That all tracks. Not sure why I read Mecum and saw B-J. Need to get my eyes checked...Norton here is a link to the car with a description of what an L88 car is. I am very much a fan of Chevrolet cars from the mid 60s to 1970. I have owned a very rare optioned 69 Camaro that a kid with no drivers license totaled in the early 80s when he T-boned me running a stop sign at a fairly high speed and a not so rare 69 Chevelle 396SS. I'm very much of a fan of the Big Block Rat engines. What a lot of people don't know about the L88 is there are actually two different designs of this engine. The first design was found in the 67 and 68 Corvettes which there very few of. The engine is a 427 steel block aluminum headed engine with larger 7/16" rod bolt rods, 7/16" diameter pushrods, radical solid lifter camshaft and 12.5:1 pistons. These engines could turn 7500 RPM without too much effort and stay together. The first design engines used closed chamber heads, whereas the 2nd design engines in 69 used open chamber aluminum heads. The 2nd design engines are basically the same engine as a ZL1 but use an iron block versus the aluminum block in the ZL1. From what I researched when this car popped up on Mecum for sale was the person that finally restored it in the mid 90s spent a number of years sourcing the engine part after he bought it in the 80s. I know the car sat where I found it with the guy trying to sell it for what I thought was an outrageous price for 2 years. It actually sat outside alongside the road for anyone passing by to see it. I went by to check on it about every month or so to look at it on a Sunday when no one was around while it sat there trying to talk myself into buying it. I talked to the owner a number of times and he wouldn't budge on his price. I knew to source the parts and build the engine to factory specs was going to cost $10K or more........if I could find the parts. It is this that made me walk away from the car each time I looked at it. I estimated that I'd have 3-4 times what I could purchase a nice running 67 coupe for by the time I bought everything it needed and restored the paint correctly. The car was minus the engine, transmission, driveshaft, exhaust system, hood and all of the supporting engine parts under the hood when I looked at it. The paint was faded and cracked due to it being lacquer of that time. The body had zero flaws and all of the bright work was there in good shape. It hadn't been molested for being raced as much as the owner claimed it was by the original owner. It still had the rally wheels on it which surprised me. I knew it was probably going to be an investment car and not something you'd want to drive much, I just couldn't justify the investment as collecting cars as an investment hadn't taken off to what it is today.
1967 Chevrolet Corvette L88 Coupe at Kissimmee 2024 as S168 - Mecum Auctions
1967 Chevrolet Corvette L88 Coupe crossing the auction block at Kissimmee 2024 as S168.www.mecum.com
Man .....they sold fast!
