A Little History: Options

These days when you shop for a car the price you find initially is the "standard" price.  The price you pay when you get the bare minimum without all the bells and whistles.  If you want additional 'options,' such as a sunroof for example, that's gonna cost you a bunch more.  Well, over three decades ago things weren't that different in that department.

In 1976 the average price for a car was between $5-$6K, which put the '76 Stingray a little on the higher end of the spectrum, running around $8K for the standard package.  I don't know anything about the original owner of my '76, but one of the many speculations I've made about him (or her!) is that this kid went all out.  How do I know that?  I know that because my '76 is no 'standard package.'

The most important feature is that Stella has automatic transmission.  Automatic!! Can you believe that??  These days if you buy a Corvette that thing comes with manual as a standard, like all true sports cars were meant to be.  If you're manual transmission-challenged like me and you want automatic, you're going to be paying a lot of money to get it.  I can't tell you how many times I've thought of myself as lucky to have stumbled across this particular old Vette and by complete random chance it happened to be automatic.

My second favorite 'option' are the automatic windows.  My very first car was a 1996 Geo Prism--20 years younger--which had the good old fashioned crank 'em down windows.  The kind you had to actually be sitting next to the door in question to operate.  But not Stella!  All I've got to do is push a button and those windows go down.  And somehow, despite everything else in horrible disrepair, those window motors somehow still work awesome!  (But surely now that I've said that they will go up in smoke just to spite me!)

Stella also comes complete with air conditioning, which I think is a luxury feature despite its pointlessness on a sports car.  I mean, air conditioning?  When you've got T-top panels you can pull off to let Mother Nature's air conditioning blow apart your meticulously arranged hair? ;)  The air conditioner doesn't work and when we had the engine replaced we requested that it be removed from the engine compartment to reduce overall weight and give us more elbow room under the hood for future projects.

As mentioned above, Stella is a T-top.  1976 didn't have the option of a convertible, but instead limited production to hardtops and the coupe.  Taking off the top is definitely a level of joy-riding to be undertaken on a warmer day, but it's a blast every time.  In fact, after riding without the top on for a while, putting the T-tops back in place can make the cabin feel a little cramped.

The last 'option' it seems to me is the security system.  I know very little about this feature, having done embarrassingly little research, but Stella has a keyhole (much like a regular door lock) just forward of the Stingray emblem on the driver's side.  This keyhole is not found on the passenger side.  Upon further investigation, it was discovered that this key hole provided access to a type of security system.  A primitive ancestor to today's car alarms, so to speak.  Just what this system does or if it works remains yet to be seen.  I don't have high hopes though--neither door lock works anymore. B-)

All this being said, the original owner put a lot of money into making this car just what he wanted it to be.  What happened to Stella for the next three decades is a bit of a mystery.