Per the seller, today’s Nice Price or No Dice Vette backfired out of the carb, starting a little engine bay fire. That was quickly extinguished but led the owner to make new arrangements for the car. Let’s see if its price lights a fire under any of us.
With just four models on offer — and one of those just a lightly re-branded Alfa Romeo — Dodge has seemingly evolved into a boutique brand. That’s made plain by the dozens of “Final Edition” Challenger models the company has dropped on us in the past year or so.
That wasn’t always the case. At one time, Dodge tried to be all things to all people, offering such polar opposites as the plebeian Neon and the power-drunk Viper, plus a ton of models in between. The 1999 Dodge Stratus we looked at yesterday was one of those in-betweeners, a car for the masses that didn’t cost a ton of cash. Most of the model’s mass appeal has been lost to the ages, which means finding a survivor in as nice of a shape as our car appeared to be in is no small miracle. Not so miraculous, apparently, was our Stratus’ $9,250 asking price. Very few of you thought there was much point in paying so much for the car, much less keeping it around all these years. At the end of the day, that resulted in an overwhelming 86 percent No Dice loss.
Ok, quick show of hands; who’s ready to roll up their sleeves and get a little dirty on a project car? I see a few hands out there, and laudably, plenty of those are popping out of already rolled-up sleeves.
Now that we appear to have a quorum, let’s dig into this somewhat sad-appearing 1984 Chevy Corvette. And yes, it is an ’84. Don’t let the later front and rear clips fool you. We’ll start out with the seller’s description since it’s fairly brief and more than just a little hilarious:
it’s a 1984 with front and rear clip from 94 has clean title it ran yesterday but it backfired out the carb and there was a little fire nothing major but i have not tried to start it yet i just need this thing gone i have no time.
That’s the age-old lament of those who are project-rich but time-poor. And, while that description doesnn’t give us much to go on, the snaps in the ad paint a picture of a car in need of pretty much everything. What they also show is a car that looks to come with solid enough bones (and glass-reinforced plastic bodywork) to score some basic wins in the game of just getting running and rolling down the driveway under its own power.
As noted by the seller, the 5.7 under the clamshell hood is topped with a four-barrel rather than the expected “Cross Fire” twin throttle body injection. That’s probably a good thing, considering what a pain in the pantaloons the factory injection is to work on these days. Of course, there’s the whole issue about it spitting flames like a Game of Thrones winged wonder, but working on any project car should always be accompanied by a fire extinguisher anyway.
Other mechanical issues with the car include aged-out and nearly bald tires, shocks that look like they were bolted-on at Bowling Green and a wonky, half-open headlamp bucket that gives the car the appearance of being three sheets to the wind.
On the plus side, the car does look fairly complete and apparently comes with both the aftermarket wheels now on the car and the factory alloys, already fitted with even more crap tires.
Those aftermarket wheels don’t look bad at all and spruce up the bodywork, which is otherwise a bit beat up. There’s a skunk stripe running the length of the car, something that must have been added after the adoption of the later nose and tail piece since it rolls over each. The red paint around that has seen better days and is actually AWOL in a couple of significant places on the door and B pillar, where it looks like someone has hit the car with stripper.
We don’t see too much of the cabin, nor whether the digital dash is all in working order, but the peek we do get shows that work is needed in there, too. The leather on the seats is in very poor shape, necessitating covers, and there is a crack in the top of the dash. Someone did love this car at some point in time, as it has some faux carbon fiber trim apliqués, add-on A-pillar gauges, and pedal covers that all serve to tart things up. Also notably, this is a “Doug Nash” car, sporting the oddball ‘assisted shifting’ four-speed stick. In the car’s favor, there are only 75,000 miles on the clock, and, remarkably, it does come with a clean title.
That’s pretty much the only thing clean about this car, and I think we can smell the meth and raccoon pee from here. There is a saving grace to the car and that’s the reason we’re considering it today — the $2,200 asking price.
For that amount, someone can claim Corvette ownership, if only for a brief snippet of time. That’s got to be worth $2,200 and the cost of a tow (don’t forget the extra wheels and tires!), am I right? Well, I guess we’ll see.
What’s your take on this project ’Vette and that $2,200 asking? Does that seem like a deal for the chance to get the car running and back on its feet? Or, is this Chevy too far gone to take on?
You decide!
Facebook Marketplace out of Livonia, Michigan, or go here if the ad disappears.
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