Hows it going everyone?  Im looking for advice on the best way to trace the history of my 1980 L82 Vette.  Ive owned the car for over 6yrs now, and I know a decent amount about its history, but I want to know more.

The car was bought and owned by my father, during which time it sat for about 1-2yrs before I bought it and began resto-modding it.  My father had bought it from a Boston police officer who had bought it at auction after it was recovered stolen.  As far as owners go that is as far back as my knowledge goes.

I was able to obtain the build sheet from the gas tank, but that was basically weathered beyond recognition.  I then came across the company that archives original copies of dealer invoices for GM, so I ordered one for $50.  That was a great piece of information, and I learned the following.... the car was built March 27, 1980, and shipped out on railcar March 28th, 1980 to Beacon Chevrolet in Lynn Ma where it was sold.

What I really want to know is what happened to it between being bought new and being recovered by BPD.  Who bought it new, how many owners there were etc.  Theres evidence that the front end had been hit and repaired at one point, so Id like to know more about that.  Also, the car had a 1971 motor and was painted from the original black to red at some point, again Id like to learn more about all of this.

Of course, being an 80, Im 1 @$%!%! year off from being able to use carfax!  The MA RMV wasnt to helpful either.  On top of all this the dealer it was bought from went out of buisiness in the early 90s.

I wanted to see if anybody knew of any other resources I could try.  Would the dealer records have been moved somewhere else when they went out of business?

Please, any information/advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks, Kevin

This came from Adams Apple on a previous post.  The DMV may be your only way.   At least you know the state it was sold in.

Not ALL earlier records are gone, or "destroyed" in a fire. While it is true that some info was lost, a lot is still there. It's just that GM isn't interested in having anyone look for it. NCRS has acquired some really neat info from GM recently, such as Dealer shipping info on cars back to the mid '70s, that tells at least where the car was originally delivered. In doing that, it also gave us info on dealer codes from the time period.
Finding the original owner take more than that info, tho. Some states will do a VIN check and you can find all of the previous owners names, at least. Most state that do this charge for it. A lot of states have stopped doing this due to the Patriot act, and giving out personal info...
It's a crap shoot, but sometimes, it just worth the effort.