There’s a classic episode of Seinfeld where a couple’s fugly baby is charitably described by a houseguest as breathtaking. Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Corvette is obviously designed to take your breath away, but will you find its price to be ugly, baby?
Aside from the kitsch factor, icons from the early ‘80s like Flock of Seagulls hair, Atari 2600 consoles, and slasher films with Kevin Bacon in them hold little interest today. You can now add to that list yesterday’s second generation Chrysler Cordoba as it fell in 54% Crack Pipe loss, despite rocking a big mill and some serious mullet magnetism.
Today’s candidate also sports a V8 but that's but a mere sideshow to the main event which is the bodywork on this custom 1976 Corvette Stingray. In fact, if you find the latest ‘Vette to be insufficiently audacious, have I got a car for you.
Of course the C3 Corvette has often served as a canvas for custom visions in the past. The ‘70s ride of choice for porn stars and guys who just can't give up the frat life became a shadow of its former self due to its emasculation by emissions controls. In the case of many owners, the diminishing opportunities for go needed to be compensated by bold demonstrations of show.
Today’s car is the most boldly over-compensated-est that you could possibly imagine.
Sporting - as its base mind you - a Greenwood Daytona-esque wide-body kit, it goes several steps beyond that radical redesign with additional custom touches. Designed in the ‘80s, the Daytona kit was frequently applied to the later ‘Vette models that sported the bubble glass in the back.
This ’76 however predates that factory update and hence has its vertical rear window flanked by a pair of flying buttresses. Seeing as that was insufficiently adorned in relation to the rest of the Greenwood clothed car, the builder of this one added a secondary spoiler, rooftop air manager, and pair of speed hole sporting connectors - all above a chrome luggage rack! Oh, and the rear window has louvers. Louvers!
What looks like dual Ansa exhaust pokes out from under the massively extended rear end, but still under the shadow of the pcinic table sized spoiler. At the other end of those pipes lies a carb’d and chromed SBC, the hoses of which show more braiding than Rapunzel after a slow Friday night.
While crazily radicalized on the outside, the car’s interior remains a beige bastion of seventies sanity. The four spoke steering wheel looks as mundane here as in a Vega, and proves that stylistically, Chevy in the seventies wasn't firing on all cylinders.
There’s not much else here other than a stock set of seats, although there’s a billet shifter for the THM350 and what looks like a nav unit or maybe a mini pong game sprouting from the crash pad like a blackhead poking through an otherwise well groomed eyebrow.
The minimalist ad does note that the 49,900-mile car has won multiple awards - and not including most vomit-inducing - so it obviously does have its fans. It also looks - if you can get past its looks - to be in exemplary condition. The Viper red paint, fiberglass work and aforementioned interior all exhibiting an air of quality.
But is that all enough to overcome both its audacious appearance AND $39,900 price tag? What do you think, is this wild ‘Vette worth its asking price? Or, is that price just the icing on this custom’s crazy cake?
You decide!
Hemmings Classifieds, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to indianajoel007 for the hookup!
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