70 LS5 Coupe....Zele Chevrolet in Torrington, Ct.

[Chris H.]

Well,

I looked at a very nice, low mile, very original, well driving, Yellow/Black 70 LS5 coupe.

Being new to Sharks, I had some questions after the encounter. The paint is very nice, and advertised as original on the supposed 26,000 mile car. It seems to be uniform over the the entire car, and there are some thin spots on the ridges etc, as you would expect for original paint. What has me confused is some overspray on different parts of the car. In the very original looking engine bay, there seemed to be yellow spray over the black-out on the hood hinges. Is that factory possible? Also, there were bits of yellow on the back window weather strip. Is that factory possible?

I'm problably going to look at this car again, what other "forensic" evidence should I look for to determine if it's original paint?

I was also presented a "window sticker" printed on paper that seemed younger than than 30 years old, had obviously never been glued to anything, and had perforations on the sides, like the old form feed printers. Could that document be legit?

Also, anyone know what became of Zele Chevrolet of Torrington Ct.?

Thanks for all insight. Chris

[Jim T.]

Re: 70 LS5 Coupe....Zele Chevrolet in Torrington,

Chris I still have my original window sticker that I removed from the window of my 70 when I bought it 8-18-70. It is wrinkled some. I might not of removed it correctly, but it is all in one piece. In thinking back over thirty years, I think I moistened it to help with the removal. The color today is not white like paper, sort of brownish looking. It has no perforated edges. Looking at it again it is really small unlike the larger window stickers of today.
I did have some of my car repainted under warranty a couple months after I owned it. I was not satisified with the appearance of a few areas and the car was examined by a zone mgr and a couple areas were painted. My color is Donnybrooke Green. I say this in that the owner of this car says it has the original paint. Some areas could of been touched up after the car left the factory.

[Ed Jennings]

Re: 70 LS5 Coupe....Zele Chevrolet in Torrington,

Chris, I'm sure you've seen the ads in the various Vette publications for repo window stickers and tank sheets........

[Robert C.]

Re: 70 LS5 Coupe....Zele Chevrolet in Torrington,

Chris, As far as body color paint on the outside of the hood hinges,blackout on the other surfaces of the hinge,blended together etc. thats what I would expect to see on an original car. As far as paint on the weather strip at the rear window, I wouldn't expect that. Maybe a "dealer touch-up)
When you go see the car again, take a little car polish with you and see if, with a little polishing, the paint comes off onto the rag. This is a judges test for clear coated cars.

[Patrick H.]

Re: 70 LS5 Coupe....Zele Chevrolet in Torrington,

Bob,

To some degree I'd disagree. While we might not WANT there to be any paint on the rear weatherstrip, many, many of these cars had touch up done after going through the assembly line. I'll guarantee you they were not as fastidious about masking as we would have liked, either. The paint repair line could handle lots of repair and that's what they did.

Even in the early to mid 90's I had friends who toured the Corvette plant and saw lots of cars with primer spotted on them going down the line. It hasn't been until the last few years that I've heard reports of "spotted" cars decreasing.

Patrick

[John S.]

Re: 70 LS5 Coupe....Zele Chevrolet in Torrington,

A good area to check for a repaint is the edge of the stainless along the door at the felt strip. Look closely at the door handle rubber. Top side of rocker mld. Edge's of side marker's.

[Reba 8804]

Re: 70 LS5 Coupe....Zele Chevrolet in Torrington,

Also look carefully at edges of the light and warning switches in the door jambs and if it has manual windows, the plastic plugs in the front of the door and body area. Most painters don't remove these.

[Rick Hammill]

Re: 70 LS5 Coupe....Zele Chevrolet in Torrington,

It seems that car has been for sale for a few years now. Back when I was looking for a car here in the Northeast I kept seeing ads for that car but never got a chance to look at it. I believe he was asking $25K for it.

Anyway, I too own a low mileage chrome bumper car, a 72 LS-5, with only 22,600 miles on it. The paint is orginial and has over spray on the hinges. I can always tell if a car has been repainted. On my initial inspection the car showed no signs of a repaint, then after sometime of having the car in my possession I found some overspray on the inside of the front bumper. This is the only place I could find traces of overspry. My feeling is and I'm almost certian of it that the car has the orginal factory paint on it as their is no eveidence anywhere else of a repaint and that this must have been done at the factory or even possibly at the dealer. Another reason I can tell it is the orginal factory paint is the fact that I can see the bonding strips if the fenders and my rear quarter panels are showing signs of cracking where they are glued on, both sides are cracking in the same spots!

I also use to own a 1974 L-82, after I purchased the car from the second owner I was able to get in touch with the orginal owner. I noticed some paint work and the second owner insisted that the paint was orginal. So I was able to get in touch with the orginal owner and he told me that when he got the car he was not satisfied with the paint and the dealer did some touch up work on it. The paint seemed mostly orginal on that car too.

Interesting note: Both of the cars above were orginally sold by dealerships in Connecticut and I purchased both cars from the second owners in that state.

I can send you photos of my hinges if you like.

Rick

[Chris H.]

Re: 70 LS5 Coupe....Zele Chevrolet in Torrington,

Rick,

Very interesting. Thanks for all the info. I will email you some photos.

Chris.

[George C.]

Re: 70 LS5 Coupe....Zele Chevrolet in Torrington,

Pat is so rigth on the money, so many corvettes had touch up work done before they left St. Louis. So it's hard to say. I remember I had a guy tell me on a brand new 73 Corvette that we the dealer( I worked selling Corvette at a Chevy Dealer in the 70's) had painted a car because it had over spray on one of the rocker panels. And I explained to him our policy was not to paint any Corvette from the factory until delivery to owner he could have the option of what he wanted fixed because of bad paint or slight damage (seam crack,etc) but if a Corvete was really damaged in transit like one time we got two Corvettes in that had 22 bullet holes from the train those were fixed right away. Hope that helps.>George

[John H.]

Re: 70 LS5 Coupe....Zele Chevrolet in Torrington,

The repro price stickers also lack one critical piece of information that was on ALL original stickers, and is hardly ever seen on a repro; near the upper right hand corner, directly across from the dealer name and zone/dealer number, the original sticker had a 6- or 7-digit number, printed in the same font as the dealer name/address/number. This was the "ident number" which was used to track the order once it was accepted for production.