Must Have - Corvette Documentation

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Reply to
oldcorvettes
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I am always amazed by the number of old Corvettes that have documentation or the insistence of buyers for the documentation. Not that documentation should be discounted or ignored, but the number having real documentation versus those having documentation that probably isn't the same age of the car is a real problem.

Back when many of these cars were build, bought, and sold, they were simply cars. So they were traded in on the next new Corvette or the new family station wagon since single Guy who bought the Corvette was now Dad with the new baby(ies).

The first thing done in most, if not all, dealerships was to sterilize the car - remove all traces of the previous owners. This protected the selling dealer from the issue of having the buyer find out the car had been driven hard, put up wet, as many were. This means all paperwork that many owners store in the glove box or in a neat box of removed owners papers like window stickers, were circular filed with haste. Sure, you found out the previous owner when you signed the title, but often, they only showed you the back where to sign and not the front where the owner info was. And by then, the sale was a done deal.

When Corvettes were more than a couple of years old, many name dealers (the Chevy, Ford, Buick, Dodge, etc. dealer) would either auction them off or turn to a few small private lots who would take their un-prime stock off their hands. Corvettes were a problem for name dealers, as they had to back them with a warranty. The As-Is sheets on the windows are a new thing, not something from the '50s and '60s. The OK dealership prided themselves with reliable great used cars, and stood behind them. A Corvette could be a horror. Sell a used Corvette for $500 profit, then spend $500 rebuilding an engine, $200 rebuilding a transmission, $100 rebuilding a rear end, and so on, because the car had left maybe 20 stop signs in its life without leaving a 50 foot patch of tires behind.

Honest Joe's, Slim's Used Cars, Main St. Auto, and so on also made sure you couldn't go find the previous owner. Anything in the way of paperwork hit the trash before the car ever hit the front of the lot. This way they were all owned by "a little old lady who only drove to church on Sunday."

About the only cars to not suffer this were those sold privately. And even then, not everyone owning a Corvette was in tune with saving scraps of paper for everything about it. To most doctors, lawyers, Navy pilots, and so on, they were either a prestigious car or a fast car and no one thought "I'd better save this paperwork because in 2007, it will really make a difference in price."

But today, almost any Corvette that is close to stock, has paperwork.

Did you wonder how that happened?

Reply to
Tom in Missouri

On Sun, 4 Nov 2007 22:32:39 -0500, "Tom in Missouri" puked:

Just a thought, my 2000 SS Camaro Convertible is a 'company car', and I have 8 years of meticulous records on it. Not really so much on purpose, but I do still have the window sticker and GM brochure.

I get your point about how that stuff would be thrown out buy the dealer, but if I sold my car today I'd have a complete record for it.

-- lab~rat >:-) Stupid humans...

Reply to
lab~rat >:-)

and who really cares ? I have bought used cars and gotten records with them, I just threw them out , never continued with them and never gave a rats ass for them . I'm not anal

kickstart

Reply to
Kickstart

Many very well might care! I have full documentation on my '94 Ragtop. Receipts on every penny that has been spent on it. And when I resell I can backup everything I say has been done and replaced on it. And what parts and pieces were used................

Reply to
Ric Seyler

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