Possible Baldwin Car?

[71LS5]

Hey guys,

Wonder if there is anyone out there that could help me out on this one.

I have a buddy here in Northwest Arkansas that bought the shell of a '68 427 4-spd Corvette that he thought might be a Baldwin car. I know that Joel may be the only one to verify for sure but he was hoping that he could get confirmation that it was or wasn't before proceding to ask Joel to follow up.

The VIN on the car is: 194378S423987
Trim STD K29
Paint 983

The old car is registering 70,374 miles on her. It appears to have the Phase III type headlights/front end on it.

Wonder if anyone would know if this is a Baldwin car or not? Is there a specific site or publication that would have the particular VIN's of the Baldwin cars that were built? I posted this a couple of months ago but didn't get any response. Not sure if that was telling me to forget it or I needed to have them pursue it with Joel.

[dinograz]

I believe Joel Rosen is the only person that has the #'s to definitely say whether a car is a Baldwin Motion car or not. He offers this service and it will cost @ $1,000 for it...

[Mr4speed]

I would do a title search and talk to past owners. This is cheaper and more reliable than Rosen,since he would document a wheel barrow as being a motion for a 1000.00, However on the otherhand you are guarenteed a to get a positive on the car for a grand and you can then get twice what you paid for it from one of the "experts" (read) dummies with more money than brains on this site.


[Edited by Mr4speed (12-01-2000 at 08:03 PM).]

[69motion]

mr 4 speed whats up with your attitude if you dont like the site leave as far as joel is concerned i think that was harsh

[sixtiesmuscle]

Dear Mr. 4speed, didn't we go thru this idiotic tirade of your's once before? What evidence do you have, not opinions or hearsay, that ANY of what you say is true.

[Belair62]

Sounds interesting . Though there were many aftermarket front ends for Corvettes it's worth a shot. Start with the title search and see what that turns up.......

[rbernat]

there are many avenues you could take to at least get an idea on the lineage of your car.
tracking previous owners,an ncib/ncic search thru your local police dept.also contacting the state of ny dmv.for a fee they will tell you if the car originally came out of new york.you can access their site on the web.any one of these ways can save you the big money initially. good luck

[JoeC]

Mr4speed - If Joel charges a fee to research a car and he keeps the fee whether the car is a real Motion car or not, then why would he say it is a real car if he did not think it is a real Motion car? He keeps the fee either way. If he wanted to be dishonest he can make a much larger profit by buying a parts car and declaring it a real Motion car and selling it on his own.

[whitetop]

Hello 71LS5

Quite a few of the Chevy Action, Chevy Power etc magazines from the '70's have Corvette street machines featured with front ends like the Motion cars, but were not Motion cars. One car that I remember was built by the owner and had the front end you are refering too + had Motion type stripes over the back half of the car. There were 2-3 different companies producing this type of front end. One of them was called Custom Enterprises out of Upper Babylon N.Y.. Their ads had 2-3 cars in them, all Corvettes, with Motion type glass and piant layouts.
whitetop

[JoeC]

71LS5 - Do you have pictures of this car? From what I have read in the old magazines, Motion used the stock front fiberglass and headlights on his 1968 Corvettes. The two exposed headlight design was not used until late in 1969.

[71LS5]

Thanks for the leads, guys.

I suppose that Joel must get so many requests to do research on these cars that may or may not be Baldwin cars that he feels like he needs to charge a fee.

I was just hoping that there could be a verification that it was prior to pursuing with Joel. My buds are not opposed to paying whatever Joel wants for the documentation if it is truly a Baldwin car. Seems kind of harsh for someone to tell you no and charge $1K. There were only about 500 total cars made anyway, wasn't there? I was just hoping that there was a list of VINs documented for these cars somewhere in internet land or in a library.

This summer I footed 1500 dollars plus expenses to document a motion 1969 corvette, only to find out I was looking at a clone. I think the excitement of seeing a car with stripes and some decals overrides your sense of judgement. This particular car had sat in a garage since 1980 and had never moved.It didnt seem possible that someone could have cloned a car pre 1980, WHY? It also appeared to have original paint and hood, etc. etc. etc. The stories always seem the same. I know its real, I just know it! Joel told me that the SELLER is responsible for the verification, not the buyer.He is absolutely 100% right. If they know enough to say it is a motion car, then they are aware of the documenting process, and you would have to be a fool to not pay the 1500 dollars to triple the value of your car if you already know that it is one.I just walked away from another "motion" deal in CA. A person bought a so called motion nova in 1985 from a man in NJ. No documentation again. Looked good, but after I talked to the guy several times, he became skeptical and now thinks that the hood was added later, and that it might not be a motion car, just some lookalike parts. I wasnt so excited this time to open my wallet.

[Bob Jenkins]

here is a link for a Baldwin Motion Corvette for sale, nice pic of front end, etc:


http://www.corvetteforum.com/photoads/cgi-bin/view.cgi?action=photo&AdNum=4100

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

Mr4speed;
RELAX!

'YENKO's story completely discredits your theory about Joel documenting wheelbarrows. As you can see from the photos that YENKO took below, Joel had the perfect opportunity to document a pretty correct looking, unknown car - but came back with a negative answer. JoeC is right, Joel gets his money upfront - regardless of the answer. Joel may be difficult to deal with, but believe me, after many years of putting up with 'tire kickers' and 'cloners' the patience has to run thin.

Enjoy!!
Marlin

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=378134&a=2796934&p=34713616&Sequence=0&res=high

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=378134&a=2796934&p=34713613&Sequence=0&res=high

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=378134&a=2796934&p=34713612&Sequence=0&res=high

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=378134&a=2796934&p=34713615&Sequence=0&res=high

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=378134&a=2796934&p=34713614&Sequence=0&res=high

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

This Chevy Action magazine has a lot of Motion, and similarly modified, cars in it. It's a January '75 edition.
M

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=378134&a=2796934&p=31435030&Sequence=0&res=high

[JoeC]

One of the things making the Motion cars tricky to identify is that the fiberglass parts were sold separatly by Motion. There is a Corvette hood on ebay now. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/aw-cgi/ebayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=513895343&r=0&t=0