1977 Chevrolet Corvette

WHAT IS IT?

Corvettes are obviously THE legendary American sports cars. First offered by Chevrolet in 1953 as an underperforming I6 with an automatic transmission, the Corvette became a performance icon and race-winner as the enthusiast engineers of General Motors got their hands on it and were given a bit of free reign. There were high and low points for the model over the ensuing decades. It’s now on its 8th generation and finally changed to the mid-engined performer Chevy has been teasing since the 1960’s. However, it’s the Corvette’s third generation, offered from 1967 through 1982 that was its longest-running and highest-selling despite spanning the malaise era and losing much of that legendary performance over the years. Nevertheless, the Stingray styling is iconic, though it offered little in the way of interior or cargo capacity, particularly in the pre-1978 body with the flying-buttress style rear end (replaced by a glass bubble-back in 1978, though cargo access was still only from the passenger compartment as the rear glass only opened on the last 1982 collector’s edition examples).

WHY THIS ONE HAS BEST ONE ON THE PLANET CHOPS

1977 was the last year of the aforementioned flying buttress rear window though the Stingray name was removed by Chevy for some reason that year. While nearly at the nadir of Corvette performance, this example does sport a relatively rare Muncie 4-speed manual transmission as most were being bought with the 3-speed hydramatic by this period. This car has low miles and has completely original paint and interior in the spectacular and period-correct “Corvette Orange” over brown. The velour/leather combination seats are factory original yet also extremely rare as full leather was standard and this was a no-cost factory option. Late C3s have been perpetually cheap used cars so the survival rate of unadulterated examples is low. This is one of the nicest we’ve seen.