1963 Corvette Emerges After 45 Years of Storage

Mother Nature gave this split-window ‘Vette one of the more unique paint jobs you’ll ever see.

When it comes to “barn finds,” people either love ’em or hate ’em. Love them because it’s just plain cool to see an old car emerge into daylight after decades in storage. Hate them because many feel like they shouldn’t have been neglected in the first place. But there’s something undeniably cool about an old car covered in patina. Especially when it’s a legendary, split-window 1963 Corvette.

This particular ’63 barn find that we spotted on eBay sports some of the coolest natural paintwork around. But it also has a pretty cool story behind it, too. The seller claims that the previous (original) owner wanted a green 1963 Corvette. But since that wasn’t an option that model year, they purchased a silver one and had it resprayed at the dealership. After that, the car was driven regularly until 1973, when it was parked for the next 45 years.

Reportedly, it took the current owner a full 9 years to convince them to sell it. And they did minimal work to the ‘Vette to get it running and driving. Otherwise, this 1963 Corvette is in pretty remarkable shape for a barn find. Most likely because it was stored on a concrete floor all those years, with nary any sort of abuse taking place before that.

Granted, this old Corvette is nothing exotic in the drivetrain department. It sports the original 327/300 hp engine and automatic transmission. Nothing that’ll exactly light your hair on fire. But it is remarkably original outside of the paint, with even the Wonderbar radio and factory air conditioning intact. And as cool as this thing looks, we’d probably just restitch the interior, give it a mechanical once-over, and call it a day!

#gallery-1 {
margin: auto;
}
#gallery-1 .gallery-item {
float: left;
margin-top: 10px;
text-align: center;
width: 25%;
}
#gallery-1 img {
border: 2px solid #cfcfcf;
}
#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {
margin-left: 0;
}
/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Join the Corvette forums today!