I have a 66 427 coupe with A/C, that is a nice car not restored but I enjoy driving it on nice days. I have a chance to purchase a 63 340hp coupe with 39k miles, nice origional car. I can only keep one, is the 63 all looks and would I enjoy driving it also? Or should I just keep my 66? Kind of a strange question, but I am just looking for opinions.
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Re: 63 or 66 coupe, What's your choice??
Sounds like you enjoy driving. I wouldn't want to rack up a ton of miles on a nice original SWC with 39k miles. The 66 427 sounds like much more of a driving machine. BB coupe or SWC Coupe??? Tough choice but I'd go with the BB if you enjoy driving. IF someone enjoyed looking, I'd suggest the SWC.
Good luck and go with your gut in this case.
Brian -
Re: 63 or 66 coupe, What's your choice??
To me the choice is simple and easy: the 63 is a one year only body style and it is unique and recognized by all. Since the 63 and 66 share a virtually identical frame and components, the driving pleasure should be the same. I would not have thought about this for longer than it took to type the question. OTH, if you think that the BB with a/c is a better ride than a SB then your choice is easy.
GaryComment
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Re: 63 or 66 coupe, What's your choice??
Bill,
A concern I would have is how important is the A/C. If it is really important then you already have the car that will give you the most pleasure.
WayneComment
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Re: 63 or 66 coupe, What's your choice??
'63 Split Window = Classic ! I haven't heard too many people rave about a '66. Now if that was a '67 427/435 then I might have to actually think about the possibilities.
You also didn't say why you can't have both - if it is money then you have to make a choice. If it is space - then that is why they make, and I own, four post lifts ! I call it "Having my cake and eating it to !"Comment
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Re: 63 or 66 coupe, What's your choice??
66 gets my vote hands down. the c-60(wont be on a 63 340), the disc brakes(vs shoes on the 63, the split in the 63 window makes interior rear view mirror essentially useless, the rubber body mounts on the 66(vs no rubber between the body and the frame on the 63, am/fm on the 66 vs am only wonderbar if the 63 is early to mid 63 production just a few of the reasons i prefer the 64 to 67 midyear coupes. i've got representatives of all the midyear coupes in the collection so i'm not bad-mouthing the 63's.as a matter of fact, our 63 NO3 ZO6 will probably be the last one to go. just that the later midyears had improvements over the first stingray. regards, mikeComment
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Re: 63 or 66 coupe, What's your choice??
'63 has drum brakes, will not work as well as our disk brakes.
STeveComment
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Re: 63 or 66 coupe, What's your choice??
I think Brian hit it right on the head. If you want to park it and look at it, the 63 would be the #1 choice but if you want to drive and enjoy it, the 66 is definitely the winner.Comment
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Re: 63 or 66 coupe, What's your choice??
Thanks to all the answers, I sort of like Mikes answer since he has both avaliable. The A/C is only important if the wife goes. No a/c she may want to stay at home. I do like the way the 66 rides and was hoping the 63 would be the same except for the disc brakes.Comment
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Re: 63 or 66 coupe, What's your choice??
If the '63 is close, I suggest you drive your '66 over to go see it, using some of the types of roads you like to drive on, then take the '63 for a ride over some of the same roads. This will answer most of your questions as driving is a very subjective feeling to most people.
If you are looking for spirited driving in the country, the '63 would be more fun, the lighter SBC will handle better and plow into a corner much less. Plus the drums will never compare to the disc brakes.
If you are looking for long straightaways or some traffic light fun, the '66 is the best, where the torque of a BBC can't be compared to the SBC.
If you like nice cruising on summer weekend days, ask yourself if you do it with the windows open and the air off. That is what the '63 will be always.
Value - hmmm. This is always a consideration. But the number of BBC coupes with air isn't in the majority, and as such, it isn't always value as simply availability. You can find cars with some options, and you can find them with others, but to begin combining those options can often be a long slow process or a very expensive one.
