Original Orange: 1973 Chevrolet Corvette L82
The only year that the C3 Corvette was available with a soft front bumper and a chrome rear bumper was 1973. To many, that is anomaly but I think it is one of the best looking C3 Corvettes ever produced. This 1973 Chevrolet Corvette is located in Livermore, California near San Francisco. It has always been stored inside and still has its original paint and interior. The car was originally sold at Harry Mann Chevrolet in Los Angeles, California. It is smog exempt and shows 86k miles on the odometer.
This 1973 Chevrolet Corvette retains its original 350 cubic inch V8 engine, although the ad does not say it is numbers matching. A buyer in 1973 had three engines to choose from. The base ZQ3 (L-48) engine was rated at 190 horsepower. The L-82 engine was a higher performance option and designed to replace the LT-1 option from 1970-1972. It was rated at 250 horsepower. Finally, a buyer could opt for the LS4 454 cubic inch V8 engine that was rated at 270 horsepower in 1973. The ad states that the car has a new GM carburetor, power steering and power brakes.
The interior looks very nice with dark saddle interior. The engine is backed by an automatic transmission and the car is optioned with air conditioning and several other nice features. The seller states that the car runs and drives nicely and has lots of power. In terms of paperwork, this Corvette comes with a partial tank sticker and clean California title.
Listed here on Craigslist, the seller of this 1973 Chevrolet Corvette is asking $21,000. The listing has been up for 10 days. This car may needs some mechanical work including brakes and checking the fuel system before it hits the open road. Total production for the 1973 Corvette was 25,251 coupes and 4,943 convertibles. The total number of 30,464 cars was an increase of 3,460 cars over the prior year (1972). If orange is your color, this might be a great buy.
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Comments
Agree that this year looks great with the front cap. Shame that it’s an automatic but hopefully someone knowledgeable will catch it, clean it and drive it.
What is a partial tank sticker?
During production at the St.Louis assembly plant, a sticker was glued to the gas tank that listed all of the production options and other assembly information. These became the “Holy Grail” of documentation to verify the provenance of the car. They are normally in pretty rough condition and are not easy to get to without dropping the tank. Then if you are lucky enough to remove it from the tank, there is no guarantee it will be readable. Most folks selling rarer or very special Corvettes go to the trouble. C3’s were the last generation with tank stickers. C4’s have a label that lists all of the regular production options. That is a very clean looking 1973.
This is the tank sticker off of the ’70 that I owned. I somehow managed to get it off with a spatula and them some tongs to pull it through the fuel door.
Since all the numbers are readable, I was able to read all of the options that my car came with.
@ PRA4SNW- Awesome job. You have the patience of a saint and the hands of a surgeon. I have heard about folks being able to fish them out from the top. There is also a similar document on the C4 that is rolled up and stuck in a front suspension tube that is pretty much impossible to get to on the driver’s side. And having said that, there will now be 10 replies with images of the C4 document :)
Thanks Frank! I was surprised that it worked, and still am. I was much younger then and had more dexterity / patience.
Funny thing was that the car itself was driven in the winter. I could tell from the condition of everything just aft of the rear wheels. Being originally from NY (guessing based on the build sheet info) and the fact that people drove these things year round back then, I wasn’t surprised.
So, to get an intact build sheet from a car that wasn’t babied was a miracle. I’ve seen some build sheets retrieved from tank drops and most of them have been just small remnants.
I like this car, very clean, well cared for. When a Corvette seller says the brakes need to bled, you can translate that out to, “buy 4 calipers, and a master cylinder before you bleed the brakes”. Probably the same is true for the A/C system, replace some hoses and then recharge it. Because this car needs a some work and it has only 2 pedals, I think $15 would be a fair price.
For the life of me, I don’t know where all these automatic Vettes are coming from. Now I know that GM built a fair number of them, but not only have I owned Corvettes since 1967, I know a ton of Corvette owners, and I can honestly say that other than late model ones, I have never known anyone with an automatic. Anyway, other than the seller not specifying what motor it has, and the fact that it wouldn’t be terribly cheap to convert it to an M-21, this would be a good buy at 15 to 17K. Nice looking car.
18,000 1973 purchasers opted for the automatic. I can only assume they realized the Corvette was more of a boulevard cruiser at that point.
Car has original engine, but the seller doesn’t say it’s numbers matching. Wouldn’t the original engine have to be numbers matching?
The author of this write up on this site made the statement about the engine being original, not the seller. The seller never addresses the originality of the engine, only stating the car has “85,800 original miles.” Anyone interested in this car needs to have the seller specifically state whether it’s matching numbers or not. In the ad the seller is more than willing to use the word original, it appears 3 times plus genuine GM when referring to the carb. Too many sellers play word games and make other inferences for potential buyers to assume what they mean when it’s their money on the line.
Steve R
IIRC it is not too tough to get a look at the engine pad stamping that will verify it is the original L-82.
You are right, it’s on a machined surface just in front of the passenger side head. On a small block Chevy it should take the seller 30 seconds to find, it’s so easy to check that when a seller repeatedly refers to originality but doesn’t specifically mention matching numbers it’s should raise an eyebrow.
Steve R
When I sold my Vette, I was emphasizing originality over a shiny new paint job. I used one of those photo hosting companies and posted the link right in the Craigslist ad showing all sorts of engine / transmission / carb numbers.
It really isn’t hard work to do, and really helped to sell the car to the right person.
Didn’t care for the front bumpers,the paint never matched the body all that well.
I had a 74 same color but black leather.
This car has the L-82 engine option.The L-82 used the aluminum valve covers.
The L-48 used steel painted valve covers.. nice car good luck with your sale
Great work Dennis !!! When I replaced the fuel tank on my 72 it was shredded. No way it would come off the tank so I saved the whole tank. It is currently resides in the attic of the garage, lol. Take care, Mike.
Mike, cool idea! Keep the whole tank!
There are originality freaks that say if you remove the sticker, you have ruined the provenance of the vehicle. I think that would be true in the case of a super rare 1 of XX.
I agree Dennis. Mine was not rare but I had the room.
Did anybody else notice the passenger side mirror is missing, other than that I like it, clean and well cared for. A little much for me right now.