TonyBob5 said:
I am looking at a 1979 Vette, L-82, factory 4 speed, t-tops, runs well, drives well, no rust, asking $5900, thats the good stuff. Bad stuff- 120,000 miles and he's not sure if the engines ever been rebuilt, paint is faded pretty bad, interior is ok minor work needed there.
With 120K miles on the engine, it's going to be worn and not worth much. If it has been rebuilt, it's not going to be worth much in the 'collector' arena. I'm guessing that you aren't necessarily concerned about it's worth to collectors as much as it's 'worth' to you. That being the case... I'd consider holding off. $5900 ain't a terrible price, but it's gonna cost a pretty penny to get it back up and looking
really nice. Expect that you WILL find problems with it within the first six months. The 4-speed would be the only real attraction to this car for me.
As for the '79 model in general...unless you are truly in love with that particular year, I'd suggest you look at other years. (Sorry, current '79 owners!) The differences just between the '79 and '80 are significant enough to warrant a look at the '80 model, assuming you like the body style. Obviously, I'm a bit biased here.
Here's the same advice I give to everyone looking to buy a used vette.
1) No matter how much you think you've found The One, if you don't end up with it, there will be another "One" just a few months later
2) Buy the most vette you can afford. As someone said above, cosmetic work on a vette can be expensive. Mechanical work isn't necessarily expensive, just time consuming. (If you aren't turning your own wrench, then it does becomes expensive.) If you have $8000 to spend on a vette, and you find this one for $5900, at least look around for vettes in the $8000 price range. It will cost more to fix up a vette than to just find one in the condition you will be happy with. Unless you are looking for a project, I think the object is to find a car you can immediately go out and enjoy, not one that has to sit in the garage awaiting more repairs.
3) If you are looking at an older vette, specifically a '75-'82, don't think that you are going to go out and start smoking ricers. These cars are not fast by any stretch of today's imagination. Off the factory floor they were 8 second 0-60 and top speeds of 124 (give or take). Add on to that 20+ years of being around and mileage on an engine, transmission, etc... you are going to be even slower.
In short, do some really good research and narrow your search down to at least 3 specific years. And focus only on your #1 most loved year. When I started looking, '80 was the year for me. Besides a 350lb weight savings over a '79, I liked the newer body style. '81 started the introduction of computer control and I didn't want that. So 1980 was the sweet spot year for me. Determine what year really makes you smile the most, both from looks and mechanically. Then focus your search on that year.
(If I had to read into your post what you might be thinking, I didn't get the impression that you were 100% ga-ga over this '79. If not, then it's not the car you necessarily want.)