Quite frankly, the 340 hp 63 coupe is a plentiful car. There were nearly 7000 340 hp cars built, second behind the roughly 8000 300 hp cars. So while EVERY eBay auction tells you the '63 340 hp car they have is rare, it really isn't.
Getting it with 39k original miles, now that is something else. And then you have the problem, do you DRIVE a car like that? Isn't the reason for collecting a low mile car the low mileage? And wouldn't driving it defeat that purpose?
Mike hit a lot of points that you can use in this. Take a sheet a paper, make two columns, and put a plus or minus for the '63 and the '66 beside each point everyone here has given plus any you think about.
'63 - better weight, better balance, better recognition, first year, easier working under the hood, drum brakes nearly zero maintenance.
'66 - better interior, better visibilty, better braking, more power, less under hood working room, AC, quieter ride (vibration, hum, etc, not exhaust noise), easier reading of dash, more nose heavy, better for the wife to drive (assuming both 4 sp, as the torque is more forgiving from a stop), 427 is instant recognition, cleaner looks, stinking leaky calipers unless you drive it regularly.Comment
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Re: 63 or 66 coupe, What's your choice??
Thanks for your detailed answer. One thing you mentioned "easier reading of the dash". Is the 63 dash hard to read? Nighttime and daytime?Comment
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Re: 63 or 66 coupe, What's your choice??
The silver in the cones can be a bit reflective at times, one of the many upgrades for '64. I agree 100% with Mike and Mike and Mike, The '63 is great to look at, but the body mounting is not on a par with the '66, the rear vision thru the split window is nonexistant, and if you have an early '63, the outside rear view mirror on the door isn't of much use either. But NOTHING looks as nice as a '63 split when you are watching it go down the road from the rear, but that's not the same as driving it.Bill Clupper #618Comment
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Re: 63 or 66 coupe, What's your choice??
I would keep the 66 with a 427 an Air! an good brakes.Comment
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for Mike Cobine Re: 63 or 66 coupe
hello Mike,
saw your reply and wondered if you'd care to comment on this:
approximately 21, 513 '63s were produced...do you or does anyone know how many of the total production might survive today? surely over the 42 years there's been *some* attrition....
thanks,
dave dickerson, austin, txComment
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Re: for Mike Cobine Re: 63 or 66 coupe
Hi Dave,
Well, the answer is easy - 21,514 of course! And of the 2,610 fuellies built, all 3,725 of them are accounted for.
And of the 4,612 red ones, nearly 5,678 could be found at Bloomington in the glory days!
Seriously, I have no idea. There have been several surveys over the years to find out, but the numbers have always been way down. I think Syd on here has a list of a couple thousand, but that is far below what there probably are.
Since back in the '60s, they were just cars that were driven hard and put up wet, many were lost to the backs of other cars, to 3 ft thick trees, to telephone poles, and to buildings.
Just a wild guess is that probably 20-25% were lost by the early '70s when suddenly people began to look on them as classics and collector items. Of course, I have no idea.
I know of a '63 convertible I found in a gully in Missouri in '78 that was so far gone, even I didn't pull it out. (It is probably Second Flight today somewhere. ) I remember a couple in a junkyard, and there used to be a few in the old Lincoln Corvettes junkyard pictures. So a few are gone. But I'm sure a few have been "created". Strange how that works. A busted body on another frame becomes one car. The frame under body parts becomes another car. And which is original?
One difference between them and others cars is that steel cars in the junkyards were sold off as scrap metal, and being fiberglass, it wasn't worth it to sell a Corvette off. Hard to think of a Corvette as too worthless to sell as scrap. So many have been found and restored that would have been lost.
Since you live in Austin, my '63 has a connection there. It had a 1967-68 staff parking permit for University of Texas. I've had no luck tracking anything there. You wouldn't know anyone who was there at that time who might remember a red coupe, would you? My only hope is that a red '63 coupe would be unusual enough to stand out in someone's memory as the U of T has no records.
And as part of how worthless the cars were then, the guy crashed it in Missouri around 1970 and abandoned it in lieu of the tow bill, which is why there is no information from now to before 1970.Comment
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