Beautiful, low mileage example showing only 28,292 original miles! Bloomington Gold Certified, Bloomington Gold Survivor Gold Certification, and Bloomington Gold Benchmark...
Beautiful, low mileage example showing only 28,292 original miles! Bloomington Gold Certified, Bloomington Gold Survivor Gold Certification, and Bloomington Gold Benchmark Award winner! Excellent opportunity for the knowledgeable Corvette collector!
There can be little debate that these last of the C3 Generation Corvettes represent the end of an era in Corvette styling, and that regardless of the performance advantages of more modern Corvettes, the dramatic design cues and the final seed of Harley Earl and Zora Duntov's pioneering influence ends with the completion of the final C3. The mako shark-inspired body lines of the C3 were produced though Bill Mitchell as the lead designer and carried the Corvette shape for 15 years! Production was transitioning from the old St. Louis, MO facility to the new Bowling Green, KY plant with the first Corvette assembled on June 1st, 1981. Both plants were in production for 2 months simultaneously, with the last St. Louis Corvette completed on August 1st, 1981. An interesting fact about the two facilities is the way they were painted. St. Louis continued to use lacquer paint while the new Bowling Green plant converted to a new style of enamel base coats with a clear topcoat on all Corvettes. Therefore, the two plants utilized separate paint codes to differentiate them.
This beautiful 1981 Chevrolet Corvette Coupe is finished in its factory applied Charcoal Metallic exterior with gorgeous Silver Gray leather interior! It comes well equipped with power steering, power disc brakes, power windows, power locks, factory air conditioning, leather tilt/telescopic steering wheel, polished aluminum wheels, dual remote sport mirrors, painted T-tops, AM/FM/Cassette stereo with rear speakers & power antenna, automatic transmission, cruise control, rear defrost, passenger illuminated vanity mirror, all Soft-Ray tinted glass, and carpeted floor mats. Boasting only 28,292 miles from new, this numbers matching L81-350ci V8 has survived from new without any modification or restoration which is a testament to its brilliant ownership and garage kept care over the years!
This is a St. Louis-built Corvette showcasing a unique Charcoal Metallic lacquer finish that remains rather remarkable and represents just 3,485 Corvettes that were ever ordered with this color code! To best describe this car's condition and unrivaled originality, it attended the Bloomington Gold Corvette USA event in June 2015 to participate in Gold Certification and Survivor judging in the same weekend. After successfully achieving Bloomington Gold Certification being 95% “as factory built”, the judging team began to further inspect the four specific areas of Survivor verification with the following results- Engine 90%, Exterior 88%, Interior 98%, and Chassis 100%. Out of a total 8,220 points to begin with, this Corvette was found to have only 310 deductable points to achieve Survivor Gold status!
This left only the Bloomington Gold Benchmark award. As described on their website, the BENCHMARK® - "the ultimate standard for unrestored vehicles. In 1991, Bloomington Gold introduced the ultimate and most difficult judging category - The BENCHMARK Award. To achieve BENCHMARK status, an unrestored Corvette must attain GOLD Certification and excel in all four categories of SURVIVOR during the same weekend. To date, fewer than 5% of the Corvettes that have been Certified have received the prestigious BENCHMARK Award. It should also be noted that the vehicle must pass a road test and complete a technical inspection with everything on the car working as perfectly as it left the factory! This wonderful time capsule example successfully completed this challenge and now forever carries this prestigious Bloomington Benchmark honor!"
Complete with original owner's manuals with plastic dust cover, three sets of GM keys (two sets still have factory punchout tabs intact), T-top bags, storage strap, factory LOF glass, and original spare tire & changing equipment. Excellent driving and looking examples with low mileage are seldom available, particularly with these judging credentials. The last years of the C3 Corvettes are becoming very collectable, and the opportunity to get into a clean, unmolested all original example at entry-level prices will soon be a memory. Please do not hesitate to contact our sales consultant, Jon Faust, with any questions or to arrange a viewing of the vehicle.