1963 Corvette Stingray - Jay Leno's Garage

think this is so sexy. The radio put it inside the words, but I don't know why people love that, right? your ashtray your four speed gearbox right here your glove box a good sized glove box in these things as you can see get more than just the pair of gloves in there your ignition temperature gauge oil pressure later that's what it's called still the cigarette lighter is not an electrical accessory for a tachometer let's see what idle on what 850 that is correct, it is a phenomenon and you have your windshield wipers here your headlights your electric switch to turn on your headlights open them the doors open the doors and of course your fuel gauge here and of course this The old handbrake always makes me laugh, it looks like something straight out of a Chevy Bel Air and just a vane motor, no that's all it had, that's not it, yeah, then they went to the center right, okay?

I guess we're ready to go, let's take it for a spin. You know it was a different time in American 63. You're going to have a Ferrari or a Corvette Stingray. Don't know. I think I'm going to go with him. Stingray, it had more horsepower, faster, it was sexier, yeah, it's a wonderful car to drive. I mean, it's hard to believe this car is half a hundred years old. I mean, it's over 50 years old, it has timeless style and everyone still loves the look of this car, yeah. Yes, I was 22 years old. I saw a '63 parked on the curb in

1963

and I stopped and walked around that car for two hours.

Yes, I got hit by this car. Right here is exactly half the age of cars in the United States. You figure it's 1903. It's about when it happened 50 years ago, the lady had this because fifty years later we have the new c7 when I was a kid. I've never worked on the Model A and Model T, they seem so simple and this seems so complicated with the reverse lights and brake lights and all that well now this seems almost childish it's so simple what is a brake booster I know, I know it's amazing it's amazing how the lamborghini miura sounds like a car that is fun to drive fast and I would often like to drive it fast because it might be a little scary in terms of brake technology and tire technology, but driving it quickly on a two-way road lanes is just wonderful, it's very communicative, you can feel what the car is doing.

I'm in the 50's. Three speed was the standard, right, you paid more than the forest. It feels exactly right in the mid-fifties, the two-speed Powerglide was standard on the Corvette. Well, I remember reading literature from the '30s and stuff, and some manufacturers were boasting that the car only had a three-speed, you only had to shift three times, not four, and that was what you know, we can do it in Three, where is the other car you need? No, no, I like resto mods and I have a few, but a base. 63 Corvette Coupe like this is still the most attractive to me, this cow is built on December 12, 1962, that's right, they started making them at the end of September.

It had card number 4000 and I traded it in, and this was the most successful Corvette model up to that point. The '62 actually sold a few more units than the '63, but only because they couldn't produce enough. '63, right, sold everyone, you don't remember seeing my first ad for this car, in fact, I had that ad turned into a painting and it's hanging in my

garage

right now, in fact, they even put me in the ad. here, take a look. I know it's a bit stupid, but these days everything was optional, you paid $12 at the Mara, there was no $12 fee for the mare there, that is.

All useless because they put it right in front of the boat and it's the original COS color of the car, silver with a black interior. 3500 cars painted silver, oh, there are quite a few, they are about 1/4 of the production, yes, popular color, oh. true no red eh no red was as popular as the non injected 3000 dates there was a suspension option on 63 you know its funny reading the road test of the time please say you could alter the zo6 package with the 30 gallon gas tank and all the other stuff, but you wouldn't want to do that because it's probably too expensive, but they're only a couple hundred dollars.

Now those cars are million dollar cars, aren't they absolutely? Yeah, they're crazy, you know when I first heard? like Corvette restorers and all the little minutiae with this can't be covered, this has to be whatever I used to think was nonsense, but then you realize how you're going to know if you get in a real car, You know? So when you get a car that's Bloomington Gold or certified by a guy like Mike, you know you've got the real thing and it's really a valuable service. Well, it's good that you appreciate it, yeah, the song about the Stingray on the 409, yeah, when Pete Brock and Larry Shinoda and all those guys did a great job designing this car.

Shinoda was the main player in the FBI at the moment these 320 times are pretty bulletproof, I mean all the European Jews a bit cerini any number of European car manufacturers put this engine in that car. I don't remember on route 66 if they changed to a later model Corvette on the TV show to remember yes I know exactly what they did. I used them on '60 for the first three years and '61. For the fourth year, okay, but I never went to this, so let's see: It's always a solid axle, yes, and that's the original exhaust system.

We want to stop this car completely, so it's probably not as throaty as it could be, but it's very nice and you really get a sense of what the car was like in

1963

. That was the mission. How many bees are left? How many sixty-three do you think are left? That would just be a guess, but I think probably half of them will. They survived, yes, because initially people knew that this was going to be a special car, so a lot of Corvettes were never special to begin with, so they survived tonight. An example would be the old six cylinder Corvettes from '53 to '54, they were nothing special. now they have a lot of money because there are a lot of them, yes when they have it, suddenly it's 1963.

I want to thank my car master, a shop, we did a wonderful job with this car, it was a nice car, but like many old cars . just people did fixes and fixes and there are so many little broken things that were wrong and Mike was able to go through it and fix everything and get it exactly the way it was in 1963, so again, it's a fantastic car. an exciting part of my childhood. I never dreamed I'd have one of these so it took me 50 years but wow we got one Mike thank you so much Jay thanks for giving me the opportunity to do the car there you go.