It’s that time of year again, when we can get together for the holidays and say what we’re all thankful for: turkey, time with your family, that holiday bonus, and, of course, low-balling Corvette owners every day like its your job until one of those shmucks bites.
Seems a little cold-hearted maybe, but here are the facts: sports cars aren’t driven much in the winter in large swathes of this country, and Corvettes are one of the most popular sports cars in America. Law of syllogism, one plus one equals two, Corvettes are just parked every winter, collecting dust and opening the door to cheap listings.
Don’t believe me? Check it out:
Here’s a clean C5 coupe in Lancaster, SC, coming at you for $14,000 from an initial listing of $19.5k.
Do you dig a C3 with four on the floor? Myrtle Beach has it for you with a four grand discount.Â
More C5s! Five thousand off from $15,000 to just $10k.
And if you wanna try to be nearly as cool as me, the resident Autopian C6 Corvette owner (good luck with that, btw), here’s a C6 for $2k off in Jackson, Michigan.
And this is only a small handful of examples across generations.Â
Is This A Real Thing?
Bring-a-Trailer’s trend charts show a slight decline on the site’s frequently inflated car prices, but it seems especially evident for the C4-C6 generations when looking at this year’s trends. Side note, it is interesting to see the C8 market crater, agnostic of the season, as we’ve remarked before.
CORVETTE C6
Here’s the chart for the C6, with the last two columns showing how the C6 faired in 2024. Yeah, there’s a couple big ticket items, but those are almost all pristine ZR1s (and one kinda awesome C1 conversion?)
CORVETTE C5
The C5 feels pretty similar to the C6, with a slight decline going across the first and back half of 2024. Those outliers are once again the retro C1 body kits which we clearly need to talk about another time.
CORVETTE C4
The C4 had a much more scattershot distribution for most of the last two years they’ve been on sale, but this second half of 2024 sees them really congregating around the mid-teens.
It looks like as soon as Ned Stark rears his head and utters those three famous words, you know that deals for the Corvette are about to pour in.
Why do the prices seem to drop in winter? Well, I’ll let the people tell you.
Sports cars are great because you get to look rad and go fast as hell, and that’s just hard to do when the water and snow is pouring from on high and making the roads slippery as hell
One of the many reasons I love my C6 is because it’s a targa, and quickly popping the top off and having the wind in my luscious hair and basking my blemish free, carmel skin in the sun is amazing, but that just isn’t an option when the air is -10 with windchill and the snow is ready to break my traction. So what do people do?
They put baby in the corner, parking ’em in storage and letting it sit, eventually getting mad that their toy is never used and selling it for pennies on the dollar.
I’m from Arizona, now in the City of Angels, which are two places notorious for having pretty much permanent shorts weather and nary a drop of water from the sky, so I had no idea that this was a thing.
The thought of throwing my car in a garage for maybe half a year is so foreign to this freak who daily drives his ‘Vette, but alas, the world doesn’t revolve around me, and somehow my experience isn’t universal. Who would’ve thought!?!
That being said, even in the Great Los Angeles with all of our pretty weather, we’re seeing prices drop, too.
Small or large, you can bet on a slash for a hot single Corvette in your area. And just look at how extreme some of these deals get!
On second thought, maybe those initial prices were a typo…
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Nevertheless! Do your civic duty this holiday season and message a kind man in jorts and a pair of New Balances offering $3k under his asking price and laugh your way to the bank and the gas station. You simply can’t lose.
Maybe after the kids are through college, I’ll look for a C4 or C5 with a stick. In red, or yellow if not red.
In Arizona (aka snowbird haven), it’s the opposite where all the boomer vehicles (Corvettes, Cobra replicas, convertible Mustangs) get driven in the winter months. In the summer they put all their vehicles into storage as they leave to go back to the midwest.
Florida too.
I live in Georgia so salt really isn’t an issue right there along with snow in general, but whenever it got cold out, I always took out my Miata with the top down and just threw on a jacket and a beanie. Best drives when the air is brisk
I do the same and it’s amazing
Growing up living in Pennsylvania, my dad would get demo cars and would always bring home the sports cars. Top went down when it snowed and we would go out for ice cream. We weren’t right in the head but in the best way possible
Some of those cars with big price drops had been on the market for quite a while too.
