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Price opinion from advertisements and recorded sales. Not an inspection or a certified valuation.
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Reference photograph of a Chevrolet Corvette Stingray
Valuation · Chevrolet · C3 · 1968-82

Chevrolet Corvette Stingray

5.7L NA V8 (350 small block); 327 to 454 offered · 4sp manual · RWD
AVOIDRated within the $30k to $100k band · 79 of 94 at this money
Model value
$55,000
Must gain each year to break even
+9.2%
The projection does not clear it, and nor does most of the library.
CarQuant score
49/100
Scored against the $30k to $100k band, not the whole library
Evidence grade
Measured
Four or more recorded Australian sales
$55,000
$45,617 lowhigh $66,284
Calibrated to recorded sales
Six published Shannons lots between February 2019 and March 2022: four sold and two big-block cars passed in. Three of the four sales carry no year of manufacture on the results sheet, and one of those carries no generation either, so its C3 attribution is unconfirmed.

Looking at a Corvette for sale?

Put in the asking price and the odometer reading. You will see what this model should make at that reading.

Should make, typical example
$55,000
At about 130,000 km. Enter an asking price to compare.

Odometer only. Colour, options, history, condition and the photographs move it further, and that is what the report reads.

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Price history

Today $55,000 · modelled median at five years $57,294
Solid line: the value this library has carriedDashed from 2026: modelled · even money $51,152 to $62,023
The green band is the even-money range and the one to plan on: half of outcomes land inside it. The pale band behind it bounds eight in ten ($45,617 to $66,284). The path is this model's own: it starts along the momentum of its recorded history and bends toward its projected median as the horizon lengthens, so no two cars share a future curve.

The verdict

The numbers argue against it. Scores 49/100, ranking 79 of 94 in the $30k to $100k band. Ownership economics is the strongest input, risk resilience the weakest.
Running it costs about $5,180 a year (9.4% of value), which is what the economics score measures. All in, including the projected value change, it is $5,447 a year.
The model's five year median is $57,294, a +4.2% move, with the tenth percentile at $45,617.
Value calibrated to recorded sales.
Evidence
Measured4 recorded sales
Off its peak
at peak
Value band
moderate
Multiple recorded transactions plus an aggregate source. Treat the level as reliable.
Scored against every recent Australian sale this library holds, half its values land within 11.2 per cent of the price paid and the rest miss by more, in either direction. Projections are therefore damped toward flat in proportion to how little is known, and the plausible band is never narrower than the error the model is known to make.
Short term (1-5 years)$5,447 a year all in, +4.2% median value move
Long term (10-15 years)Scarcity case already formed
Negotiate from$55,000

Recorded sales

Every recorded observation, and when
6 rows on record
$70k$46k$21k
20192021202320252027
the value this record published, year by yearnow $55ksold2 rows are undated and are not plotted
Every row, with its price and note (6) ↓
Library value against the sold record
4 sales · median $42,375
Value $55,000
$26,000$65,000
Mar 2022Shannons$44,000Sold
SOLD. Feb-Mar 2022 Shannons Summer Timed Online, Lot 126. Corvette 'Targa' 327 coupe, LHD. The results sheet gives no year of manufacture.
Mar 2022Shannons$40,750Sold
SOLD. Feb-Mar 2022 Shannons Summer Timed Online, Lot 128. Corvette 350 roadster, LHD. The results sheet gives no year of manufacture.
Apr 2021Shannons$65,000Sold
SOLD. Apr 2021 Shannons Autumn Timed Online, Lot 124. Corvette convertible, LHD. The results sheet gives neither year of manufacture nor generation, so the C3 attribution is unconfirmed.
Apr 2019ShannonsNo saleNot a sale
NOT A SALE. Apr 2019, Shannons Sydney Late Autumn Classic, Lot 77. Corvette 427 Tri-Power L-89 roadster, LHD, passed in. No year of manufacture in the results sheet. A no-sale on a serious big-block car is itself a data point.
Mar 2019ShannonsNo saleNot a sale
NOT A SALE. Mar 2019, Shannons Sydney Autumn Classic, Lot 24. Corvette 427/435HP coupe, LHD, passed in. No year of manufacture in the results sheet.
Feb 2019Shannons$26,000Sold
SOLD. Feb 2019, Shannons Melbourne Summer Classic, Lot 38. 1970 Corvette 'Targa' 350 coupe, RHD. Year of manufacture is printed in the results sheet.
4 completed Australian sales of 6 rows. Rows marked asking, no sale, or context are shown for honesty but do not count toward the evidence grade: an ask is not a transaction, a pass-in is a refusal, and a provenance or overseas result does not price the ordinary local car. The badge on every row is computed by the same rule as the grade, so the two cannot drift apart.

