[VIDEO] Barn Finder Tom Cotter Uncovers a 1986 Corvette Convertible

It took some agility and persistence, but Tom Cotter discovered an interesting C4 Corvette on a recent visit with a Montana car collector named Bob.

Stacked behind a pile of boxes atop one of the 26 Toronados that Bob owns, Tom found a 1986 Corvette convertible, the first year the ragtop returned to the Chevy lineup after being absent since 1975.

Bob visited an area Chevy dealer upon hearing that the convertible was coming back, but once he heard the price would be about $36,000, “I went away and forgot about it.”

Fortunately, the dealer didn’t forget. “He called me two weeks later and said, your car’s gonna be here in four days. I said I never ordered one. He said well I ordered the one you would have ordered if you would have ordered one.”

Smart move.

When the dark red Corvette arrived, Bob returned to the dealer. “It was filthy dirty from the car hauler,” he recalled, “but it was still the prettiest thing I’d seen in years so for $1600 down and $585 a month for five years, I bought my first and last new Corvette.”

The Corvette features the 4-plus-3 Doug Nash overdrive manual transmission and has covered just 4,000 miles since Bob picked it up at the dealership.

“I drove it here locally a little bit,” Bob remembered, “and I took a friend to the Chrysler meet down in Reno and then came back and then it hasn’t moved since.”

“How long ago?” Tom asks.

“Well, that was in ’87,” Bob answers.

Over the ensuing 32 years, the car came to rest in a building and was eventually surrounded by the Toronado stacked with boxes, forcing Tom to climb through the Olds to reach it. Fortunately, the steering wheel of the Olds had been removed, making the task a little easier.

“This must be what it’s like when you die and you go from purgatory to heaven,” Tom quipped upon exiting the Toronado and discovering the Corvette.

The Corvette is just a small part of the video posted by Cotter, but it’s definitely worth watching the whole show because Bob is a virtual walking encyclopedia on all kinds of classic cars, including Model T and Model A Fords. He’s forgotten more than most people know about cars, no doubt.

At the end of the day, Bob even cranked up a 1912 Kissel once owned by a local judge and took Tom on a tour of the Montana countryside. We’re glad to see this classic car returned to the road, even if only for a brief moment.

Now if he could just get that Corvette out of its hiding place…

Source:
Hagerty.com

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