I drive my classic Mini year round, tho if the snow’s pretty deep It doesn’t work so well being as close to the ground as it is it’s more of a snow plow then!
My second Miata was listed at a dealer in Fort Wayne for $17k in April and I bought it the first week of October with a $4000 discount. We both knew what they had.
We had a few inches of snow here last week but I don’t think they salted the roads so my Vettes get to stay out for a bit longer. Always a downer to hook up the battery tenders for the big snooze. On the plus side, it’s a good excuse to do maintenance or mods that would take away good summer driving time.
I used to drive them just about all year and simply avoided the rare snow days when I lived farther south although even summer tires can do OK in a few inches of snow. Up here with the salt, there are just too many things to rust (even with the aluminum chassis cars) that I don’t want to deal with it on a car I plan on keeping for a long time.
Another thing that happens is that as the owners age, it becomes harder to get in and out of America’s Finest Sports Car. It’s one thing to let gravity put you in the seat. Entirely another thing to lift your aged carcass up and out of the seat at the end of the trip. Don’t ask me how I know. 🙂 At some point, you have to face facts and sell to the younger and more limber!
All the SC ones make me laugh because I am not far from there in Wilmington, NC. It has been around 70 every day this week during the day and they never salt the roads or anything. There is no reason they couldn’t get out and drive those. Some parts of SC closer to the Western side this might not be the case but that Myrtle Beach one could easily be driven year round with the exception of maybe 2-3 months in the dead of winter if they are on Summer tires.
Bonus discount: old-guy owner who can no longer contort himself into a Corvette’s driver’s seat. Super-motivated!
I’m going to be 70 soon, and I want a toy. However, I know this will be an issue sooner rather than later. I’m hoping for a Miata NC PRHT.
At least I’m 5’8″ and 160 lbs., so I’ll fit.
That makes all the difference. I got friends in their 50s who are basically infirm already.
All these people selling must not have heard of people putting snow tires on their Vettes and driving them.
To be fair, all the boomers around me would have a massive coronary episode if they saw such thing happening. God forbid if you even drive your Corvette in the rain.
I have seen Vettes in Chicago with winter tires. Nothing newer than a 6, however.
Same. Last one I saw was when I was still living in the U. P. One snowy morning, I was pulling out of a gas station and a C4 on snows was going down the road. I don’t know if you could do it with a C7, maybe a base model.
While I have not yet graduated to a Corvette quite yet (just got the white new balance this fall), I have a Camaro SS. I slap the snows on it and drive it year round. In Ohio, we get some snow, but really not that much anymore. I think I’ve had to deal with proper snow in that car maybe three times. Only once was it an issue where I nearly got stuck going up a long grade; eventually got there after much effort.
To be honest, it’s not much fun driving a RWD thing with some power in the winter. You can’t go fast or really enjoy it much. The only fun is when you get enough snow to turn off the TC and have some tail-out shenanagins when nobody is around.
Oh man, all those boomers know what they got.
Initial listing: $750,000
Get-(it)-off-my-lawn listing: $7,500
I’ve always driven my stupid cars in winter. An Elise on winter tyres in the snow is even more fun than it is on summer tyres on a track.
Sports cars get the same OEM all climate validation as every other car. They deserve some winter fun.
Make sure to kick the tires while you’re at it.
Once I put nice all seasons in it instead of crappy summer tires my C4 actually became a pretty good winter car. It has a lot more ground clearance than the C5/6 do, it’s notably smaller and easier to see out of and still has posi, traction control and ABS. The main issue is that shoes that were conducive to cold weather were not conducive to the C4’s tight pedal box and high sills.
The C6 is my favorite, but C5 Corvettes are such a high-bandwidth performance car and an absolute bargain.
C5 and C6 coupes exemplify the best automotive values for the money spent available at the moment. Parts are commonly available in the USA. They’re reliable and mechanically solid enough to handle twice their stock output. They’re even reasonably fuel efficient due to their excellent aerodynamic efficiency and average-ish curb weight, in spite of that thirsty V8 making it move.
The C7s also have that aero efficiency, but they’re getting a bit more feature-laden and porky in weight, and they’re still fairly expensive, but in spite of those downsides also still provide good value compared to most other fun car propositions, but they’re not close to C5s and C6s on this.
