The collector car market, in your inbox
Classic car news, hand-picked vehicles, and auction coverage. Choose what lands in your inbox.
Few Corvettes carry the mystique of the 1963 split-window coupe, and a black-on-black example with the right drivetrain is now drawing serious money on Hagerty Marketplace. The 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray offered by Gateway Classic Cars of Orlando has an L76 327 rated at 340 horsepower, a four-speed manual, and a high bid of $63,000 with nine days left. The auction ends Thursday, November 19, at 3:05 PM EST.
Bidding has been more of a duel than a crowd. According to the bid history on the listing, the first bids on November 6 climbed from $100 to $32,000 in a matter of hours, and from there two bidders traded blows through $50,000, $51,000, $60,000 and $61,000 up to the current $63,000. Nine bids total, no comments, and more than 4,000 views so far.
The Car
This Sting Ray left the St. Louis plant in the second week of December 1962 and, per the trim tag, was finished in Tuxedo Black (code 900A). It was ordered with the L76, the top carbureted 327 that year, paired with a four-speed. The original red vinyl interior (trim code 490C) has since been swapped for black, so today it is a black-over-black car. The listing shows 46,500 miles, noted as TMU, meaning true mileage unknown.
Factory-correct equipment on the sheet includes bucket seats, a sport instrument cluster, 15-inch wheels with spinner hubcaps and whitewalls, four-wheel drum brakes, and the independent rear suspension that made the second-generation car such a leap forward. The VIN, 30837S104279, decodes as a 1963 Corvette two-door coupe built in St. Louis.
Not everything is stock. The seller discloses aftermarket air conditioning, a Hurst shifter handle, and an aftermarket head unit and speakers. Known imperfections are listed as faded carpeting and older tires, and the full photo set runs to 104 images. The car comes on dealer consignment with manufacturer’s literature and a clean Florida title in the owner’s name. As with any listing, the information comes from the seller, and Hagerty reminds bidders to do their own due diligence on condition, fees and registration.
Why the Split-Window Still Matters
The split rear window lasted exactly one year. Designer Larry Shinoda and Bill Mitchell loved the look; Zora Arkus-Duntov hated how it blocked rear visibility, and the bar was gone for 1964. That single-year trait is the reason a 1963 coupe sits in a different price conversation than a 1964 car with the same mechanicals. Chevrolet built 21,513 Corvettes for 1963, and 10,594 of them were coupes, so there were never huge numbers to begin with.
The L76 adds its own appeal. At 340 horsepower with high compression and a four-barrel carburetor, it is the strong street engine short of the fuel-injected 360-horsepower option. Period testing found high-5-second 0–60 runs with the four-speed, and Road & Track was most impressed by the new independent rear end, writing that the Sting Ray “sticks.”
What the Hagerty Valuation Tools Say
For context on that $63,000 bid, Hagerty’s valuation tool for the 1963 Corvette currently shows a headline value of about $116,000, up 7.4%. That figure applies to the base 327/250-horsepower coupe, and the page does not break out the 340-horsepower L76 or the split-window design separately. Condition matters enormously here, too: the tool rates cars from #1 Concours to #4 Fair, and a modified, reupholstered, 46,500-mile TMU driver will not be priced like a numbers-matching show car.
Put plainly, a $63,000 high bid is well below that headline number, but the headline is for a different spec and a different condition level. Anyone seriously bidding should run the exact configuration through the Hagerty tool, check past sales for similar L76 cars, and keep in mind that this is a dealer consignment, so fees and reserve status are worth asking about. Hagerty’s tool also lists the rarer variants, such as the 1963 Z06 small-tank car, of which only 199 were built, if you want to see how far the ceiling climbs.
More Corvettes Worth a Look
If the split-window is on your radar, Motorious has covered a lot of Corvette territory lately. Motorious recently covered an ex–Pikes Peak 1962 fuel-injected Corvette. Want the opposite approach to a Sting Ray? A Hayes-built 1967 convertible pairs 540 horsepower of LS3 with classic Sting Ray styling. For a barn-find story, see the 1956 Corvette that sat in a New Jersey garage for more than 50 years, or jump forward to the C4 Corvette’s Doug Nash 4+3 gearbox.
The Bottom Line
With nine days left, this Corvette has plenty of time to climb. It is not an untouched survivor, and the aftermarket air conditioning, shifter and stereo, the color-changed interior and the TMU mileage will all factor into the final number. But it checks the boxes that matter to most buyers of this car: split-window body, L76 power, a four-speed, and a driver-quality presentation. You can view the full listing, photos and bid history on Hagerty Marketplace.
