Yahoo Finance Watch This Disgusting C5 Corvette Get a Spa Treatment
After previously completing detail jobs on C1, C3, and C4 Generation Corvettes, the team at WD Detailing found what might be the nastiest C5 around to tackle next. The sports coupe had been sitting for over a decade before the crew had a chance to give it a cosmetic makeover, resulting in a car that needs over $10,000 in repairs before hitting the road once more.
The WD Detailing crew didn’t have much history to share about this particular Corvette, but did note that it has been sitting for nearly 12 years. Given that the oldest C5s are only 27 years old, this sports coupe has spent a large portion of its life in an inoperable state. It does appear that the car could have been involved in an accident at one point, with a clearly damaged front bumper, headlight covers, and front fender. It’s one sad-looking Corvette.
After removing the car from its resting place, it was hauled back to the shop for further inspection. A colony of insects found a home in the passenger door sill, requiring the team to bug bomb the interior before continuing. From there, a vacuum was used to remove larger debris from the exterior, getting it ready for some rinsing.
The wash process starts with the wheels, which took quite a beating sitting for more than a decade. Some work with a degreaser and a detailing brush works wonders, however, and the rims look nearly new after some elbow grease was applied. The team then starts to soak and spray down the car’s fiberglass body panels, slowly cutting through all sorts of caked on grime. The black paint hidden beneath that build-up appears to have held up decently well given the car’s outdoor resting place, particularly once the paint decontamination spray and clay buffer wheel come into play.
The team at WD Detailing tackled the engine bay next, which features the all-mighty LS1 V-8 engine. The legendary motor debuted with the C5 generation of Corvette and played a huge role in the car’s lasting status as a performance value. Getting the small block back into acceptable shape wasn’t too difficult, but the results clearly speak for themselves. The interior job wasn’t so simple, as the Corvette was packed with an insane amount of mold buildup. Interior detailing is one of the more tedious aspects of a job like this, but the impact is pretty incredible. It’s almost hard to believe how well that utterly vile interior was cleaned up with lots of patience and scrubbing.
Following the clean-up, the WD team brought the C5 to Cleveland Power & Performance for an inspection. As you might expect from a car that’s been sitting for so long, the Corvette had some obvious trouble areas to address. All new fluids would be required all around, while the brake lines likely need to be replaced due to rust. The fuel tank also needs to be dropped and thoroughly cleaned before any gas can go in, and then the powertrain can be addressed. The shop estimated that the car needs somewhere between 40 and 80 man hours to get back into roadworthy shape, which they estimated could cost around $12,000.
While that might be tempting if you could score a car like this for a few thousand dollars, there are plenty of affordable C5s for sale at any given moment. Is this the type of car you’d take a risk on? Let us know down below.
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