History of 1968 Corvette.
--The car was purchased approx. June of 1968. I purchased it from a dealer known as Northfield Chevrolet at that time. The current name of the dealer, as of June, 2005 is as below:
Spitzer Chevrolet
333 East Aurora Road
Northfield, Ohio 44067
(330) 467-4141
--Vin # of the 1968 Chevy Corvette is 194678S401532
--The Corvette was originally sold as new by Northfield Chevrolet to a guy by the name of George Jensik (last name sp. ?). The car was probably sold in the spring of 1968. A few months later Mr. Jensik traded the Corvette for a Camaro at the same dealer. This was told to me by the sales rep who sold me the car in June. I never met Mr. Jensik, but several times I was approached by an admirer who said. “Hey, is that Jensik's Vette?” I had to explain to them that it was “MY” Vette. On two occasions I was told by the admirer that Mr. Jensik had, in fact, previously owned it and had traded in the Camaro for a new GTO later and had traded the GTO for a pick-up truck. I was told that his daddy had pulled the plug on him and told him to get a job.
--The miles on the odometer are 27,xxx. And I will verify that this is the actual miles driven. I did have a warranty service on the car related to this. Once I had the car for a week or so, I decided to check the gas mileage. The first check came out to be 18mpg. I didn't believe this so I filled it up and checked again with a similar result. I also had noticed the miles to destinations that were familiar were more than they should be, which caused me to wonder what was going on. At the time I knew of a measured mile in Oakwood Village that the police used to calibrate the speed sensing devices in their cars. I drove the Vette over it and found it was logging a little over 2 miles for each 1 mile driven. I took it back to Northfield Chevrolet and explained what was going on. The service manager didn't believe me, so, he had two of his guys take the 'Vette and another car from the lot on a little trip. When they returned, the 'Vette had gone about 9 miles and the test car had 4.5 miles. The dealer replaced the speedometer head on warranty and the problem was solved. When I got the car it had 4,000+ miles on it, after the warranty repair the mileage was adjusted to approx. 2,500 miles which would have been about the actual miles driven.
--The car has low mileage due to my driving it only in good weather most of the time. Also, I spent a year on temporary assignment in New York, on my job, and was later transferred to Detroit from Ohio. I didn't have a lot of time to spend on it as it was in Ohio. I also had a problem with the insurance cost in Michigan, which was about 4 or 5 times more than Ohio. In Ohio I could insure it as a pleasure car, and it was only about $200 per year. I was also afraid it would be stolen here. (This was my second 'Vette, I won't mention what happened to the first one.
--The last time the car was plated and driven was 1989. No problems noted at that time.
--I don't recall any major problems other than the speedometer. There might have been some that were handled by the first owner.
--I have not had any major problems with the engine. Other than rebuilding the carburetors several times due to leaks caused by long times of unuse. Whenever the engine was re-started, I always removed all the plugs, oiled up the cylinders, cranked it over until I saw oil pressure on the gage. Then I installed new plugs and it always started quickly. The engine is the original engine in the car when I got it. It has never had any major engine work other than plugs, tune-ups, oil changes, air filter cleaning, etc. The car originally had the spark plug secondary wires with the braided wire shields, those were replaced with the non-shielded type.
--The car has never been in an accident while I've had it. No paint or body work. I asked the same question when I bought it and the sales rep said no damage.
--Nothing was done to the car other than the after market side exhausts as you mentioned. The car originally had standard exhausts. The side exhausts were put on by my father and brother. One of the factory exhaust pipes hung down about 1-2 inches more than the other one. I always hated that, it looked bad, and the low pipe would scrape the ground more than a few times. I tried to fix that several times, but the fix would only last for a while and it would go back to the same thing again. The side exhausts were a permanent fix for that problem. Although I wanted to install factory side exhausts some day, my father decided to do it with the Thrush brand. I didn't like those, however.
--I have no docs for the Vette. None came with it when I got it.
--The only things I think it will need is a battery, a new convertible top (this did not have a hard top), new tires, the engine should be flushed out well, the carburetors will need to be re-built again, the windshield is cracked and will need to be replaced (as I recall, this crack started from a rock while driving, it started small and expanded),
OH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I just thought about it)
Joe, I will have to tell you about the kill switch!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't fail to remind me about that!!!!!!!