I had my '75 at the shop for some minor work that I'm too lazy to crawl under to do myself.  When I picked the Corvette up, I noticed it was parked nose-in close to another car.  Upon closer inspection, I found the paint was cracked where it had actually hit the other car.  The mechanic offered to pay to have it fixed, but since I had done all the paint work myself, I fixed it myself.

I'm just wondering how many others have had similar experiences.

I really can't blame the mechanic too much, the nose on these cars are long, and you can't even see the forward 3 feet or so of them.  When I park I'm still surprised how close I get sometimes to a curb.  Funny, when I park my wife's RAV4 Toyota, I think I get plenty close, but when I get out and look, I'm 5 feet out.

In the first month (April) after I bought my '17 Grand Sport, I crunched the front spoiler on a curb twice, and it even has a front camera. 

That was this year by the way.  Never was a problem with the '72.

Fortunately my C8 has a split screen front camera with one view looking straight down displaying the nose.  The front of the C8 is shorter than the C3 making it even harder to judge how close the nose is to the curb.

1973 L-82 4 spd

When I first bought my 73 in 93 it had spider cracks from someone hitting it. I ended replacing it a few years later and so far I have not hit anything. I find it hard to believe that.

One of the things I had to learn was how to park when you can’t see at least 2 feet of the front end because of the long nose. 

Never could figure why people pull up to far to the curbs even with the new cars. You always see the spoilers twisted up on the curbs

Brian - NCM Lifetime Member

73 coupe L48, Flat-top pistons, Performer RPM Heads, Crane Cam and roller rockers, Holley 650 vac sec. Performer intake,
3.55 gear BTO 200-4R trans,
Leather seats, Seatbelt Plus 3point seatbelts, Pioneer CD player
Magnaflow Exhuast System

Proof in the adage for most Corvettes...BACK IN WHEN PARKING! 😅

   

DanT

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have a hard time judging distance when backing in the C3.  I added a back-up camera which helps, but I'm still not that comfortable backing into a tight spot.

The first month of ownership in 1975  I smacked the front bumper in like fashion. Pulling in to a garage with cinder block walls and metal edge protectors, I hit the bumper along the edge - pushed it in frontwards and bent the end outwards. Too hard for the newbe to see the front. Ugly. I left it that way for a few years until someone slid into me head on ( not very fast though) in a snow storm. Then it got replaced 😄 Seems that's the way it goes with new stuff, all the damage happens the first month.....

Bruce
72 Coupe L48 4sp
Custom Blue/Silver/Pearl

(Click for a larger pic)

One advantage of buying a used car -- someone else has had the benefit of the first scratch. . .

Yup!

In parallel parking my '73 one morning, I got too close to the front car (Jeep, Element, ??) With a hitch on it. Made a perfect quarter-sized hole right in the very nose of the fake-urathane fiberglass bumper. Didn't feel/know it at the time either 'till I got home 🙃.

Steve