The boys at WD Detailing have been sacrificing their bodies once again, bringing their first-ever C5 project back to life after more than a decade of neglect.
Boy, did they pick out a tough one this time, ranking it among their most difficult projects ever!
And, in another first for the clean-up gurus, they then travel to an Ohio restoration shop to hear a rough estimate of what it would take to get this cleaned-up Corvette functioning well enough mechanically to at least do a burnout again.
But first things first. Upon arriving at the scene, they find this nasty black C5 surrounded by a veritable jungle of weeds, only to discover a disgusting pile of ant larvae residing on the passenger side door sill that first has to be vacuumed away to prevent new ants in the cockpit. Speaking of the interior, the black leather door panels and seats are covered with mold and mildew.
But just when you think the boys might have finally met their match, they pull another rabbit out of their hat – though it sure does take a lot of hard work to grab the prize, with a contorted Mike even having to lie on his back in the luggage compartment wearing a gas mask just to raise the hatch.
The most impressive result of all their efforts, at least for us, has to be the black interior, especially the badly mildewed seats that wind up looking practically brand new other than the split on the driver’s upper bolster.
The black paint does manage to regain a good shine overall, but the front bumper still looks rough and one of the headlight covers is even missing.
Usually the guys just send the finished product back to the owner, but this time they decide to get a general idea of what it would take to get it running again and see if they might want to buy it themselves.
Unfortunately, the rough estimate isn’t good news. Even if they managed to buy the car for just $2,000, they could wind up with $16,000 in the car just to fix mechanical problems and still would have to address the body issues.
So even if you happened to inherit a C5 like this and had an initial investment of $0, unless the car has great sentimental value to you, it looks like your best bet would be to just part that one out for a few bucks and use the funds towards your search for a much better low mileage example. What approach would you take?