Corvette Auction Preview: Mecum at St. Charles!

by Steve Burns
Corvette Blogger

As the 2011 Corvette shopping season starts to wind down, Mecum Auctions rolls into St. Charles, IL this weekend for their end of summer sale. The four day event will be held at the Pheasant Run Resort about an hour west of Chicago starting Thursday September 15th and running through Sunday September 18th. You can watch all the action live on Mecum’s website or check out 14 hours of coverage on Discovery HD Theater. Click past the jump to see some of the Corvettes available this weekend.

As of this writing there are 588 cars on the St. Charles docket. Of those, 72 are Corvettes. As usual cars from all generations are available with C3s making up roughly half of the offerings. Bidders will have a shot at several resto mods, some nice straight axle cars, as well as a couple of cars formerly of the Bob McDorman Collection. The current breakdown is as follows:

Here’s a trio of vettes to keep your eyes on this weekend.

Lot #S136 1955 Corvette Roadster:
Completely unrestored and “barn fresh,” this rare Copper 1955 Corvette still wears its original paint and interior. Just 15 cars sported the new Copper paint in 1955. According to the seller, the car has been stored since 1966 and mileage is listed at 49,856. Barn finds and Survivor-type cars are very popular right now. This should draw lots of interest as it begs the question: Restore it or not?

Lot #F122 1987 Callaway Corvette:
This early example of RPO B2K has run just 27,000 miles since new. That converts to 108,000 trips down the drag strip although this one doesn’t appear to have been raced. The two-tone gray and black car is number 6 of 188 assembled that year and has had just 2 owners since new. Original MSRP was $52,942. Savvy bidders will pay much less than that for this one when it crosses the block on Friday.

Lot #F180 1996 Grand Sport Convertible:
As the fourth generation Corvette said good-bye, we said hello once again to the Grand Sport. The convertible featured here has the standard issue 330hp LT4 and 6 speed transmission. What makes this C4 unique is its bright red interior. Approximately 53 of the 190 GS convertibles came with red guts. The Grand Sports have experienced a nice jump in collectability over the last few years. The condition and rarity of GS #923 should provide some active bidding come Friday at 5:10pm.

Mecum’s St. Charles runs this Thursday through Sunday at the Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles, IL. Vehicle sales start at 10am central Thursday through Saturday and at noon central on Sunday.