If you’re in the business of buying and selling memorabilia like trading cards or vintage toys, your most sought-after pieces would be those that are undamaged, untouched, and still in their original packaging. The same applies to cars, with lower-mileage examples in pristine condition generally securing the highest prices. However, take that ideal to its extremes, and it gets a bit ridiculous, as demonstrated by this Corvette on Bring a Trailer.
Yes, this listing is pure bait for the New Balance brigade. It’s a 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 convertible with the 70th Anniversary Edition package. Corvette buyers can’t get enough of special editions, so this one’s already an attractive specimen—even if it’s finished in the least interesting color option of White Pearl Metallic. It’s got the 5.5-liter LT6 V8 good for 670 horsepower, an electronic LSD, and the 3LZ equipment group, which gets you some nice leather touches in the interior and a better sound system. The real magic, though, is that this example is about as untouched as you can get. It’s still wrapped in its delivery diaper, it’s got just 4 miles on the clock, and it still has the plastic on the seats. It’s the Extra Extra Virgin Olive Oil [EEVOO] of Corvettes.
As you might suspect by the car’s unspoiled condition, it’s actually being sold by a dealership. Rather than going through the usual sales channels, the dealer has instead elected to list the vehicle on Bring a Trailer. The idea seems to be to secure a higher sale price via the auction process than would otherwise be achieved by selling the car in the usual manner. It’s an interesting move, and one that perhaps was made in response to the prevalence of owners flipping high-demand vehicles of late.
Notably, the dealership hopes to guard against the buyer flipping the vehicle after purchase. The listing states that the car will not be sold “to a broker, a wholesale dealer, or a retail dealer,” and that it must be sold and registered in the US. The dealership also expects the buyer to hold on to the vehicle for a minimum of six months, or else the factory warranty will be considered null and void for the new subsequent owner.
Fundamentally, it’s a sweet deal for potential bidders. You get a Corvette in white (yawn), you get to pay over and above the recommended retail price, and you get an onerous condition placed on the vehicle for six months. What’s not to love? Plus, don’t forget the dust and dirt that it comes with, despite the original delivery covers being intact.
Oh, and before you get too excited about it being fresh in original packaging, just know that someone has been in there poking around before you. The cover has been lifted in places to take photographs for the sale listing, particularly at the rear. In response to questions about the condition of the vehicle under the cover, the selling dealer also noted that the car has been looked over. “We have fully inspected the car as it came off the carrier with three of our most experienced managers and are certain the vehicle has no transportation issues,” said the dealer in a comment on Bring a Trailer.
For a certain kind of buyer, picking up a car that hasn’t been through the usual pre-delivery process can be alluring. To be fair, there are some potential benefits. It does give the new owner the opportunity to have the car detailed for the first time in the manner of their choice, rather than leaving it to the whims of the dealership staff and their potentially dirty soap buckets. Plus, you can drive it to your golf club with the pre-delivery cover still on and listen to it rustling in the wind. Then you can bask in the jealous stares of your fellow clubgoers, none of whom have a unique 70th Anniversary ZO6 in White Pearl Metallic with the plastic still on the seats.
If you’re getting the general sarcastic thrust here, it’s because cars are supposed to be used and enjoyed. Carpenters would laugh uproariously at a fellow tradesperson who kept their special hammer in its original plastic, never to strike a nail. It’s the same case for cars; they’re born to run. They’re not supposed to be left in the packet like a limited-edition Star Wars action figure.
In this case, though, with such low mileage and the wrapper still on, this Corvette is in serious danger of becoming a… *shudders*… investment. Of course, most astute investment bankers will tell you that conventional investing strategies generally perform far better than a low-mileage car stashed in a garage. That doesn’t stop people from trying, though. There are plenty of beautiful, high-performance vehicles that get bought and then immediately laid up in the hopes that they’ll appreciate to a greater sum.
Even if they do, it often amounts to a few percent per year when inflation is taken into account. At the end of it, you’re left with a clean-looking car with rotted bushes and seals and you didn’t even get the joy out of driving the thing.
At the time of writing, the bidding stands at $137,341—a full dollar more than the dealer was asking for the vehicle on the window sticker. Here’s hoping that if it does sell, it gets fired up and driven with purpose. Oh, and let’s hope they actually take the plastic off first, lest it fill up with dust, dirt, and leaves, and spoil that utterly boring paint finish. Rant over.
