1:42:44
  one, this is what should I buy?
• 1:42:46
  So for C1, I will go with the 1962, three 27 black silver cove red interior.
• 1:42:51
  If anyone listening is curious, but I mean, don't get me wrong.
• 1:42:57
  I love a C4.
• 1:42:57
  I feel like the C4 made Corvette cool.
• 1:42:59
  Again, the C3 was so long in the tooth.
• 1:43:01
  And if you look back at the press from the eighties, The C4 was a big deal,
• 1:43:05
  but the C2 was certainly the golden age.
• 1:43:07
  I would totally agree.
• 1:43:08
  You know, I'm probably on the hunt for a ZR1, a C6, C7.
• 1:43:12
  I'm going to spend a hundred grand.
• 1:43:14
  Might be hard to find the right one.
• 1:43:15
  ZR1.
• 1:43:16
  But yeah, I would probably try and be patient and hope the economy
• 1:43:20
  continues to kind of be a little weak and not impact me personally so that
• 1:43:24
  I can pick one for a hundred grand.
• 1:43:26
  Because I think that makes a lot of sense.
• 1:43:27
  Having said that, if I'm really struggling to find a ZR1 for a hundred K, Man,
• 1:43:31
  I would be so tempted to do something foolish with a C seven zero six.
• 1:43:36
  I wouldn't pay a hundred K to get it, but I could end up spending that money to
• 1:43:40
  get it to something being really silly.
• 1:43:42
  You're not going to get that money back.
• 1:43:44
  At least not till the market changes a bit.
• 1:43:46
  You could build one of those Texas mile car.
• 1:43:48
  You could do 150 mile an hour roll on car.
• 1:43:50
  Like you could do so many silly, silly things with that platform.
• 1:43:54
  William, it's not big money, but it's six figures.
• 1:43:58
  This is my daily driving and I got to spend the whole hundred
• 1:44:00
  grand on just the one car.
• 1:44:01
  I'd buy the C8, you know, the technology's there, the comfort's
• 1:44:04
  there, everything's there.
• 1:44:05
  You can have fun with it.
• 1:44:06
  I mean, it can do a lot, wear a lot of different hats.
• 1:44:09
  If that's what you have to use, it's not going to kill you.
• 1:44:12
  It's not going to beat the shit out of you.
• 1:44:13
  You know, if you get a C5, I mean, you're going to buy a 6 speed, you know, those
• 1:44:17
  clutches are kind of heavy and then dealing with that fucking shift skip shit.
• 1:44:21
  I forgot about that.
• 1:44:22
  Oh my God.
• 1:44:23
  That was always a trick I had my C4, too, was either rev it up a little
• 1:44:26
  higher, so you delete it out or whatever.
• 1:44:28
  But yeah, I would just.
• 1:44:29
  It's annoying, but you know, Hey, you got the a hundred grand buy a really
• 1:44:32
  nice C6 and then spend some extra money, buy a beat up C5 and turn into
• 1:44:36
  a race car, buy a bunch of stuff.
• 1:44:38
  But you got to buy the one for a hundred grand.
• 1:44:40
  It'd be a C8.
• 1:44:41
  Rick, what do you think?
• 1:44:42
  I don't speak daily driver very well.
• 1:44:45
  I prefer driving race cars as daily drivers and the a hundred thousand
• 1:44:49
  dollar price points a little tough because I think you're right.
• 1:44:52
  I think if you have a hundred grand, you just buy the newest,
• 1:44:55
  latest and greatest, the C8.
• 1:44:57
  Probably.
• 1:44:57
  Maybe.
• 1:44:58
  Sort of.
• 1:44:58
  Yeah.
• 1:44:59
  I can't daily driver in my head.
• 1:45:01
  I can't compute that.
• 1:45:02
  Does not compute.
• 1:45:03
  What I'm hoping happens, and it's more than 100 grand, I'm hoping
• 1:45:07
  they make a 900 horsepower ZR1C8.
• 1:45:10
  For me, that checks every box for me.
• 1:45:12
  It checks a warranty.
• 1:45:14
  It checks enough horsepower to keep me satisfied.
• 1:45:17
  It checks a lot of boxes.
• 1:45:19
  The technology would be there and I don't have to modify it.
• 1:45:22
  Wider front tires too.
• 1:45:23
  Yeah.
• 1:45:23
  Wider front tires.
• 1:45:24
  The ZR1 would definitely have wider front tires if they followed
• 1:45:27
  the same format they always have.
• 1:45:29
  And you can't talk C2 and 3 as daily driver.
• 1:45:33
  I think I would, I don't know, daily driver's gotta be C8.
• 1:45:35
  I think you almost have to rephrase that question.
• 1:45:37
  Like, what would you do with your 100 grand for overall?
• 1:45:40
  Then it gets really complicated because then I'm looking at C2s.
• 1:45:43
  So we're used to doing this on What Should I Buy?
• 1:45:46
  So we go a little offensive.
• 1:45:48
  So I'm with you.
• 1:45:49
  I'm right there with you.
• 1:45:50
  And so here's what I'm thinking.
• 1:45:51
  There's a lot of things I will put up with and I won't put up with.
• 1:45:54
  And inside of the construct of daily is, yeah, I got to take it to work.
• 1:45:58
  Maybe I have a backup car, probably not going to drive in the winter.
