{"id":2119419,"date":"2026-08-30T16:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T13:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2119419"},"modified":"2026-08-30T16:25:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T13:25:00","slug":"heres-how-much-a-chevy-corvette-would-have-set-you-back-in-the-70s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2119419","title":{"rendered":"Here&#8217;s How Much A Chevy Corvette Would Have Set You Back In The &#8217;70s"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"columns-holder\">\n<div class=\"add-on-google-widget\">\n<div class=\"add-on-google-heading\">Add Jalopnik on Google:<\/div>\n<div class=\"add-on-google-buttons-row\">\n                        <button type=\"button\" class=\"add-on-google-btn\" id=\"preferred-source\">Preferred Source<\/button><br \/>\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/profile.google.com\/cp\/Cg0vZy8xMXBneTRxX2Zw\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"add-on-google-btn\" id=\"google-discover\">Google Discover<\/a>\n                    <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The 1970s was a tumultuous time for American automakers, and the nation&#8217;s favorite sports car wasn&#8217;t excluded from the fallout. While the start of the decade saw the release of thunderous big-block-powered luxury machines\u00a0along with some of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jalopnik.com\/2088535\/greatest-coke-bottle-style-muscle-cars-of-all-time\/\" target=\"_blank\">greatest &#8216;coke-bottle&#8217; muscle cars<\/a>\u00a0from the golden era, the rest of the &#8217;70s was very different. The Environmental Protection Agency&#8217;s formation in 1970 introduced strict new emissions regulations, while the oil crisis saw gas prices rise to previously unprecedented levels. Naturally, that made filling up V8-powered sports cars like the Corvette a little more uncomfortable, but it also meant the production costs of such cars went through the roof, too, which was ostensibly reflected in the Corvette&#8217;s MSRP.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">While it was possible to pick up a shiny Corvette from the dealer with that new-car smell for under $5,000 at the start of the 1970s, by the end of the decade, that price had more than doubled, and Corvette prices rocketed even further as the early &#8217;80s dawned. Other changes affected the Corvette-purchasing process during the decade too, such as the pricing of desirable extras \u2014 power windows went from $63.20 to $141 during the &#8217;70s \u2014 and even the availability of the convertible option.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Starting with happier times, a Corvette buyer in 1970 was presented with a plethora of options at tantalizing prices. They could drive away in a shiny new Sport Coupe for just $5,192, or feel the wind in their hair for even less, at $4,849 in a convertible. For an extra $289.65, they could opt for a 390-horsepower 454-cubic-inch LS5 V8, while comfort-oriented options like power windows and air conditioning would set them back $63.20 and $447.65 respectively.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">For the first few years of the &#8217;70s, Corvette prices would grow only gradually. From &#8217;71 and through &#8217;73, the price for a base Sport Coupe would swell to $5,496, to $5,533, to $5,561 for each respective model year, before landing at $6,001.50 in &#8217;74. The Convertible was slightly cheaper but tracked a similar path. A long list of options continued to tempt buyers into spending more, with perhaps the most tantalizing box to tick being the 454-cubic-inch LS6 option in &#8217;71. For $1,221 extra, this would net you\u00a0the most powerful &#8216;Vette of the &#8217;70s, although at $926 more expensive than the 390-hp LS5, it&#8217;s no wonder it remained a remarkably rare configuration. Back to base prices, though, once the Corvette cracked $6,000 in 1974, its pricing trajectory slowly started to explode.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The year 1975 saw base Corvette prices swell to $6,810.10, before they hit $7,604.85 in 1976. As for convertible models, a &#8217;75 example commanded $6,550.10, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jalopnik.com\/2195106\/corvette-didnt-always-come-as-convertible\/\" target=\"_blank\">if you wanted a convertible Corvette in the latter years of the decade, tough luck<\/a>, as Chevy discontinued the model. Meanwhile, new federal mandates <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jalopnik.com\/2232318\/70s-cars-giant-bumpers-federal-repair-cost-rule\/\" target=\"_blank\">forced cars in the &#8217;70s to wear giant 5-mph bumpers<\/a>, and so the once sleek C3 Corvette was soon adorned with a questionable plastic nose and tail end in &#8217;73 and &#8217;74, respectively.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">By this point the stylish chrome bumpers, more powerful engines, and now the drop-top options were no longer available. Even though buyers were paying more than ever, they were actually receiving less &#8216;Vette for their money. By 1976, the Sport Coupe&#8217;s base price had already swollen by around 50% compared to 1970, but things were about to get a whole lot more expensive. Base Corvette pricing in &#8217;77, &#8217;78, and &#8217;79 tracked as follows: $8,647.65, $9,351, and $10,220.23. Special and limited editions commanded far more, like the &#8217;78 Pace Car Edition, which set buyers back $13,653.21. To close the decade out, prices of base models jumped by almost as much as $3,000 in a single model year, with the base &#8217;80 Sport Coupe models commanding $13,140.24.