One of the coolest parts of my little side-writing operation is the people I get the opportunity to meet. Being secluded in Colorado, these meetings are rarely in person, but unless the subject is Sydney Sweeney, I actually prefer it that way. When an internet deep dive led me to Nicolas Cage’s Cadillac CTS-V Wagon, I didn’t get to converse with “Dr. Stanley Goodspeed” himself, but the chance find did earn me my third published piece on Road&Track, and introduced me to Chris Cochran, a fellow gearhead who leveraged his passion into a nation-wide vehicle-sourcing operation called Autostreet USA.
Through this COVID-born business, Cochran has matched happy buyers with all manner high-end machinery throughout the years, including the more-than-occasional piece with celebrity ownership history. The most notable among his many famous-adjacent automobiles was the Mario Andretti-owned Lamborghini Diablo that he moved in 2022.
After helping me out by expediting his usual photo process on the excellent Cage V-Wagon, Chris reached out to let me know that the Oscar winner and one-time post-mortem son-in-law of Elvis Presley wasn’t just dealing with Massive Talent and an excessive spending habit that my original draft explored, but the man tapped to play John Madden is also a automotive connoisseur, and Chris had another of his former GM gems on hand to prove it.
Right now, through Autostreet and Bring a Trailer, interested parties have a chance to place their bids on Nic Cage’s former 1969 Corvette Convertible 427 4-speed. It’s a numbers-matching car with the 390-horse L36 Big Block, with AC, Rally Wheels, and a vinyl-covered removable hard top. The original Cortez Silver paint was resprayed to its current silver around a quarter of a century ago. Of the 38,762 ‘Vettes minted in the year of the moon landing, just shy of 43% (16,663) were convertibles, a separate cohort of 10,531 received the L36 powerplant, while 11,859 got factory air, and just 3,266 got the vinyl top, making for a stylish if not overly unique overall package.
This won’t be this particular ‘Vette’s first time through BaT, either. It hammered for $62,500 in July of 2021, but Chris has had some restoration completed, and according to Hagerty’s Valuation tool, ’69 L36 ‘Verts have enjoyed a 6% gain across the board during the market volatility of the last 12 months. Still, even with that improvement and the possibility of a celebrity bump, people who haven’t checked on C3 prices in a while might be surprised by the incredible value the swoopy shark generation still offers 56 years after its debut with a similar spec featuring the mighty 427/435 L71 selling for just $66,500 in September. If you are looking for a superb historical Corvette with an interesting story to tell, this might be the opportunity of the year!
Source:
Bring a Trailer
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