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1978 Chevrolet Corvette Four-Door Sedan Looks Ready for Frankenstein’s Prom

For many among us, prom was the make-or-break moment of our high-school days. Some of us drove our crushes to the dance hall in dad’s pickup truck or mom’s Civic, and if Frankenstein were a teenager, this long-wheelbase Chevrolet Corvette four-door sedan would be his ride.
1978 Chevrolet Corvette Four-Door Sedan 14 photos
Photo: Chris Leo on Facebook
1978 Chevrolet Corvette Four-Door Sedan1978 Chevrolet Corvette Four-Door Sedan1978 Chevrolet Corvette Four-Door Sedan1978 Chevrolet Corvette Four-Door Sedan1978 Chevrolet Corvette Four-Door Sedan1978 Chevrolet Corvette Four-Door Sedan1978 Chevrolet Corvette Four-Door Sedan1978 Chevrolet Corvette Four-Door Sedan1978 Chevrolet Corvette Four-Door Sedan1978 Chevrolet Corvette Four-Door Sedan1978 Chevrolet Corvette Four-Door Sedan1978 Chevrolet Corvette Four-Door Sedan1978 Chevrolet Corvette Four-Door Sedan
Chris Leo offers the retina-burning limo on behalf of “a friend that has owned it for over 20 years that can no longer drive.” Listed on Facebook Marketplace with a buy-it-now price of $12,900 or best offer, the home-brew ‘Vette “needs a lot of tender loving care to put back to show quality.”

Originally sold in Canada, the car rocks a metric speedometer and 2,676 kilometers (1,663 miles) on the odometer. That is a little suspicious given the age of the vehicle, which is equipped with a small-block 350 engine. What kind of 350 is anybody’s guess, but from the factory, the only culprits would be the L48 or L82. In other words, a little more than 200 horsepower at the crankshaft from a good ol’ carburetor and 5.7 liters of displacement.

The transmission, which is described as “automatic” in the ad, is a mystery as well. The Turbo Hydra-Matic would be my guess, the THM350 with three forward ratios. Introduced in 1969 as the successor for the two-speed Powerglide, this fellow is compact, strong, and easy to upgrade for high-torque applications that include pro tourers, hot rods, and strip slayers.

Turning our attention back to the vehicle, the quality is, dare I say it, not up to snuff. A simple look at the tailfins and the rear bumper is enough to get an idea about the car’s condition, which appears to be inspired by the Corvette C3-based sedan built in very limited numbers by California Custom Coach in 1980.

On behalf of General Motors, a total of six vehicles were converted by CCC: one prototype and five customer cars. The economic climate in the United States of America didn’t help the California-based shop, though, and the “Corvette America” was a little on the expensive side as well at $35,000 including the donor vehicle compared to $13,000 for the base ‘Vette.
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About the author: Mircea Panait
Mircea Panait profile photo

After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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