A good, solid, daily driver of a C6 can be had for $10k if you look hard enough, and another $5k of almost bolt-on go-fast parts could make it into a competent track weapon that 6-figure supercars would have problems with.
The C8 is just too much car, if you get what I mean… It deserves endless fat shaming, and it’s also very thirsty in more ways than one.
I hope the C8 develops that reputation so I can afford one sooner rather than later.
I guess there is no way the seller is asking what he thinks it’s worth plus a bump then realizes what it is worth? I am all for deflated Corvette prices as long as I don’t end up owning a Corvette. Like a Jaguar I would not want one after 1968.
’68 was a bad Corvette year. It’s’ the first year for the C3, and they were still working things out. The tell is the door handles – it’s got those sleek push-down paddles, but also a button. That’s a one-year-only thing.
Lots of little ’68 quirks that got better from ’69-’72.
And a lot of ’69-’72 quirks got better by ’82.
And it finally became a modern sports car in ’84. The C4 was a landmark Corvette that finally broke the fever of the C2 platform (C3s were different but similar to the C2, which began its gestation in the late ’50s)
From what I can tell, a C3 is a C2 chassis with a sexier body. A ’68 is closer to a ’63-’67 than it is to the end of the generation in ’82.
Yeah, that’s my understanding, too. And C2s and C3s are GREAT LOOKING, but super duper uncomfortable. They’re terrible GTs, if good sports cars. From C4 on, the range of talents expanded significantly to the point where they perform better than ever at whatever challenge you want to give them, and they’re good GTs now, too. Still an amazing bargain.
The C6 is really the pinnacle of the “classic” layout, to me, even though the C7s obviously bumped the performance achievements up further. The C6s are more visually pleasing to my eye.
And then the C8s – I really really like the C8, especially when you realize what you get for $70K. They’re doing a bad job getting people who aren’t 70 years old excited about them, though, so, as always, cheap, babied Corvettes will be an abundant resource for decades.
I’m a big C5 fan. Somehow, the C6 lost some of the “Corvette look”, maybe it’s in the fender arches.
Absolutely agree about the C6 being the pinnacle. Sure, I’m biased by driving one every day, but I think it’s the perfect balance of having a “classic” look (it being almost 20 years old and all) but still feels refined and modern enough that you could see it in a showroom today. Would it be the revolutionary head-turner if it debuted today with that shape? No, but I don’t think anyone would be mad at it either.
Sort of ridiculous to be wary of driving your Corvette in the winter.
It’s not like it’s going to rust.
Even dumber to sell for less in the winter when you’re in California.
Maybe Facebook Marketplace just isn’t the right venue for Corvettes?
They need to sell for less in winter if the other half of the country drops their prices… Pretty much they can sell for a ‘proper’ winter state car, plus the cost of a flight or two, and transporting it back, or what you need to spend if you buy one out of state. I get there are some other factors, but the whole market drops, just to fairing degrees.
Are Southwest based buyers really going to risk flying out to a “real” winter state to gamble on a rust belt car when they have plenty of rust free examples in their own warm backyard?
They will if they’re cheap. People will do all sorts of things for a ‘bargain’.
Yeah, I (of all people!) get that.
But its still a lot more hassle, expense and risk than going across town.
Rust belt cars that aren’t exposed to salt are no different than AZ cars. It’s all about how the car is used, where it’s stored, how often it’s washed, etc.
A car existing in Michigan does not automatically make it rusty.
This is true IF they haven’t been exposed. The difference is the possibility salt exposure exists. Pictures can only show so much and folks who live in mild climates may not know what to look for.
OTOH I used to live less than a mile from the Pacific ocean so I’ve seen plenty of carported rust boxes that never saw road salt
Agree about the sea air. My office was about a mile from the Pacific, and our two work vehicles developed serious rust in just a few years, as did the exposed metal that was part of the HVAC system on the roof. Vendor who installed it was from Tulsa, and had no idea items outside should be ‘marine rated’ that wasn’t cheap to fix.
Generally – No.
We don’t go back to the Rust Belt unless it’s something for work, it’s a layover between coast-to-coast flights, or someone we’re closely related to has very recently become dead.
The body panels are fiberglass, but there’s still a lot of structural steel under there. And oh yeah does it rust.