Corvettes on eBay: 1960 Corvette Features a Surprise Motor On Board

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?

1, 2, 3, Crunch. The world may never know.

Likewise, the world may never know why years ago someone stuffed a Toyota motor under the hood of this 1960 Corvette being auctioned off on eBay.

While the car still ran when it was parked in the early 1980s, we’re not sure whether the Toyota four-cylinder engine – possibly a 2190cc 20R unit that cranked out a whopping 90 horsepower – has survived the test of time.

That’s really a moot point, though, as the new owner would more than likely install a much more powerful Chevy crate engine or perhaps a 1960-appropriate 283 that would have put out somewhere between 230 and 290 horsepower.

This car reminds us of a real estate ad, with optimistic proclamations that it’s “a great piece of American history!!” and “It is a project but has great bones!” and “The interior upholstery is in good condition just needs a good cleaning!” and “Very solid car.”

The ad goes on to describe the car as having original Corvette decals, original headlights, original interior, and original leather seats – in this case, “original” actually meaning virtually all of these parts will likely have to be replaced.

The original four-speed manual transmission is still there, too, but like the rest of the car, we’re not sure if that’s a good thing. Maybe a rebuild could bring it back to life, but we’ve always been leery of rebuilt transmissions after having ours redone in a 1988 convertible – which never shifted right after that, in our estimation.

Another potential hidden problem could be the frame, since the seller admits it needs repairing. With so much rust on the bumpers and grille, we wonder where this car has been parked for the past 35 or 40 years. Could that mean significant rust problems on the parts under the fiberglass body that you can’t see?

Despite our concerns, interest has been pretty high in this classic C2 so far. With bidding set to end Thursday night, the high bid had climbed to $16,100 Tuesday afternoon. If you’re impatient, you can even “Buy It Now” for $24,000.

Since it’s not a matching-numbers car anymore, maybe this could be turned into a nice resto-mod with later-generation Corvette parts. The potential seems to be there. It just depends on how deep a new owner wants to dip into his pockets.

Source:
eBay Motors

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