Score breakdown

Against the $30k to $100k band median
94 cars in band · ink tick marks the median
Ownership economics30% of total
61/100+6
Scarcity25% of total
46/100-7
Demand durability20% of total
48/100-18
Liquidity15% of total
53/100+1
Risk resilience10% of total
12/100-24
Sub-scores run 0-100 before weighting; the weighted total is 49/100. Medians are computed live from the 94 cars currently in the $30k to $100k band, so this picture moves when the library does.
The working behind each factor: baseline and drivers ↓
Ownership economics30% weight
61/100
Baseline84 pts
− 9.4% of value a year to run-23 pts
Sub-score (baseline plus drivers, clamped 0-100)61 pts
Scarcity25% weight
46/100
Baseline20 pts
+ 1,850 survivors estimated in Australia+26 pts
Sub-score (baseline plus drivers, clamped 0-100)46 pts
Demand durability20% weight
48/100
Baseline50 pts
+ The cheapest way into a shape everybody recognises+10 pts
− The least-loved Corvette generation, and the market says so-12 pts
− Every car here is left-hand drive or somebody's conversion-8 pts
+ A quality right-hand-drive conversion has a real local following+8 pts
Sub-score (baseline plus drivers, clamped 0-100)48 pts
Liquidity15% weight
53/100
Baseline12 pts
+ 90 days on market+22 pts
+ 115 sales a year+19 pts
Sub-score (baseline plus drivers, clamped 0-100)53 pts
Risk resilience10% weight
12/100
Baseline46 pts
− Birdcage rot is invisible until the car is cut open and $30,000 to fix-16 pts
− A poor conversion is worth less than the car it started as-10 pts
− Most of the published local lots carry no year of manufacture-8 pts
Sub-score (baseline plus drivers, clamped 0-100)12 pts
Model output, not advice or a valuation. Verify independently before acting.

What it costs to own · about 2,549 km a year

Annual cost of access, excl. fuel
$5,180a year
Share of value per year
9.4%
Scheduled servicing$1,24024%
Tyres, annualised$62012%
Registration and CTP$57011%
Insurance$1,09021%
Sinking fund (failure table)$1,66032%
All-in annualised (a different number)
Purchase (model value plus duty)$57,200
Running costs × 5 years$25,900
Median exit, net of selling cost$55,864
All-in annualised over 5 years$5,447/yr
Share of value per year9.9%
Cost of access is what the car costs to run. All-in annualised adds depreciation, duty and selling costs across a five year hold. They answer different questions and are labelled separately for that reason.
Break-even appreciation, 5 year hold
9.2%a year, only to get the money back
This library projects
+0.8%a year
The projection falls 8.4 points a year short of the hurdle. On these assumptions this car is a cost, not an asset, which can be an entirely rational thing to buy but should be bought knowing it.
Purchase$55,000
Stamp duty$2,200
Running costs x 5 years$25,900
Selling cost at exit, 2.6% of the salescales with price
Sale price needed at +5 years$85,318
Storage
Bought at
No forecast is used to compute the hurdle. It is the purchase, the duty, any premium and 5 years of running cost, grossed up for the cost of selling and spread back over the hold. The projection it is measured against is the weakest number in this product and is drawn that way in the chart above. Transport, finance and any restoration spend sit outside it.

Specification

Engine5.7L NA V8 (350 small block); 327 to 454 offered
Power / torqueNot established
0-100 km/hNot established
Transmission4sp manual
DriveRWD
Kerb weight1,550 kg
Built worldwide542,000
Delivered to AustraliaNone. Every car here is an import
Effective AU survivors1,850 (imported)
Australian sales / year115
Typical days on market90 days
Launch priceNever sold new in Australia

What moves the price on this model

Colour hierarchy
Original paint in a documented factory colour+6%
A period colour rather than a modern respray shade+3%
Colour-changed at some point in its life-7%
Options
Quality documented right-hand-drive conversion+35%
Sound birdcage and frame, inspected rather than assumed+20%
Year of manufacture and generation documented on paper+10%
Odometer sensitivity±1.2% per 10,000 km vs 130,000 km
Applied on top of these

Condition, history, originality, ownership, delivery and modification multipliers apply to every car in the library. They are applied automatically when an advertisement is analysed, and the schedule is set out once, on the analyser page.

