Corvettes For Sale by owner: Bob Valli

This is a picture of my father, Bob Valli, sitting in front of his ZR-1. He currently owns four Corvettes (a 1990 ZR-1, a red 1954, and the two 1969 Corvettes featured on this site) a 4 door Mercedes sedan, a red 1988 Ferrari Testarossa, and an Avalanche pickup. In the past, he has also owned a red 1968 427 'Big Block' convertible (which was sold a few years ago) and a silver 1965 Stingray with a 396/425HP.... so basically he is both a collector of sorts, as well as driving enthusiast. In addition to cars, my father has also owned a number of fixed wing aircraft and helicopters. In fact, most of these cars are covered and stored in his heated private hanger.

As to his motivation for selling some of his cars, I think the biggest reason is that now that he is semi-retired, my father is looking to "lighten the load". While all of his vehicles are in very good working order, they do take quite a bit of energy and time to maintain. Being a mechanical engineer, he does just about everything himself...and truly enjoys it... but I think that he feels we just flat out have too many cars under car covers. My sister and I have an interest in keeping the '54. He drives the ZR-1 as a summer car now. The Mercedes is for formal occasions and long drives. The Ferrari is (obviously) for going fast, and the pickup is for winter and work... which leaves the two 69s sitting around for the occasional drive on a nice day to keep everything lubricated. They are both great cars, and after so many years we have all gotten pretty attached to them ...but these cars were really meant to be driven.

The yellow car is simply outrageous, with over 600 horsepower.... and the cool part is that the original (matching numbers) engine was rebuilt and is sitting on a stand, and just knowing that you could put that back in, put the original hood and exhaust panels back on, and everything would be almost back to factory, allows to to enjoy driving the car as it is (with the LS-7 race engine in it) all the more. The green car is really for the aficionado. My father bought it from a dentist when it was one year old and has had it ever since. It was built by Zora Arkus Duntov, the head engineer in charge of Corvettes from 1962 to 1973 and it is very rare. The only other car we know of that was comparable to this car was sold at auction in Arizona to a museum for $118,000.... and that car had been restored. Ours (aside from the paint and a couple other odds and ends) is all original.

As far as prices go, my father is fairly firm on the numbers posted on the two cars. The LS-7 engine in the yellow car was built by the same professional racing mechanic who did the frame off restoration and who rebuilt the original engine... it was done 'right', and the car ultimately cost us more than what we are asking. For that reason, I doubt my father would entertain any amount lower than his asking price unless you came to the garage, saw, heard, and drove the car, and then told him exactly why he should consider taking less... and even then I don't know what your chances would be. As far as the green corvette goes, we are basing the price on the only other comparable car we know about that was sold at auction. It is simply a rare car. He did mention though that he would consider trading the green car (up or down) on a some type of aircraft.