The Pick of the Day is a 1971 Chevrolet Corvette convertible listed by a New York dealership on ClassicCars.com.
If you want your classic car to win a prestigious award, fundamentally, there are two ways of accomplishing that. You can pour all of your free time, perhaps too much of your money, gobs of elbow grease, buckets of sweat equity, a couple of busted knuckles, and an ear-scalding list of cuss words into making it victorious. Or you can just buy one that’s a known winner, such as this 1971 Chevrolet Corvette convertible, which has received the NCRS (National Corvette Restorers Society) Top Flight award – twice.
The NCRS was founded in 1974 and mestablished the Top Flight award “to recognize cars that have been preserved or restored to the highest level of achievement through the NCRS Flight Judging Process.” Submitted cars are put through a series of examinations that includes Operations Check, Exterior, Interior, Mechanical and Chassis Judging; only those that earn 94 percent or more of the available 4,500 points are deemed Top Flight Corvettes. According to the NCRS’s website, 18,822 out of the 24,926 Vettes that have gone through NCRS Flight Judging have driven away with the prize. That’s a 75-percent success rate, which can be seen as a testament to how passionate and dedicated Corvette owners are.
This Ontario Orange ’71 convertible successfully made it through that critical gauntlet twice: once at the chapter level in 2009 and once at the national level in 2011.
As you would expect of such a meticulous specimen, it comes with plenty of documentation, including:
- Blue ribbons
- NCRS judging sheets
- NCRS Document Validation Service correspondence
- NCRS Shipping Data Report
- Corvette Order Copy (tank sheet)
- Original window sticker
- Protect-O-Plate in its original booklet
- Original owners manual
- Original keys and key cutouts
- Wheel trim ring instruction sheet
Although it’s been more than a decade since its last NCRS award, this Stingray seems to have aged well. The Ontario Orange paint is like a citrus candy coating over the prominent peaks and bold curves. That’s made all the more noticeable by the bright and shiny chrome bumpers and rocker trim.
When the weather doesn’t cooperate, both lucky passengers are covered by a black soft top with a clear plastic rear window or a body-color hardtop. Inside, the black leather upholstery appears to be wrinkle-free and can pass for new. Every surface and control is devoid of the deterioration and imperfections that naturally accumulate in less fortunate cars of this age.
That same level of care is evident underneath the car and in the engine bay, which contains the optional LT1 Turbo-Fire 350ci V8. The brochure for the 1971 Corvette shows that it came from the factory with a gross rating of 330 horsepower and a net figure of 275. That engine was available with the choice of two four-speed manual gearboxes. The drawback to the LT1? It couldn’t be combined with air conditioning.
This C3 Corvette traveled a hard road to success, but if you pay the $95,799 asking price, you can take the easy way out and get a turnkey, award-winning piece of American automotive history. Your knuckles (and maybe even your significant other) will thank you for doing that.
Click here to view the listing for this Pick of the Day on ClassicCars.com.
Source: www.classiccars.com