Projected value in five years

Projected value at five years
$57,294
+4.2% on today
The model's figure. Today it is $55,000.
Even odds it lands between $51,152 and $62,023.
$45,617 lowhigh $66,284
The shaded range is even money and 21% wide; the outer figures bound eight outcomes in ten. Band width follows the evidence - a model with a tight measured record carries a tight band.
A weaker five year outlook than 54% of the library.
-26.6% weakest projected move in the librarystrongest +73.1%
Five-year cost of ownership
Value change alone: +$2,294 across five years.
Running costs over the same period: $25,900.
Duty and expected selling costs: $3,630.
Net cost of five years of ownership: $27,235, or $5,447 a year.
The projected value rise offsets part of the running cost. It does not make the car free to own.

The case for and against

The case for

Four published Shannons sales run from $26,000 in February 2019 to $44,000 and $40,750 in March 2022, which is the 1.5 to 1.8 times move the research describes, printed rather than inferred. A quality right-hand-drive conversion trades at $70,000 to $95,000 against the $55,000 left-hand-drive car most of this market actually buys.

The case against

It is the least-loved Corvette generation and it gave back part of the COVID-era gain from 2023 onward. Birdcage rot in the steel structure under the fibreglass is $30,000 and cannot be seen without cutting, on a car whose entire published local record is at least four years old.

Known faults and risks

Risk 1Birdcage rot in the windscreen surround and A-pillars under the fibreglass
Risk 2Frame rot at the rear kick-up over the axle and the front cross-member
Risk 3A poor right-hand-drive conversion trades below a clean left-hand-drive car
Birdcage rot: the steel windscreen surround and A-pillar substructure under the fibreglass, invisible until you cut$30,000
Frame rot at the rear kick-up over the axle and the front cross-member$20,000
Fibreglass stress cracking and prior bog repairs done properly$15,000
Rear trailing-arm bearings, a known service item$4,000
Hidden headlight vacuum system failure$4,000

Similar cars, and what they cost to run

Evidence behind this valueMeasured · 4 recorded sales
Carried value
$55,000
Historical price
2016 · $40,7002026 · $55,000
Measured
Multiple recorded transactions plus an aggregate source. Treat the level as reliable.
This record carries no power or torque figure on purpose

The C3 ran from 1968 to 1982 with engines from a 327 to a 454, and net and gross ratings across that span are not the same measurement. A single number would be wrong for almost every car the record covers, so the specification panel says Not established instead of quietly printing the weakest one.

Read the rest of the evidence notes (6 more)
Four sales, and the sheets mostly do not say what the cars are

Shannons sold a 327 'Targa' coupe at $44,000 and a 350 roadster at $40,750 in the Summer timed online sale of February to March 2022, a convertible at $65,000 in April 2021, and a 1970 350 'Targa' coupe at $26,000 in February 2019. Only the last of those carries a year of manufacture in the published results sheet. The April 2021 car carries neither a year nor a generation, so whether it is a C3 at all is unconfirmed, and this record does not assume that it is.

Two Big-block cars failed to sell

A 427 Tri-Power L-89 roadster in April 2019 and a 427/435HP coupe in March 2019, both left-hand drive, both without a year on the sheet. A no-sale on a serious big-block car is a data point in its own right.

Every one of those prices is old

The Shannons results in this segment run 2018 to March 2022 and then stop, because Shannons left the auction business in November 2023. These are real published prices and they are also between four and seven years old, which is long enough for the direction to be reliable and the level not to be.

Drive side is the biggest variable and the local set cannot demonstrate it

The C3 was never built in right-hand drive, so every Australian car is a left-hand-drive import or a local conversion. The only right-hand-drive car in the published set is also the cheapest print and the oldest, three years before the peak, so that pairing proves nothing and is not used as evidence here. The number to use is the research figure: a quality conversion trades at $70,000 to $95,000 against the $55,000 left-hand-drive driver carried here, and a poor conversion is worth less than the clean left-hand-drive car it started as.

The structure is the asset and it is made of steel

Birdcage rot in the windscreen surround and A-pillar substructure under the fibreglass is $30,000 and invisible until you cut; frame rot at the rear kick-up and the front cross-member is $20,000. Either one is a large fraction of the car and both together exceed it.

Power is deliberately understated on this page

Output ran from a smog-era 350 up to a 454 across fourteen model years and the research declines to publish one figure for the generation, so the torque and 0-100 fields are left empty rather than filled with a number that would be wrong for most of the run.

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This model, today$55,000
Half of sales are further out than$6,148
The report$249
25×
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