Baby You’re Much Too Trashed: 1979 Chevy Corvette vs 1984 Chevy Corvette

Good morning! I’m writing this from the bedroom of an Airbnb in Portland, Oregon, and we’re back in town for a wedding because my brother is finally marrying his partner of twelve years. It’s going to be a hectic weekend, and it doesn’t stop there: Right after we get back to Maryland, we’re off to see The Warning in concert in Baltimore. All very cool stuff, but it doesn’t leave me much time to write. However, I know I owe it to you, faithful readers, to keep providing you with a steady stream of poor automotive life choices, so we’re going to do things a little differently this week. I’ll explain in a minute.

On Friday, we finished up a week of exploring the Facebook “Underappreciated Survivors” group, and I asked you to choose which car out of the four winners was most deserving of more attention and appreciation than it gets. And you chose the Audi A6. I can’t disagree with that; it always bothered me how 60 Minutes did Audi dirty, especially right before it built some of its best cars. This A6 is at least as nice of a car as the contemporary BMW 5 Series, but because of the scandal, hardly anybody bothered to find that out.

Though considering that the Fiat 850 came in a strong second, I think some of you ignored the brief and just picked your favorite. And if that’s the case, then I still choose the Audi. That’s a hell of a lot of car for $4,500, and while it might not be as set-and-forget reliable as an Accord or Camry, it’s nowhere near as fragile or finicky as the Audis of a few years later.

All right. Since I’m going to be all over the place for the next few days, I won’t be able to check results and then write the next day’s Showdown like I usually do. Hell, I might not even have time to read comments. I’ll just have to squeeze in writing whenever I can, like now. So I’m going to front-load most of the week, without any analysis of the results at the top, and then on Thursday evening, from the comfort of my own sofa, I’ll check all the comments and results from the week, and we’ll do a four-way shootout. Sound good? We’ll start off with this pair of Little Dead Corvettes.

1979 Chevrolet Corvette – $2,200

Engine/drivetrain: 350 cubic inch OHV V8, three-speed automatic, RWD

Location: Urbana, IL

Odometer reading: 76,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and… drives? Not clear

The fourteen-year run of the C3 Corvette could be called “The Decline And Fall Of The Corvette Empire.” Its wild “Coke-bottle” shape, based on the Mako Shark II show car, caused a huge stir in 1968. It looked like a rocketship, which is fitting, because it was the Earthbound ride of choice for Apollo astronauts. And it was no slouch in the performance department either, with a variety of small- and big-block V8s propelling it to ill-advised speeds. But as the 1970s wore on, new regulations and requirements had their way with the Corvette, as they did with all cars, and… let’s just say Chevy engineers did the best they could.

Horsepower in this 1979 model was actually up from its low a few years earlier, and the Corvette was still one of the quickest cars you could get that year, but these days you’ll be embarrassed by pretty much any minivan. Its 350 V8 was available with either a four-speed manual or a three-speed TH400 automatic; this one has the automatic, as did most ’79 Corvettes. The ad’s description is terse, but if I’m reading it right, this car starts and runs, and just had new brakes installed, which I guess means it’s drivable? It’s hard to say.

A lot of old Corvettes with low miles have been babied, and are kept meticulously clean by owners who hardly ever take them out of the garage. But late C3s are nearly always the exception to that rule. You see some nice clean ones, certainly, but you also see a lot of them in various stages of dereliction. This one looks like no one has cared about it in a very long time. It’s filthy inside, the dash is cracked, the horn button is missing, and I don’t even want to know what that pile of stuff in the passenger’s seat is. Best not to dwell on it, I think; just shop-vac it up, unbolt the seats, burn them, and replace them with something else.

The paint is toast, and it seems to ride on a hodgepodge of wheels and tires, but it’s undamaged. Obviously the fiberglass body isn’t going to rust, but the steel frame can, so it’s worth an inspection to make sure everything is up to snuff. It looks like it’s missing some trim: the emblems are gone, and it’s missing the rocker panel trim strips (probably removed to repaint it, then lost), but Corvette restoration outlets sell those.

1984 Chevrolet Corvette – $1,000

Engine/drivetrain: 350 cubic inch OHV V8, four-speed automatic, RWD

Location: Reno, NV

Odometer reading: 94,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives – but has no title

The all-new-for-1984 Corvette appeared to huge fanfare as well, after Chevy skipped the 1983 model year. This car, along with the third-generation Camaro and Firebird, and the revived Mustang GT, heralded the end of the malaise era, at least when it came to performance cars. Finally some real horsepower was back on the menu, along with high-tech gadgets and a chassis that actually liked to go around corners. Us 80s kids knew this car marked the end of something and the start of something better, and we snapped up posters and model kits and toys of it like there was no tomorrow. This is still the “new Corvette” in my mind, forty-one years after the fact.

The engine and transmission were actually carryovers from the final-year C3, a 350 V8 with “Cross-Fire” dual-throttle-body fuel injection and the new TH-700R4 four-speed automatic. The famous Doug Nash 4+3 manual was also available, but not until later in the year. The Cross-Fire fuel injection system has a bad reputation – some wags call it “Cease-Fire Injection” – but this one runs and drives fine, according to the seller. So why the low price? It has no title. There are a few ways around that problem: you can find out what Nevada’s rules for applying for a lost title are, you can take it to another state that doesn’t issue titles for cars this old, or you can use it as the basis for a track-only race car, which rarely have titles anyway.

The interior of this one is pretty trashed as well, though it’s nowhere near as gross as the C3 inside. The seats could use reupholstering, and the dash has some cracks – and once again, the horn button is missing. What’s with that? Do horn buttons fall off old Corvettes, or do people steal them out of derelict cars for the emblem? Inquiring minds want to know.

Outside, the paint is chipped, and it has one mismatched wheel, but it’s not in terrible shape. In fact, if you can get the title sorted out, this could be a good way to experience Corvette ownership on the cheap. These early C4s are only a step above late C3s in the minds of most Corvette people, so you needn’t worry about restoring it. It will never really be worth all that much. It could be a lot of fun for a little while, though.

The world of old Corvette ownership seems like a strange place. Too many people take them way too seriously, which is why it’s refreshing to see a couple of cheap running examples like these. They’re supposed to be accessible; “America’s Sports Car” and all that. They were never meant to sit in garages while old men fawn over them. They’re meant to drive. And with a little work, these could both be back on the road. Which one would you rather put the effort into?