Dealership wants to price gouge for doing less work. Dealership does not want anyone else to price gouge for the car after they sell it. Story checks out.
Two thoughts…
Bleh
inspected by “three of our most experienced managers”
hahahahaha, dealership managers are the last people I would trust with an inspection. Even if it is a service manager. Just….. no.
Now if they said inspected by 3 of our most experience service technicians, I would give it some credit.
Lisa in the credit department thought the car was cute.
When did this place get so cynical? I’ve noticed lately that there have been more articles that have a negative tone and, regardless of the article/topic, like 75% of the comments are just shitting on anything and everything even tangently related to the subject at hand.
(I wrote a bit more but DT and Matt took action before I finished) The point still stands. Lighten up, y’all.
Very much this. I get that things like the delivery cover on a vette or the yellow guard things on a Hellcat are silly, but this site is all about being welcoming and not kink shaming.
I do find the bit about the dealer selling the car on an auction site kinda interesting though.
I dont’ care about the wrapping paper. Hell I wouldn’t care if the new owner decides the best way to remove it is to drive real fast until it all comes off. But a dealer auctioning off a new car because the first owners are getting too much profit is pretty rich.
I personally am not cynical, and I think for the most part we keep it light and fun, though I do agree that the “boomer” headline was wack, and I’ve blasted it off the face of the site.
David, I wasn’t meaning to say anything about you, or the site in general, so I probably worded that wrong. I know you aren’t cynical, heck you might be the most optimistic auto journo on the planet, lol, and the site IS fun. I am just referring to the “hot takes that don’t need to be hot” thing that seems to me to be on the rise lately. Which is almost exclusively in the comments.
It could just be that the banana part of my peanut butter and banana sandwich wasn’t such a wise breakfast combo with coffee, or (in the spirit of the Negative Nellies) I’ll just blame it on Elon. 😉 Either way, have a great day and good vibes toward your partner-in-crime, Torch. May his drugs be potent and plentiful!
While reading your comment, I was thinking about Tesla, and I agree. Any article about Tesla is met with so many hot takes about Elon. I just want to learn about the Cybertruck, dagnabbit
Isn’t the diaper just rubbing the dirt I see that’s already underneath it into the paint? If you aren’t going to drive the tires off this thing, just invest that $137k and make an order of magnitude more money than trying to “collect” this as an investment.
Serious question…
How well will that shipping cover age? Will it age well and not cause damage? Will the chemicals in the material separate out after a few years, possibly damaging the paint? Will it disintegrate after a few months of age? It it washable so that after 25 years sitting in storage, it can be cleaned to give that factory fresh appearance?
I wondered the same thing.
It’s the adhesives I worry about. That clear plastic protector that covers the gauge cluster or main center screen uses adhesive that may just become permanent after a few years. Or mar or discolor the surface under it if it sits for a decade. They’re not designed to sit for that long so you never know.
I was a porter at a honda dealer in the 90s and when a car sat for a long time, that plastic got really hard to peel off and definitely made more work for the detailers, leaving all sorts of residue behind once you managed to get it off in a thousand little fragments
This whip though, seems to not have that kind of plactic wrap, even on the wheels, and looks to just have a tyvek jacket on over everything. So probably no worry of residue there. Inside though…
I don’t know about the soft wrapper like that, but adhesive film is supposed to be taken off within six months of manufacture, otherwise I assume it harms the pain in some fashion.
On anodized metal like electronics chassis and some appliances, the adhesive eventually makes the finish blotchy. Permanently.
A dealer taking a car to an auction site? I wonder if they don’t think they’ll sell it locally and want a larger audience. Smells bad regardless. Dealers want people to see them as valuable, then they do crap like this.
Also – good luck enforcing that resale warranty shenanigans.
I have questions about the warranty thing for sure. What authority does a random dealer have over Manufacturer warranty? How do they plan to enforce that at any other dealership who knows nothing about the deal and doesn’t care? Are there terms that require any dealer to perform warranty work if the warranty is considered valid by the manufacturer? Would it be fraudulent for that dealer to try and void the warranty for reasons of the supposed agreement through the auction? All looks crazy shady and makes me dislike dealers that much more.
