One Of These American Icons Is The Classic Car Bargain Of The Year

After withering away in the 1970s to almost nothing, Detroit-born performance began to steadily return during the 1980s, and by 1991, thanks to the Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 and Dodge Viper RT/10, it was almost like the golden era of muscle had never ended.

Fast forward to 2021, and one of those muscle machines is the classic car bargain of the year. Spoiler alert: it’s not the Viper.

Let me just clarify that statement. The Viper RT/10 roadster is still great value. Although prices have risen since their 2018/19 low point, you can still pick up a respectable car for less than $50,000, and this summer, Bring-a-Trailer sold two early examples, a 550-mile car for $130,000, and a 53-mile car for $161,161.

That’s not beer money for most of us, but compare the prices for those effectively brand new Vipers, or the $63,280 recently paid for a 3350-mile car, with the $201,000 someone just paid for a 7000-mile A80 Toyota Supra and they appear pretty strong value.

And then you see what someone paid on the same auction site for a 1990 Corvette ZR-1 with just 150 miles on the clock, and suddenly those Vipers don’t seem such great value after all.

Granted, the ZR-1 doesn’t look as wild as the Viper, and despite its wider fenders, it doesn’t look different enough from a regular ’91-on Corvette which also got the convex rear fascia. It’s not quite as rare as the Dodge, either. But it’s still one of the most important, and most interesting American perfovmance cars of all time.

The launch-spec Corvette ZR1 was powered by a Lotus-developed quad-cam 32-valve LT5 V8 that developed 375 hp and 370 lb ft of torque. That made it 130 hp more powerful than the pushrod L98 Corvette, and helped it reach 60 mph in under 5 seconds and achieve over 180 mph.

But this box-fresh example sold for just $40,000. That’s roughly half the price of a new C8 Corvette with a few options, around the same price as a mid-spec Kia Carnival minivan, or one fifth of the cost of the 7000-mile Supra we mentioned earlier.

It’s hard to think of an equally significant, exciting performance from any other brand, American or otherwise, that could be worth so little in this condition. One day, if there’s any justice in the world, C4 ZR-1s won’t be so cheap and stories like this will sound even more absurd.

The only question is what exactly you do with a perfect as-new car like this? Would you drive it to enjoy, but do it sparingly to keep the miles ultra-low, drive it every day to annoy the C4 buffs, or keep it as a museum piece, its odometer frozen forever at 150 miles?