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Throughout the 1970s, prices appreciated massively across the entire Corvette range, but all while this was happening, the power outputs and overall performance of the models actually kept decreasing at a similarly alarming rate. We&#8217;ve already covered the heady outputs of early models, with optional LS5 and LS6 big-block engines producing 390 and 425 hp, respectively, but it&#8217;s the base engines that best tell this story. In 1970, a zero-option &#8216;Vette left showroom floors with 300 hp and 380 lb-ft. Immediately in &#8217;71, that base output dropped by 30 horses, and figures changed across the board from here on out\u00a0thanks to a change over to SAE net calculations. Official outputs for base 350ci engines in &#8217;72 and &#8217;73 were 200 hp and 190 hp respectively.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Interestingly, the base 350 received a 5-hp increase for &#8217;74 models, although the good news ended here. Despite jumping over $800 in price, the &#8217;75 model actually lost 30 horsepower, in turn becoming the second-least-powerful Corvette ever sold, with a dismal 165 hp. The Corvette&#8217;s recovery was a slow and painful one, with the &#8217;76 model bringing output up to 180 hp, and while figures bounced around a little over the coming years, the base &#8217;79 Corvette&#8217;s 195-hp rating and 225 hp for the range-topping L82 are\u00a0proof the decade ended in a miserable place when compared to its starting point. Of course, ever-tightening emission regulations and the change from gross to net horsepower ratings were\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jalopnik.com\/2141217\/1975-corvettes-horsepower\/\" target=\"_blank\">to blame for the Corvette&#8217;s pitiful outputs<\/a>, while a shift in American buying patterns also turned many consumers away from performance-oriented machines, and into economical commuters or luxury-lined models instead.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">While Corvette prices did indeed double over the course of the decade, it&#8217;s also important to factor in inflation. After adjusting prices for inflation, that 100+ percent increase in base pricing was actually closer to 50% between the years 1970 and 1979. That is still very significant, and the pain doesn&#8217;t end there, sadly. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hagerty.com\/valuation-tools\/chevrolet\/corvette\/1970\/1970-chevrolet-corvette-base?id=aCn1I000000CwPPSA0\" target=\"_blank\">Hagerty<\/a> currently pegs a 1970 Corvette in base Coupe guise at $29,000 in good condition, whereas it values a &#8217;79 example at just $12,300. Mid-&#8217;70s models fall somewhere in between, with base models trading in the mid-to-high $10,000s, according to Hagerty.\u00a0Factoring in the power lost over the years, we realize that not only did buyers pay double for later cars, but they also received merely two-thirds of the car&#8217;s original output, only for those cars to then depreciate to be worth less than half the value of earlier models. Ouch.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">There are exceptions to the rule, of course. Really lovely examples of the aforementioned &#8217;78 Pace Car Edition have gone on to fetch sums\u00a0in the region of $50,000 and beyond. However, that&#8217;s still far from\u00a0earlier cars like the\u00a01971 Corvette ZR2, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hagerty.com\/valuation-tools\/chevrolet\/corvette\/1971\/1971-chevrolet-corvette-zr2?id=aCnPb0000008PndKAE\" target=\"_blank\">Hagerty<\/a> values at $421,000. So exact specifications clearly matter a lot, but the obvious trend is that earlier cars are what collectors covet today, and looking at the evidence of questionable body tweaks and tumbling outputs, it&#8217;s not exactly difficult to understand why.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Add Jalopnik on Google: Preferred Source Google Discover The 1970s was a tumultuous time for American automakers, and the nation&#8217;s favorite sports car wasn&#8217;t excluded from the fallout. While the start of the decade saw the release of thunderous big-block-powered luxury machines\u00a0along with some of the\u00a0greatest &#8216;coke-bottle&#8217; muscle cars\u00a0from the golden era, the rest of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,247],"class_list":["post-2119419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-jalopnik-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2119419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2119419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2119419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2119419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2119419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2119419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}