When it comes to used vehicles, I’ve always said “mileage doesn’t matter” as long as the car’s got good service history and a reputable seller. Here’s a chance to test that theory: GM tuner Callaway is selling development cars, including this near-perfect supercharged Corvette for less than the price of its upgrades.
This Crystal Red Metallic 2010 Corvette Grand Sport six-speed, as listed right here, has Callaway’s SC606 performance package. For about $55,000 that got you a long list of enhancements including a TVS2300 supercharger.
This car’s also got aero pieces, the Callaway Nordschliefe suspension package, short-throw shift kit, a heavy duty cooling package, and some trim on top of that. Factor in the price of a new Vette five years ago and you’re looking at a $120,000+ vehicle.
This one’s been cared for exclusively by the experts at Callaway, who used it to evaluate the quality, durability, and drivability of their parts while bringing the car between promotional events. Aside from “some slight stone marks in the paint (nose and leading edges of the rear quarter panels), very few chips, and a few slight marks from road debris” it’s pretty much perfect.
Now they’re selling it for $45,000, with a legit title and registration. Only catch is the car’s got 200,800 miles and climbing.
Callaway says they “would not hesitate to drive this car across the country tomorrow, and then back again the following week,” which of course, everyone says, but I’m inclined to believe them. My own daily driver is about to crest 200,000 miles, and I have every confidence it’ll do another 200k as long as I keep following the maintenance scheduling and fixing things as they break.
Granted, mine’s a middle-management commuter car and this is a high-performance machine dialed up to over 600 horsepower, but good maintenance can make amazing things happen.
At the moment, Callaway’s also unloading two other development car deals. One’s a 2014 Corvette Stingray with their SC627 kit, but that which probably won’t be as much of a steal since it hasn’t done nearly as much work. “Call for price” tends to mean sellers want real money anyway.
But the other’s this 2014 Callaway Silverado SC460. I doubt you’re going to find another crew cab V8 pickup truck with a professionally-installed supercharger and highly documented service history any place else for the price... just under $40,000.
This might be the best new-ish full size pickup buy there is right now, as long as you’re not deterred by 50,000 miles on a one-year-old vehicle.
These pro-tuner development cars seem like pretty sweet deals to me; you get a car with an interesting (and well documented) history for a fraction of what it’d cost to set up yourself. Anyone into it, or too scared off by moon-mileage and the thought of what Callaway’s R&D folks might have done to these things?
Images via Callaway
Contact the author at andrew@jalopnik.com.