Rare 1965 Chevrolet Corvette Fuelie Was Hiding Under a Mountain of Trash for Five Decades
Buried treasure in a 1-of-771 fuel-injected ‘Vette.
Rare is the occasion that you can call a car a "buried treasure," but there's no other way to describe the 1965 Chevrolet Corvette Fuelie recovered from under decades of trash in a central Ohio garage last week.
According to a Facebook post from a local towing company, the second-generation "C2" Corvette in question was parked in the garage seen here sometime in the late 1960s, and over time, five decades worth of odds and ends buried the classic Chevy. When the garage was cleaned out this past February, the well-preserved Corvette resurfaced and as the car rolled out of the garage, it became clear that this could be an uncommon find—and not just because of its condition.
The "Fuel Injection" badges on this 1965 Corvette's fenders indicate it was ordered with the 5.4-liter, Rochester fuel-injected L84 V8. Less powerful and more expensive than the 396 cubic-inch big-block V8s introduced for the 1965 model year, the L84 was a sales flop; Chevrolet sold only 771 fuel-injected Corvettes in 1965 before GM pulled the plug on fuel injection entirely for 1966. Fuel injection didn't appear in a Corvette again until 1982, for the final year of the C3.
Because of Corvette owners' infamous affinity for unusual build specifications, 1965 C2s with the L84 have sold for dumbfounding amounts of money. In 2017, an 89,000-mile example collected $101,000 on Bring A Trailer in 2017, so given this car's lesser, 40,000-mile odometer, it could be worth similar when tidied up a bit. Though the towing company that recovered this car said it was able to roll it straight from the garage and onto their flatbed—no seized brakes, no frozen wheel bearings—but restoring it to running condition may be a costly endeavor. Valve seat replacement will likely be necessary to get this car to cooperate with unleaded gas, and you may want to do something about the asbestos that could be hiding out in the brakes and clutch.
If a bit of work or a big repair bill doesn't scare you away, this Corvette will soon be put up for sale by Phil Stalling Classic Cars in Utica, Ohio. The dealer told The Drive to watch for the Corvette on its eBay profile, where it'll be listed as a buy-it-now with an asking price of $50,000. Again, with how much a good fuel-injected C2 can sell for, this may be a bargain for the DIY-inclined Corvette enthusiast.
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