[REPRINT] Our Corvette Heritage #62: 1973 Corvette Roadtest with Zora

[67HEAVEN]

OUR CORVETTE HERITAGE:
I know you'll agree that keeping our Corvette heritage alive is important to the hobby. As new owners come on board, I'll bet there's a lot about Corvettes that they don't know.

The OUR CORVETTE HERITAGE series of threads is an attempt to bring us all up to speed or remind us about the history and development of our favourite car.

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For the 62nd in this series of threads, here's a roadtest article on the 1973 Corvette L-82 and LS-4....and Zora Arkus-Duntov is along for the ride.

This article appeared in the January 1973 issue of Motor Trend magazine.

Enjoy!

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For similar Corvette heritage articles, visit SuperFast80's interesting website at http://www.CorvetteArchive.com

 

[TomOB]

The article says that they are affordable and seems to stress that. Were corvettes really affordable back then? I mean given the current price, if i put in money i have had due to a car accident from 10 yrs ago, all the money ill make this year (hey im a student) and a little extra i still have to pay liek $300/mo on 0% financing.
Granted that im a student once again, but 50k isnt cheap or affordable in my book, especially given the "2nd car" status of such cars. ie, if you have a family or certain jobs or needs, you better have a sedan or pickup or something
tomas

 

[67HEAVEN]

The article says that they are affordable and seems to stress that. Were corvettes really affordable back then?

"Affordable" is very much a relative term, isn't it?

Different for a student from an Executive.

 

[TomOB]

of course. But the article makes it seem like the people's car. I remember reading something similar earlier today, that Corvettes are in a different price bracket than before. The most stunning thing to me is that alot of forumers claim they got their first evtte at liek 18. Im getting mine at 19, but its not for 50grand. I cant imagine many poeple being able to afford that now.
oh well
tomas

 

[67HEAVEN]

Having bought mine 36 years ago, I would agree that General Motors made a conscious decision to up-market the car a number of years ago.

In my time, most "middle-class" single guys in their early-twenties could buy a new one (if they s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d a little) as their daily driver. I agree that is no longer true for the middle-class.

What once was available new to regular Joes in their twenties is now priced for young lawyers, stock-brokers and Executives......but then so is the personality of the car, right?

A very different car now compared to when mine was new. That's both good and bad........but that's another story.

 

[c grn go]

The price of corvettes

When I was in college, I asked a friend of mine who was quite a bit older than me the very same thing. Comparing the price of Corvettes at the time (1989) to when he bought his 79 brand new. He actually saved CASH for the purchase!!He walked into the dealership and none of the salesmen would give him the time of day. Then he asked for the new car sales manager, gave him a brown paper bag full of money and a bunch of explicitives for such bad service. All the salesmen had to count out the cash and my friend drove home in his new vette.

 

[Mac]

The Vette pictured in the article is a pre-production model which was prepared for the automotive journalists to play with. Check the nose emblem in the frontal shot and the aluminum wheels which were supposed to be an option but the RPO was dropped because of porosity problems. I have a poster of the same car somewhere.....

Thanks for the article, 67!!

 

[TomOB]

I was wondering about how I would be treated if i walked into a chevy dealership and said id like to test drive a corvette. they probably would laugh at me! Then again, in my neighborhood alot of kids' daddies buy them cars.
Of course they're always civics, camaros or bmw/benz.
I wanted to do it just to drive one around.
Tomas