If you could go back in time and buy any car ever made which one would it be? Which Corvette would it be?

If you chose a 1978 Silver Anniversary L82 Coupe, you’re in luck! An essentially brand new example showed up in Georgia with a very interesting backstory. Corvette Online chatted with Chip Lamb of the Savannah Group via telephone and he shared an amazing story that reads like a who’s who of the car business almost 40 years ago.

This was a special ordered, 1978 Silver Anniversary L82 Corvette that was put up on blocks with just 4.1 miles on the clock for 38 years. It was never dealer prepped so it’s now a fascinating look at how late seventies ‘Vettes rolled off the line. The Mulroney sticker is still on the window, yellowed and faded, as well as the invoice, and ordering documentation. The car was just released form an the owners estate and is being offered for sale for the first time.

Mr. Lamb, says the car was “Stored on blocks in this location since the summer of 1978 and owned by early NCRS member and Bloomington Certification Board judge Paul Adams of Florence, Alabama. Paul worked for Ford Motor Company in the Muscle Shoals aluminum casting plant, but also after hours as a Corvette and Mustang parts vendor and technical expert out of his garage behind his house. When special edition Corvettes were announced for the 1978 model year, he knew he had to have one.

“As it happened, Paul’s brother-in-law Bart Smith, was a GM executive in Fredericksburg, VA. Paul asked Bart to order him whatever he could get at the GM employee price. Bart placed the order in during late 1977. However, GM was not keen on ‘giving away’ any 1978 special edition Corvette and stalled Bart’s request for nearly 5 months. Finally, Chevrolet accepted the order for this car in March and built it in May of 1978, shipping it by the end of that month to Sites Chevrolet in Franklin, West Virginia. Bart Smith took title to the car in Virginia as a private person and had the car shipped to Paul’s home in northwest Alabama.

“Per Paul’s brother and estate executor, the car was backed into the garage, the engine fogged and then put up on blocks in one of the garages behind Paul’s home. Also per John, it was not driven since that time and he was further not aware of Paul starting it up on any regular basis, though they were not close during much of that time. The original Delco Heavy Duty Freedom battery would seem to indicate that this is correct.”

The 1978 Corvette was much improved. Although GM decided against an all new car – which ultimately tarnished the C3’s legacy – the Silver Anniversary Corvette was a very attractive car. With new fastback styling that drastically improve the Corvette’s practicality, an updated interior and slight horsepower increase, the old St. Louis factory was cranked up to “11.”  They churned out over 46,000 of them that year, 15,283 of them with the Silver Anniversary package.

These were unheard of numbers for the Corvette back then and the build quality was spotty even for the times, and shocking today. The pictures show mismatched paint, loosey-goosey bumper cap tolerances and wiggly tape stripes. Chalk marks and overspray on the body suggest a paint touch-up or a in-op bulb. It also demonstrates that when the factory was turned up to warp speed, GM relied heavily on post-assembly repair.

All of that is irrelevant now, because many of the men and women at the Corvette factory in St.Louis are dead and gone. This ‘Vette is now one of the few untouched artifacts left of their toil.

In the automotive world, this is like finding Tyrannosaurus Rex bones in a tarpit, a snapshot in time. In 1978, Jimmy Carter was president, Bill Mitchell had just retired, and Detroit was soon to be brought to it’s knees. And the Eighties were looming right around the corner.

The next question is what do you do with a car like this? It’s suffering from “lot rot,” that elusive automotive disease that afflict undriven, stored cars. Do you destroy, er I mean restore, the aforementioned long gone workers handiwork or do you clean it up and share it with the world as reminder of the hazy crazy seventies?

Finally, whats a car like this worth? So far on Ebay, the current bid is $62k and change. To anyone who buys it, please be a conscientious shepherd?  This isn’t just a car, this is a vessel of the souls of St. Louis factory workers gone on to glory.