Vette – July 2019

BY BRIAN BRENNAN (^) I PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF BARRETT-JACKSON
In the Interim
Corvettes are Golden at
Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale 2019
egardless of the auction,
you can rest assured that
Corvettes will always
be crowd favorites.
Traditionally, Corvettes
have a noticeable presence at any auction
and regardless of what the keynote car or
cars are, Corvettes get everyone’s atten-
tion. In trying to get a feel for the Corvette
“price climate” I watched closely at what
went on at the most recent Barrett-Jackson
Scottsdale auction.
There were 160 Corvettes that crossed
the block and they all sold. In the mix was
Jeff Gordon’s black-on-black 2016 C7.R (
miles on the odometer), which brought
in a whopping $600,000 for Jeff Gordon
Children’s Foundation. (The entire gavel
price went toward the charity.)
One of my favorites belonged to long-
time friend Art Morrison, who knows a
thing or two about making any car handle,
especially restomod Corvettes. His 1960
C1 (Lot #1330) crossed the block garner-
ing an impressive $187,000. (It turns out
there were approximately 11 Corvettes
and all told 35 Morrison chassis equipped
cars that drove over the auction block.)
Project 3G, as he calls the C1, was to build
a Corvette capable of producing 1 g on
the skidpad, 1 g of acceleration and 1 g of
braking ... and it accomplished this goal.
Not bad for what appears to be an old-
timey C1 Corvette. Art and his son Craig
have methodically crafted a C1 chassis
for restomod fans to turn their lumbering
C1 into an all-out handling sports car.
The chassis is based on C5 IFS geometry
while the rear is Morrison’s triangulated
four-bar setup.
There were many other Corvettes that
crossed the block, with restomods bring-
ing in high dollars, such as another 1960
C1 Corvette (Lot #1440), again Morrison-
chassis equipped, that tipped the dollar
scale at $330,000. An immaculate red 1963
C2 split-window (Lot #1333), again riding on
a Morrison chassis, brought in a whopping
$385,000.
If your tastes surround more of a stock
appetite but drift toward the iconic there
were L88 cars for the bidding. One of my
favorites was an Ermine White 1968 coupe
(Lot #1398), one of 80, that was equipped
with the 427/430 connected to a four-
speed that went for a whopping $291,500.
(A bit outside my budget!)
There were plenty of stock and
restomod Corvettes that crossed and
sold while on the auction block, prov-
ing once again they’re always desirable.
We have seen Corvette prices ebb and
flow but right now we are in the “golden
era” for restomods as they’re constantly
bringing top dollar. Of course, the iconic
years, models and properly optioned
Corvettes will always be among the
“desirable” and a good investment.
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