In hiding for over three decades, this Corvette needs some work to relive its colorful glory days
Sitting in a garage in Macedon, New York, this Chevrolet Corvette C3 doesn’t have an engine or transmission, but what is does have is an interesting story behind it.
Since it was built during a time where the muscle car market was starting to take over, the 1968 Corvette isn’t exactly regarded as a straight line race car, but the original owner of this Corvette wanted to give it a more aggressive look to intimidate on the streets, instead of being regarded as just another sports car, and they did so by relying on Baldwin Motion’s catalogue of parts.
Baldwin Motion and the services it offered is a murky territory - at least in terms of what qualifies a car as being a 'Baldwin Motion build'. It produced cars that were sold with factory window stickers at Baldwin Chevrolet, and it also worked on cars that were brought in by customers - the former being the most desirable, but customer cars that are considered to be ‘the real deal’ are still pretty sought after.
Now there’s a third step on this ladder, which would be a car someone built using Baldwin’s parts, like this particular example. The seller who listed this ad believes this is a Corvette converted to a Stage III using Baldwin parts, but the car was originally bought at a Chevrolet dealership within 10 or so minutes from the Baldwin Motion shop, so it could be even more than just an in-garage conversion.
The set of parts includes different back glass, a special Lemans gas cap, fender flares, and Motion III headlights that were later modified with Eckler bucket headlights. Other Eckler parts take duty at the hood, fender vents, and spoiler. The interior features carpet that needs to be replaced, and a steering wheel that does not match the model.
Prior to taking a 32 year nap, the car was drag raced, and the second owner claimed that it was an 11-second quarter mile car. Now, how much weight that carries with a car that doesn’t have a powertrain to speak of is iffy, but at least it wasn’t all show and no go (at some point).