Right? I’ve never bought a GM product that had the benefit of warranty, so maybe they’re different? I doubt it. The Warranty is an agreement between purchaser and manufacturer, and can be carried out by any qualified technician, let alone any qualified dealer service department. They can say the words, and might even sell to someone that believes them, but they really have no control over validating the warranty. Otherwise, we’d have shady dealers everywhere trying even harder than they do already to convert warranty work into profit work.
The dealer has nothing to do with this.
GM instituted a policy on their highest demand vehicles (Escalade V, Z06, Eray, etc) wherein the warranty is non-transferrable until 6 months after the initial sale. The stated goal being to discourage flipping.
The flipper isn’t affected by the loss of coverage of course, but the policy is public enough that it legitimately affects sale values for these cars (tens of thousands of dollars in most cases).
Ahh… didn’t know about that. Text in this article wasn’t exactly accurate then.
I’m actually cool with GM doing this.
The article headline is the umpteenth snarky “boomer, Corvette” headline I’ve come across on automobile sites in the last couple of years.
I am a Baby Boomer and I’m curious about this conceit because among the tens of thousands of fellow Boomers I’ve known in my life, exactly two have owned Vettes.
One was an Air Force Academy graduate where it’s almost a requirement to purchase a new Corvette to go with your diploma. He dumped it within two years. The other was a high school friend who was horribly mangled in an industrial accident at 17 and used a portion of his settlement to buy a brand new Corvette for his 18th birthday. Not exactly a large cohort out of thousands upon thousands of people. So where does the stereotype come from?
I’ve lived up and down the length of both the East and West Coasts as well as overseas for many years. I’ve visited all 50 states and 48 countries. I’m a college graduate. I’m a military veteran, and have been, variously, a journalist, teacher, coach, public affairs specialist, defense contractor program manager, theater manager, communications consultant, medical technician, and a school transportation director just to name some of my employment. All through high school and college, I also worked in a garage and pumped gas and Corvettes were not a common sight. My point? I’ve lived a fairly diverse life experientially and geographically and, once again, I’ve only known two Boomers who owned a Corvette in sixty-plus years on the planet.
So where are all the Boomers and their Corvettes? Is this more of a Midwestern Boomer phenomena? Admittedly, I have less life exposure in that region and the folks I’ve known from the Midwest do seem far more attached to American cars than people from other regions. Are they buying all these Corvettes? Or is the perception of Boomer affection for Vettes just another one of those things “everybody knows is true?”
Just curious because the biased assertion of the headline doesn’t come close to matching my experience. If I were to propose a car stereotype for Boomers it’d be this one: Boomers love Jeeps.
Around here on cruise nights, the Corvette guys all seem to be in the identified age group.
If they modify the car, it’s by adding chrome bits.
They ALWAYS bring folding chairs.
There could absolutely be 1000 vettes sliding sideways for every one parked at a cruise night, but those chrome guys are very visible at cars and coffee type meets.
Mr. Regular voice: Winga dinga dinga dinga winga dinga dinga dinga
OK, that sounds reasonable, but you are limiting your observation to that subset of people who attend car shows in one form or another and I wouldn’t necessarily consider them typical, though I would include myself among them.
OK Boomer
The stereotype does not imply that all Boomers want or own Corvettes. It implies that many (most?) Corvette owners are Boomers.
I believe this is because 70 year olds grew up before European imports really took off and Corvette was the baddest sports car on the block. So the ones that are car-oriented often choose Corvette because that image stuck with them.
This has really changed with the C8.
A newer and much younger demographic is interested in that car in a way they never were with earlier ones.
Yes, but how many young blind persons are there?
I can see that. Inevitable, most likely.
Interested in?
Yes.
Actually buying?
Absolutely not. No one under the age of 30 outside of professional athletes/influencer types can afford one….and between markups and dealerships only ordering C8s that are kitted out to the moon and back and you’re pretty much looking at an actual starting price in the 70s at minimum.
No 20 something can afford that right now…especially with the ludicrous interest rates. The only people who can actually afford to buy these are Boomers and older Gen Xers.
