Every era has its icon and almost every iconic car has its time in the spotlight: we don’t need to remind you which car Smokey and the Bandit drove, which car transported Marty McFly to the 1950s, that the Audi S8 featured in Ronin, that Eleanor was a Mustang in Gone in 60 Seconds, as was Steve McQueen’s car in Bullitt.
But the Corvette? Did the movie Corvette Summer kill the 1970s C3 Corvette as much as it did Mark Hamill’s acting career, who appeared in some indie film a year earlier calling Star Warriors, or something.
Maybe it was the fact that horrible 1978 movie featured an abomination of a 1973 C3 Corvette that did it no favours, because for iconic motoring movie stars, standard seems best, and Corvettes just don’t seem to star: movies like the 1981’s King of the Mountain, 1967’s Hot Rods to Hell and Clambake, and 1997’s Con Air all featured Corvettes. Miss them? Yep, can’t blame you for that, we did too.
But we didn’t miss this Corvette listed for sale at driven.co.nz. And in the words of Biff Tannen, “Well, lookie what we have here”: it’s a 1972 Corvette Stingray. The high $95k asking price is the clue, but this is more like a showroom than a barn find.
Meticulously retored in Canada, the LT-1 optioned Stingray is showroom condition inside and out, with ‘matching numbers’ (ie: truly all original) on its factory 5.7-litre 350cid good-old carburetor-fed V8.
See all Corvette listings here.
In Pewter Silver with red vinyl interior, it’s a striking looker, too, with such 1970s luxury goodness including power steering ‘and’ brakes, three-point seat belts, AM’FM radio and F41 front and rear sway bars. Of course, the good ol’ F41 pack… yep, know all about it (recedes into hedges).
With a four-speed manual, its also a show winner and includes a small library of associated literature, and all with just 62,000km on the odometer. But the clincher is a luggage rack. And the pop-up headlights. And the targa roof… just so much to give in one Corvette. It may not have established itself as an icon, but this is one C3 Corvette that’s lived on strong.
