Chevy’s Corvette has long come in good, better, and best editions. When it comes to C5s, today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Z06 represents the model at its best. Let’s see if that’s good enough to meet its asking price.
The ‘80s was a crazy time. Not everybody had a cell phone and MTV had this incredibly odd programming they called music videos. Ford was not immune to the timbre of the times and took the opportunity to extend their Fox platform’s greatness to its most luxurious extreme, the Lincoln Mark VII.
We looked at a survivor 1988 Lincoln Mark VII LSC yesterday—those last three letters in its name indicating that it was the desirable Luxury Sport Coupé edition. That of course was the GT of the model’s lineup. At just $4,350, it proved to be just as lustful today, earning a narrow but resolute 57 percent Nice Price win.
Hey, have you noticed that the new C8 Corvette comes in a removable hardtop version (a Targa, if you will) and a convertible that contrastingly features… well, another removable hardtop. The latter at least marks the return of a feature that debuted on the C3 coupés back in ’68, that being a vertical back window that can disappear. In the C3’s case, the window had to be manually removed and stowed. In the mid-engine C8, it’s electrically lowered and raised. Fancy!
Should you be overwhelmed keeping track of all that, and if you’re not too keen to wait around for C8 production to ramp up, have a look at this 2002 Corvette Z06—it eschews any of that removable top folderol by being a fixed head coupé.
Now, the Z06 RPO or Regular Production Order package has long been an indicator of a Corvette with more than cruising on its mind. First offered on the C2 ‘Vette in 1962, it made a reappearance in 2001 on the C5 edition.
Here that manifests in the aforementioned coupé body offering the highest torsional stiffness of any C5 along with a massaged version of the long-serving LS engine, denoted LS6 in the Z06. That OHV V8 made 385 horsepower out the factory door and powered a car that, owing to incremental weight-saving measures, was 35 pounds lighter than its lesser fixed-roof coupe brethren. An equally massaged FE4 suspension wrapped in bigger wheels and beefier brakes helped the Z06 be all the ‘Vette it needed to be.
This 2002 Corvette Z06 presents in black on black and features its factory wheels coated in chrome. The C5 is perhaps not the best looking Corvette of all time, but it is notable for being the last edition to carry pop-up headlamps so it has that going for it.
Here those mumblecore headlights front a forward-tilting hood below which sits the 5.7-litre V8. That’s resplendent in its red plastic beauty panels and snake’s nest intakes. Gearbox duties are handled by the standard six-speed rear-mounted transaxle with integral LSD.
The ad notes 115,650 miles on the clock but doesn’t detail the car’s present condition nor its maintenance history. It does note that it just passed the Virginia State safety inspection, which is a plus. The interior appears to be in fine shape with just some apparent dye transfer on the driver’s seat of which to complain.
In fact, there’s not much you might complain about this Z06. The title is claimed to be clear and there doesn’t seem to be any aftermarket monkey business with the car at all. The price, at $12,999, seems to make the car within reach of mere mortals as well.
That, however, doesn’t mean it should be reached. That’s why we’re here, and it’s now incumbent upon you to decide its fate. What do you think, is this Z06 worth that $12,999 asking as presented in its ad? Or, for that much is this a veteran ‘Vette that’s overvalued?
You decide!
Washington DC Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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