I agree with you, there. Logical that most car collectors would be older and wealthier than most younger folks.
You need not be in your 20s to be younger than a Boomer though.
Plenty of people my age (late 30s-early 40s) buying them, when that was decidedly not the case with the C5-C7.
This is correct. I misinterpreted younger as young.
As a Zoomer, anyone millennial and up=Boomer.
Corvettes have always been expensive. The people who buy them tend to be older and have the money to buy a Corvette. I’ve lived in a few places in New York and I’m 61 years old and that’s been my observation forever . Also my 65 year old BFF has a triple black C6.
Good points. I do it find it interesting to hear how the different generations view each other.
We Greatest Generation types still see Boomers as privileged kids with no discipline. Now get off my Retirement Home lawn.
We economically suffering millennial types see the exact same thing. Now get off of our pickleball court.
Still living in your parent’s basement? Sorry, couldn’t resist the stereotype.
It’s all in jest, amigo. And no, my wife and I own a house. We’re about to be stuck in forever because of interest rate hell world and how much property values are tanking as a result…but HEY we beat the odds to even get here and it is with great pleasure that I get to say GET OFF MY LAWN!
I’m just having fun, too. All of the comments have been great. Autopian members are the best.
Yes, sir, sorry sir.
For brand new Corvettes, a lot of that is simply going to be a function of cost. It takes awhile for most folks to build their lives to the point where they can drop this much money on a luxury purchase.
For older gen cars, it gets quite mixed for age groups based on forum and social media I see. I’m a millennial with a C6 so I hang out in the community quite a bit. There’s a lot variation than what people see at car shows.
Very good point. Car collecting generally does imply a certain level of affluence and that usually takes decades to achieve.
Boomers love jeeps? In my experience jeeps are usually driven by thirtysomethings who wheel the snot out of them or a mother of one who mall crawls.
The Corvette Boomer stereotype makes more sense the other direction: most boomers don’t own Corvettes, but most Corvettes are owned by boomers, simply because it’s only old guys who care about the Corvette brand AND have the money for a Corvette.
Really it’s more specific than it should be, it’s just the “old guy can afford nice car” stereotype.
Well, that’s certainly true.
I’ve known two Corvette collectors, both boomers. They were in Washington state. I have known two other Corvette owners, one Gen X, one Boomer. That said, I don’t think it comes from Corvette ownership, but the attitude different generations have toward Corvettes.
Younger generations seem to see the Corvette in terms of performance, especially newer Corvettes. It’s the boomers who see the Corvette as a status and style symbol. And I get it. Look at the Corvettes they grew up with. The name carries meaning for them because of that. They still look at the Corvette as something aspirational, rather than just performance. They’re the guys buying one to cruise around in and show off.
Honestly, I have some trouble seeing why this still carries to new ones. I’d love a classic Corvette, but the new ones just don’t seem as cool for cruising/collecting. I get why someone would want the new ones for performance, and I suspect that this is the strategy to attract younger customers–focus on performance and sell high-end cars for that, rather than focusing on just being a Corvette.
You’re onto something there. Thanks for jumping into the conversation.
I’ve deleted the term “Boomer,” because I hate the way it’s been used in the media, especially given the incredible contributions “Boomers” have made to car-culture over the years.
Are we really going to poke fun at y’all one minute, and then the next minute take our generators and speedometers and radiators to you so you can rebuild them for us? Naw, we’re not. As someone who lived in Detroit and owned a bunch of old cars, I’ve seen how much “Boomers” love car culture and contribute to it.
Thank you, DT. Other than being mildly irritated by sarcastic Boomer referencing in the headline (not that we haven’t earned a lot of that sarcasm), I wasn’t complaining, but genuinely curious as to the association between Boomers and Corvettes as it doesn’t match my experience (of course the world doesn’t revolve around me, much as I might wish it) and, as usual, I got some great feedback and perspective from the Autopian gallery for which I’m also thankful. For what it’s worth, the article itself evidenced none of the gentle Boomer snark in the former headline. It’s all good, as you kids say.
Good move, DT. Generational labels have devolved into little more than slurs at this point, and you guys are better than that.
