$150K for an ’81 Corvette? Twice?

So you’re thinking: What’s the most worthless least expensive old Corvette I could possibly overpay for purchase at a premium price right now?

I would’ve bet my Soloflex and my Flock of Seagulls Greatest Hits album (there’s one song on it) that it was the 1981 vintage. But as it turns out, popular pricing guides reserve this particular badge of shame for the early C-4 Corvettes with their standard lower back trauma suspension package and more rattles than a well-stocked BabiesRUs.

Still, when it comes to resale, the ’81 Corvette is no Z06 Big Tank with Zora Duntov’s fingerprints still on the shift knob. So why did this pair of ’81 ‘Vettes clear almost $300,000 at Barrett-Jackson Las Vegas?

Well, it was for charity, and a good one at that: The Ralph Braun Foundation, which offers grants to people and organizations in need of a wheelchair van, who couldn’t otherwise afford one.

The ’81 Corvettes sold at Vegas which happen to be the last one built in St. Louis and the first one built in Bowling Green (production switched in June of that year), will be put up for auction again in Scottsdale, according to the winning bidder, and the money earned there will also go to benefit the foundation.