Posted on 03/21/2014 10:39:13 PM PDT by servo1969
People generally buy a Chevrolet Corvette planning to drive the wheels off it, but examples with absurdly low mileage have to come from somewhere. Cars suffer a small breakdown and are parked for years, owners suddenly pass away and their children don't know what to do with the cars, vehicles get donated to museums... the list of usual suspects for something like this is pretty limited. But the story of this unrestored and completely original 1967 Chevrolet Corvette with just 2,996 miles on the clock is a new one for us. Here's what we know:
Don McNamara turned 30 in 1966, and celebrated his retirement from the United States Marine Corps with a trip to Las Vegas. Unlike a great many visitors to the city, McNamara actually hit the big time right out the gate, winning $5,000. That was big money at the time, and McNamara knew what he wanted to buy when he got home to Colorado Springs: a brand new Chevrolet Corvette. His father was a car salesman, so ordering a Corvette was a done deal. McNamara bought his 1967 example equipped with a four-speed manual transmission, a 3.36 Positraction rear end, tinted glass, a telescopic steering wheel and an AM/FM radio. The car came with an ermine white exterior with a red stinger strip over a red leather interior. The young veteran got the car of his dreams, and by all accounts enjoyed driving it. At least for a while.
McNamara drove the car very sparingly during the first few months... and then his friends never saw it again. When asked about it, he told people that he no longer owned it. But the truth of the matter was that the car was still in his garage, with the odometer showing just a little over 2,000 miles. And so it sat in his garage for the next 45 years.
McNamara passed away in 2011, and only then did the neighboring couple who inherited his entire estate find out that he had a Chevrolet Corvette with 2,966 miles on the odometer in his garage all this time. The car had accumulated most of those miles just during its first year of ownership, and evidently when it came time to renew the registration, McNamara simply chose not to. McNamara reportedly drove the car for the last few times in the mid-1980s, only driving it late at night. So why wouldn't someone drive their dream car after essentially getting it for close to free?
By all accounts, McNamara was a very private individual, never had kids and never married, portraying himself to the few friends that he had as just barely making ends meet. Whether this was indeed the case is undetermined, though we do know that McNamara never had a credit card and never opened a checking account. The car left the garage for the first time in years in 2012, having been found wrapped in a car cover with a blanket decorated with Marine Corps flags draped over it.
The Corvette is said to be completely original throughout, aside from the addition of polished Edelbrock aluminum valve covers and four Corvette emblems mounted on the air cleaner. The car was purchased by Dr. Mark Davis from the estate in 2012, and has subsequently only been displayed at the entrance to the Bloomington Gold Great Hall.
Despite the lingering mystery (a Corvette couldn't have been that expensive to run in the '70s and '80s given the fact that McNamara owned a house), what we have is one of the most well-preserved low-mileage examples of a 1967 Corvette anywhere in the world. The car comes with all the accompanying items like the original window sticker, a showroom brochure, a Chevrolet warranty book with Protect-O-Plate, the original keys and fob along with a duplicate set of keys, as well as the original owner's manual. Only three people are known to have ever sat in the car, and it is said that no one has ever even sat in the front passenger seat!
Mecum Auctions is slated to offer this Corvette during its April 10-12 sales in Houston at The Reliant Center, and they're estimating this car to sell between $600,000 and $800,000.
About an 11% per year return, which shows the power of compound, tax free growth. It would be hard to sit on this as an investment rather than in it as a performance car.
I’m a little confused by the underhood pictures. I’m not aware that GM ever offered chrome alternator brackets, chrome brake fluid reservoirs, chrome oil vents, etc. I presume these are aftermarket, which would lower the value of the car. What else is not original, would be my first question.
The greedy keep moving on, to big blocks muscle cars, Ferrari's, basically whatever niche they can ruin. Many of them car not a whit about the cars themselves, only preening about it one for a drive or two, and then making a "killing" by reselling it.
Then you get the auction mills like Mecum, who have helped turn affordable middle class classic cars into toys for the a bunch of self absorbed jerks who don't know a thing about them. Not all of the industry is bad - and you have to have free enterprise. But it has gone from an enjoyable hobby to "big business" - and that has been ruinous.
That car will bring $500-700k, easy. Wonder if they take Bitcoins?
Could not agree with you more.
I’m absolutely stunned that the engine seals have held up all this time.
The tires are wrong, wrong, wrong...
There was a fully restored 67 427 tri power at our local concours a few weekends ago. Wonderful looking vehicle. The vehicle in the picture is not the tri power as the air filter had to be a triangle shape to accommodate the carb set up. It was also the last year for the c-2 series.
The 67-427 with side pipes was one of my all time dream cars. Of course one needs a ton of octane booster to run the car now as it had a Comp ratio close to 13 I believe. In fact one of the models I saw with the L-88 had a sticker on the dash which specified 103 octane gas be used.
Reporters!
You can't retire until you serve 20 years, and in 1966 they didn't have early retirement. So was he 10 years old when he joined the Corps, or did the reporter typically screw up another story involving the military?
I find the most change under the seats of my car..
The buyer of said car should look there, most coins back then where made out of real metals ;)
I would marry that car and get a huge mofo insurance policy on it...just in case.
I had a 73. Last year of the chrome bumpers. Today, chrome designates a google OS. My wife just doesnt understand. I’ll bet this guy sat in the garage many hours just looking at the car. Why mess with perfection.
I was thinking that he would have paid maybe 40k at an estate sale at most unless there was a lot of publicity about the car before hand.
Any thoughts about your big Senate race?
Pfl
“I saw a license plate on a nice Corvette that was being driven by a good looking woman. It said:
“WAS HIS”
Saw the same thing here in Roswell, Ga. Smoking hot blond in a vette. Way to rub it in!
damn...
I once had a 1973 Ford LTD with a 429 motor. It was a lot of fun--you could be going 100 mph and it felt like you were going 45--but it was a gasoline slurper.
The strange thing about the C2's was they only ran for 5 years. Almost every Corvette owner agrees the 67 Big Blocks were the ultimate Corvettes. I assure you that if GM still manufactured a 2014 version of the Stingray they would be besieged with buyers. I wish I had one!
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