My take is that, like your height or coloration, it’s not something you chose or can control, so it lowers the discourse to take shots at someone’s birth date
Agree. I also get sick of the Subarus are for lesbians schtick. Subarus are very popular in my midwest town, and sexual preference has nothing to do with the owners.
The really sad thing about the Subaru thing is that their marketing choice was important and ahead of its time, but has become a tired joke.
Same here. I at least used to be a huge Subaru fan and I’m not a lesbian, though I guess we have similar tastes in some things….
I don’t agree with the disparagement either, but the stereotype might have more to do with the fact that it’s probably the only demographic with enough wealth to buy a Corvette anymore.
It’s probably been crashed and they put the cover back on to hide half assed bodywork. Buyer will be in for a surprise when they unwrap it.
With 4 miles? Possible but unlikely.
DURRRRRR MY CORVETTE BEST CORVETTE BECAUSE STILL IN ORIGINAL PACKAGING! MY CORVETTE BEST CORVETTE BECAUSE IT’S ONE OF 71 70TH ANNIVERSARY EDITIONS IN WHITE BUILT ON A TUESDAY! MY CORVETTE BEST CORVETTE BECAUSE CONVERTIBLE! $250,000 FIRM I KNOW WHAT I GOT! THE OLE BALL AND CHAIN SAYS I NEED TO LIST IT SO WE CAN BUY A SECOND CONDO IN FLORIDA! I’LL SHOW HER!
This is total cringe Boomer Bait for sure but at the same time I see the appeal of not letting a dealership get their greasy hands all over your car before you take delivery. Most of the dealerships I’ve been to run new cars through a half assed drive through wash that’s going to mess with your finish. I’ve never gotten a new car that didn’t have any minor cosmetic imperfections somewhere as a result but none were bad enough to make a scene about.
Fast forward 40 years, and this car will appear at whatever the post-apocalypse version of Barrett Jackson is with the plastic still on and 4.1 miles on the odometer.
“Still has the factory dust on the dashboard and the factory fart from the guy who drove it on to the truck in the cabin”.
This reminds me of an article in Hot Rod Magazine about a guy who liked the 25th anniversary Corvette so much that he bought 13–one to drive, and the others as investment. Have idly wondered time & again how that worked out for him.
crap: can’t find it. Maybe it was a later one or a pace car edition. I was sure they were that black/silver, but this was 45 years ago…
I’d guess it didn’t, those cars never sold for much.
Ha, wow. As much as I hate cars as investments, it’s always kind of fun to see one in pure delivery spec, protective coverings and all. Granted, this would be a bit more fun 30 years from now, when “oh, that’s what this car sold for” on the window sticker will be even more of a trip, but yeah. At least there should be good photos of all of that for posterity with this auction listing.
I still think you should unwrap and use the car, though. That’s why it exists! It’s a Corvette. Go hoon it.
I clicked this article fully expecting to agree, but a dealership selling a new Corvette with the protection still on is good, actually. If this were a car from 10 years ago (or even 2, really), it’d be frustrating to see it still wrapped, but this is new.
Dealers taking new cars to auction sites is less great. Maybe it will discourage flipping, but it’s pretty much the same to the buyer: they get a Corvette at a higher price than expected. And a boring white one, even.
I feel like this would be a bad investment.
Who is the buyer for this in 20 years? There’s no 15 year old with a poster of this car on his wall just waiting to get his hands on it during his midlife crisis. If you want performance then there are sure to be faster corvettes than this produced in the next two decades (I’m not terribly familiar with the current lineup, this may be a slowpoke of the group now).
There’s really not much special about this car, despite GM’s blessing it with a different hood emblem. If you have to explain why it’s cool, it’s probably not cool.
Ew.
I can appreciate this to an extent. If I was buying a brand new Corvette, I’d want it spared the dealer’s car wash. Hopefully this would also stop them from putting their dealer plaque on the back. Yes, I’ve seen Corvettes wearing the badge of “Crazy Bob’s Chevrolet” and apparently the owners are fine with that.
But does it make it “collectible”? No.
You’d still want to get this detailed – so it’s not much different than getting it after the lot monkeys have had their way with it. The detailer would easily remove the plaque at the same time.
I’d still much rather never have them put it on in the first place.
Agreed. Just saying that the diaper-wrapped car doesn’t really offer much advantage over any other new corvette.