• 1:46:01
  I'll have a second car, but I want to go to the cars and coffee.
• 1:46:03
  I want to take my wife to the ice cream parlor.
• 1:46:05
  You know, those kinds of things.
• 1:46:06
  Like you're going to use it.
• 1:46:07
  It's not going to sit.
• 1:46:08
  In a mausoleum somewhere, not a museum in a mausoleum, dying a decrepit death,
• 1:46:13
  disintegrating on a garage floor.
• 1:46:15
  I want to drive this car.
• 1:46:16
  That's what I mean, what we've always meant by that daily car.
• 1:46:18
  Right?
• 1:46:19
  And so I look at it two ways.
• 1:46:21
  If I'm going to go modern C7 all day, Z06.
• 1:46:25
  Done deal C7 in that charcoal gun, metal pewter, whatever you want
• 1:46:29
  to call that gray that it came.
• 1:46:31
  Oh, it's gorgeous, right?
• 1:46:32
  With the right set of wheels all day long, but I got a hundred grand
• 1:46:35
  to spend and I want a Corvette that I'm going to call my own.
• 1:46:38
  That's going to be different.
• 1:46:39
  Maybe have some money left over.
• 1:46:41
  I actually think after all this, I'm going to buy a C3 and I'm going to restomod
• 1:46:46
  it, put some wheels on it, lower it, side pipes, fenders, just do it upright.
• 1:46:51
  And I think I could make a C3.
• 1:46:54
  A really cool air quotes daily driver something I could take to work something
• 1:46:58
  I could cruise down the highway I could do a mountain run with it.
• 1:47:01
  I could go to cars and coffee.
• 1:47:03
  I could go get ice cream with my daughter I think I could go either
• 1:47:05
  way vintage or modern and there's probably money left over at either end
• 1:47:10
  of that discussion Yeah, i'm feeling you I'm feeling I like that answer.
• 1:47:14
  It's probably better than mine because the c3 also just it gets so little
• 1:47:17
  love So it would be so awesome to see one that was just done really really
• 1:47:21
  well And that somebody really just put their money and passion into to turn
• 1:47:25
  something that's worth it when you know what you're looking at and you
• 1:47:27
  walk up to a car and you just see the little things right and you're Just kind
• 1:47:30
  of like man that guy loves that car.
• 1:47:32
  I hope he you're not going but like I don't I don't mean it It was like maybe
• 1:47:35
  he's gonna have a heart attack next week.
• 1:47:36
  I can buy it from the sprinter Right on, brother.
• 1:47:40
  That's what I'm talking about.
• 1:47:41
  Real quick shout out to the International Motor Racing Research
• 1:47:44
  Center who sponsored this episode.
• 1:47:46
  And by the way, you have the opportunity to win a brand new C8 Corvette.
• 1:47:50
  You can enter their sweepstakes by visiting racingarchives.
• 1:47:54
  org and then clicking on sweepstakes in the top right corner where you can
• 1:47:58
  be entered to win a 2024 C8 Corvette.
• 1:48:01
  C8 Z06 with the Z07 add on package.
• 1:48:04
  And if you don't want the Vette, there is always a cash option and the proceeds
• 1:48:09
  do benefit the IMRRC Upper Watkins Glen.
• 1:48:12
  If you're looking to add a classic Corvette or Porsche to your
• 1:48:15
  collection, then reach out to William at exoticcarmarketplace.
• 1:48:17
  com.
• 1:48:19
  Learn more about local events and shows where you can meet other
• 1:48:22
  Corvette owners by touching base with Rob over at collectorcarguide.
• 1:48:26
  net.
• 1:48:27
  And if you want help building a Corvette for all sorts of occasions, look no
• 1:48:31
  further than Rick at Hoback Racing.
• 1:48:33
  And you're guaranteed to catch Mark and myself on another coming episode.
• 1:48:39
  So stay tuned for that.
• 1:48:40
  And don't forget what should be in your garage Corvette.
• 1:48:44
  Thanks again to our panel for another great, what should I buy debate?
• 1:48:47
  Like we mentioned in the introduction, this is part one of two.
• 1:48:51
  Next time we're going to talk Porsche versus Corvette and go
• 1:48:53
  through the generations of 911.
• 1:48:55
  I hope you enjoyed this.
• 1:48:56
  There's a lot to educate yourself on in the world of Corvette.
• 1:49:00
  I think you can go down rabbit holes on every generation.
• 1:49:02
  You got eight generations.
• 1:49:04
  Pick from just some amazing stuff out there.
• 1:49:06
  Absolutely amazing cars.
• 1:49:07
  If you haven't considered a Corvette before, I think more
• 1:49:10
  people should be looking at them.
• 1:49:11
  There's a lot of really, really great deals out there.
• 1:49:14
  And with that guys can't thank you enough for joining us again and look
• 1:49:17
  forward to seeing you in the next.
• 1:49:18
  What should I buy?
• 1:49:19
  I'm going to take off, but I appreciate your including me.
• 1:49:22
  And if you do a sequel to this, I'm happy to be a board.
• 1:49:24
  Thanks guys.
• 1:49:25
  Thanks.
• 1:49:25
  Good to meet you, Rick.
• 1:49:26
  Take care of guys.
• 1:49:49
  We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of Brake Fix Podcast brought
• 1:49:53
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• 1:49:55
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• 1:49:58
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• 1:50:02
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• 1:50:05
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