miles on c3 cars for sale

Isnt it interesting that almost every c3 I can find for sale all have between 65K and 80K.

I just find it interesting that all these cars with cable speedomoters are only driven around 2K per year.

I could understand a few. But check out e-bay. I think 80-90% state the low mileage.

Reply to
rebco10
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  • Corvettes have always been primarily a "second" or used for recreation car.
*I'd say that in their early years of life, prior to Corvettes attaining collectible status in the later part of the '70s, most were driven probably 50-75% under average mileages per year for the era. So a '63 had 12-ish years of almost normalcy while a '67 had 8-ish. BTW, my '67 has 59,750 or thereabouts.
  • Since the early '80s the road time these cars saw dropped dramatically. Hell, I only drive my '67 about 300 miles/year - if that. It's fun to drive and all that, but not nearly as comfortable, inexpensive and worry-free to drive on a regular basis as our daily cars.
*Also consider the gas crunch of the earlier years of the '70s - hindering some use of these kinds of cars.
  • Lastly, people didn't daily commute anywhere near as far 40 years ago as they do today. Extremely few residents of my 'berg would have driven the 35 miles to get to work in the metro area that quite a few do today. We drive much more per year these days than in decades past - what's the average? 15,000? It wasn't that many years ago that the figure stood at
12,000.

Here's waving to ya - \||||

Owen ___

'67BB & '72BB

-- not affiliated with JLA forum in any way -- alt.autos.corvette is original posting -- ___

"To know the world intimately is the beginning of caring." -- Ann Hayman Zwinger

Reply to
Barking Rats

As the C3's started developing age, they became more of a collector/restoration project, so, they werent driven as much. (Im talking on average). Another possible reason for the 60-80 k. mileage on so many is due to the speedometer/odometer being changed out .... whether due to a failure, or, purposeful deception.

Reply to
Dave in Lake Villa

Ummmm, it was common practice to crawl under the car and disconnect the cable... Especially a car that was known to be a collectable when originally purchased.

If Karma put the miles >As the C3's started developing age, they became more of a

Reply to
RicSeyler

'Ummmm, it was common practice to crawl under the car and disconnect the cable... Especially a car that was known to be a collectable when originally purchased.'

Reply: Im sure many did, but, at the expense of some speeding tickets perhaps with not having a functional speedometer (odometer) .

Reply to
dave

All I know where I came from when you bought a Camaro, Chevelle, Nova, Vette, GTO Mustang, Cuda, Charger, Duster etc in the 70's first thing we did was disconnect the speedo........

The tach was the speedo, and it was "socially required" back then to have a Chrome Cup Sun Tach >'Ummmm, it was common practice to crawl under the car and disconnect the >cable...

Reply to
RicSeyler

We must be from the same area Ric! Everyone knew how to fairly accurately judge the speed of a Chevy small block by the tach. 2000 RPM's in 4th gear was 40MPH, 3000 RPM's was 60MPH, 4000RPM's was 80MPH, etc.

Reply to
StingRay

Another reason was the number of speedometer/odometer failures in these cars due to the extra load of the trip odometer, which frequently froze up due to corrosion in the trip odometer cable.

I remember lots of old Corvettes where the speedo worked and not the odometer, usually with the owner saying "The odometer just quite a couple of weeks ago, so the mileage is accurate."

Remember, people put a lot of importance in low mileage cars back then.

12,000 miles a year may have been an average but you probably knew few who did that unless they took the typical '60s type family vacation out west to add on the 4000 or 5000 miles to California and Disneyland. I remember the rule of thumb was about 10,000 miles per year a well-used car and you wanted to find 5000 a year to get a nice one.

Growing up outside St. Louis, my dad drove about 8 or 9 miles to work in the steelmill in Alton. It was a big deal. A few people around drove the 20 or

25 miles to St. Louis to work at Mac and most carpooled in a time before gas economy and such, because it was so far to work. Some guys my dad worked with used to drive in from the farm country and drive like 30 or 40 miles to Alton. Most thought them completely insane.

C3s are that time, and mileage is just less. Plus as others have said, they wee mostly second cars, bought for fun, and while many drove them daily, they were not daily drivers, often being daily for a week, then put away for a week or two, then out again for a few days. There were two fuel crisis in the '70s, so many were left at home for the economy car to work, the 20 mpg compact versus the 12 mpg Corvette, and collector status was just beginning.

By the time it was getting to be common to drive 30 miles to work, the C3 were not the go-to-work vehicles, being driven weekends and special outings.

Basically, these cars probably accumulated their 40,000 of those 60 or

80,000 in the first 10 years or less, the remaining 20,000 in the last 25 years.

Reply to
Tom in Missouri

On Mon, 25 Jul 2005 10:14:23 -0500, RicSeyler puked:

Isn't that a lot like stealing? I knew this girl in college that had really wealthy parents. A front yard full of Mercedes & Beemers and not one of them had the odometer connected. I lost a lot of respect for her folks and always thought twice about how they came about their fortune...

-- lab~rat >:-) Do you want polite or do you want sincere?

Reply to
lab~rat

'Isn't that a lot like stealing? I knew this girl in college that had really wealthy parents. A front yard full of Mercedes & Beemers and not one of them had the odometer connected. I lost a lot of respect for her folks and always thought twice about how they came about their fortune...

Reply to
dave

(At least to those that allow thier God given moral conscience to kick in .) (ill-gotton)????

Yep same old dave..can't spell and too lazy to figure out how to use webtv's spellchecker

He's like that character from a Cheech and Chong routine who was quoted: "I used to be all messed up on drugs, but now I'm all messed up on the lord"..ken

Oh yeah..........Shut up Dave

Reply to
Flakey714

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