If you live 2000 miles away from where the auction is being held, would you rather the car be shipped to you in the plastic or not?
This isn’t like someone going in to the local Chevy store and driving their Malibu 5 miles home. This is a $150,000 car being auctioned nationwide.
This car’s like an hour from me, but I know what you’re saying. I think the guy that’s going to buy this will keep it in the wrap. I think we may see this on BAT again wearing the same diaper.
I would have the car paint corrected, etc after delivery so I’m not really sweating the dust it may gather in covered transport. Dust is really all this wrap protects from anyway. It’s not like it would prevent a scratch.
I’d be surprised to see it again, and shocked to see it wearing the plastic.
As someone in the market for this car, I follow the trends religiously.
They are making like 50 of these a day, there is no collectability to them. ADMs are disappearing fast and you’re starting to see them at sticker. This is the last gasp for flippers, by the time this car has been owned 6 months there will be zero upside to selling.
I hope you’re right.
Some of the delivery-mileage cars I’ve seen roll through BAT has me thinking that permanent wrap could be in the cards.
If you can buy one locally for MSRP, the wrap is the only difference here.
If someone pays thousands over MSRP plus transportation costs for this car, they’re spending that extra money for the wrap. I hope the diaper is numbers-matching.
numbers-matching diaper
added to lexicon
Beyond the light protection in shipping, there’s the peace of mind knowing it’s been handled/messed with less than a lot of vehicles on dealer lots.
But this is potentially going to go for as much as I have spent on all my car purchases combined, so maybe I would have a higher expectation than a person willing to pay this.
Even at 4 miles, you’re not the first butt in the seat.
Of course not, but I’d feel a little better knowing that they’d done their best to not mess with my car and keep it protected.
Definitely still give it a solid inspection and get it detailed, but it would appear they put forth an effort to keep it as pristine as they could, within reason.
I also don’t really see the issue with this. Now if, in 10 years, this pops up for sale *still* with 4 miles on the odo and in the protective wrap, that’s the issue.
Ok, the shrink-wrapped Corvette is silly, but can we please not perpetuate the ‘boomer vs. [fill in the blank]’ generational warfare nonsense on this site?
The car enthusiast hobby can and should be a very large and inclusive tent, and the Autopian is normally on the forefront of being more welcoming and inclusive of all the odd corners of the hobby. If I can appreciate the passion and craftsmanship that goes into a lowrider or a stanced BRZ, even if those kinds of cars aren’t my cup of tea, why can’t we extend the same courtesy to those who collect low/zero mileage original cars, even if that isn’t our preference?
Yeah rereading this really gives off a Jalopnik snark that I don’t care for and I hope does not become a trend here.
It’s just a dealer taking precautions for a buyer; there’s zero indication this is intended only for a collector.
I agree.
Jalopnik is a car site that hates cars. I doubt this site will go down that road, but I don’t like the angle of this article. Hopefully a one off.
I think there are two things here:
Thanks Matt. I’m not a boomer (just barely), but do feel that, like a given name, one’s generation ought to be out of bounds for shots
100%
There are times it may suit an article to fall into generational stereotypes, but I am not sure this is one of them. It seems to throw it out there just for fun.
Signed,
A millennial who has plenty of other issues with boomers
I’d rather have the limited-edition Star Wars action figure and a car I can drive.
Yep, used and enjoyed *by me* not anyone else.
This listing is a bit of overkill, but I appreciate the sentiment. The same reason I like when service employees use seat covers and such when they have my car.
Not to mention it’s winter, this car is located in Mass, and presumably wouldn’t be driven to the home of its purchaser even if they planned to daily drive it. I’d rather have the protection on for the shipping process.
Finally, no one in their right mind believes that a mass-produced Corvette will ever be a collectable. The person stashing this away with no miles would be better served putting their money in an index fund.
Yeah, exactly why ’70s/’80s Stars Wars action figures in their original packaging are worth so much – b/c everyone opened & played with them at the time, so any not in that condition are super rare and therefore accordingly valuable.
But by the ’90s, everyone had observed this, and so started squirreling them away, which increased the supply of them in that condition, and lowered the eventual value.
