Corvettes

I was looking through Market Place the other day, primarily to find a used rototiller cheap and close to home, and a couple of early eighties Corvettes popped up. I'm not in the market for any automobile presently but I was surprised at the prices - $5,000 or $6,000. I always thought a Corvette would be a good investment and would appreciate in value. I knew they were slugs as far as performance went. They were no longer "the only American sportscar" as they were once marketed but became cars old men with deep pockets bought. 

I looked up the specs on these dogs and it's pretty easy to understand why they're selling so cheap on the used market. A 350 CID engine making 200 horsepower with an automatic trans behind it. If you were to compare the specs of a 1962 Corvette, you could get a 327 with the solid lifter cam that was making 340 horses and a 4-speed trans.

I had a '62 Impala like this one. It also had a 327 and a 4-speed. There were several engine options, including the 327 in two different states of tune - 250 hp or a 300 hp version. The straight six with the 3-speed had about the same performance as the '82 'Vette.

So going forward twenty years, it appears the Corvette went backwards in performance, rather than forwards. I realize much of this was due to federal smog requirements, but it seems like GM decided the answer was to shave the lumps off the camshafts, lean out the engines and make sure you couldn't adjust the carburetors. 

Fortunately, Corvette went back to its roots and decided to build real sportscars again. The bottom of the current line will run you about $70,000 but you can go up to over 1,000 horsepower if you're willing to part with $200,000. Personally, if I was going to consider buying a sportscar that would be fun to drive and wouldn't break the bank with selling price, sales tax and insurance, I'd look hard at a Honda Civic Type R.  315 horsepower, 6-speed transmission and less than $50,000. I'm thinking the fun factor would be right in my wheelhouse.