Yup. My grandma had a tradition of giving me a Hess truck every Christmas even when I got older because she thought she was giving me a little investment. It was cute and thoughtful and made sense in her extremely working class mind.
Guess who else did this? Everyone where they were available. I have like 8-9 never opened ones sitting in a closet at my parents’ house and they’re barely worth any more than they were new. They’re still cool, and I miss my grandmother dearly so I’ll likely never get rid of them…honestly I think my plan is to give them to my eventual kids and let them play with them to their heart’s content since they aren’t worth anything.
I do enjoy that Hess still does put them out each year, judging by the ads I see. There’s barely any more Hess stations in my area, but I do notice them when I see them, think about the trucks…
They got bought out by Speedways around here a little while ago. I think it was a total takeover, though they might have kept some of the old branded sites up. IIRC, the Hess Trucks sell really well, so the new owners are keeping them going.
I always enjoyed that Speedway was the official fuel for IndyCar in recent years past and was kinda annoyed when Shell took over (I always think of Shell and F1 b/c of Team Ferrari).
Are they all Shells now? The ones I’m familiar with are in a different area than I’m usually traveling now, so I haven’t noticed if they changed them again.
Hess Corporation is very much still in business (oil & gas production & exploration), they just sold their retail gasoline stations and convenience stores to Speedway, but they still put out the trucks at Christmas under their own name, sold through their own website (Speedway continued selling them in the gas stations for like one more year, then dropped it).
When we bought our first house, the POs had a big display cabinet in the living room for Hess Trucks. I think they’re up there with Franklin Mint stuff, uncut sheets of Elvis stamps, and the Superman dies comic where they’re sold as collectibles and people buy into it because they seem like they’re significant or special, but what people don’t think about is that things that are collectible are that way because nobody kept the old stuff or there was never many in the first place. Buy this kind of stuff because it brings you joy, not merely because you think it will be worth more in the future.
I pity my children already for the rush of low mile Challengers flooding the market in 2060. I’ve never seen a bigger disconnect between production figures and perceived collectability than that car.
Vettes might be close though.
I understand the C5 has the widest ask – offer spread of any car on the market right now.
Their owners have babied them, they’re fully paid off, and people who own cars like that don’t usually need the money so they’re not dealing; meanwhile, the market is filled with younger people who don’t really see a lot of romance in these things, particularly since they’re usually auto and overall, they’re neither “vintage” nor latest-and-greatest.
That makes a ton of sense.
I like the C5 myself, but there must be a million low-mileage ones out there.
The C8 crowd seems different, at least for now. Doubly so for the Z06.
C5 Corvettes and Tri-5 Chevys are the New Balance sneakers of the car world. The owners remember a time when they were highly prized but today, the only people who want them already have them.
I bet here’s a ton of increasingly exasperated “but this is a CLASSIC DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND!!” gnashing of teeth in some of the sale attempts.
C5s are among the least desirable Corvettes IMHO. They’re ugly as sin, most are automatics, and their interiors are equivalent to cheap rental cars. GM was absolutely phoning interiors in across the board during that era and not even their flagship sports car was exempt. I have no idea what people are thinking trying to sell them for as much as they are.
They’re not that special other than the LS under the hood. IMHO they’d make for excellent track builds and should serve as an easy gateway to enthusiast cars, but the prices need to come way down. I’m sure this is a spicy take but I’d rather have a C4. They’re cheaper, they’re more historically significant, they look better in a coke addled retro futuristic 80s way, and if I’m flying by the seat of my pants there seem to be more manuals out there.
Kinda like a splitter cover for the New Balance set.
It sounds like they actually did do a PDI on it, and just put the cover back on. If so, this would be in the same category as those “barn find” vehicles that are displayed before auction with pieces of straw very carefully and delicately placed in specific areas
This could be the rise of a new category. Call it “factory find.”
yeah they would’ve had to remove it to cover the PDI checklist-
https://www.midenginecorvetteforum.com/filedata/fetch?id=453854&d=1675284051
NRFB?
I buy Hot Wheels and take them out of the package immediately, whoever buys this will be offended at my disregard for packaging.
I do exactly the same. I even roll them around to make sure I didn’t get one with a bad axle, and maybe make appropriate engine noises a little.
DLM or die!