1963 Classic Cars for Sale
Corvette Sting Ray debuts, Studebaker builds the Avanti, and Pontiac's 421 Super Duty nearly wins Le Mans
Nineteen sixty-three gave American car culture the Corvette Sting Ray, a shape so right that it influenced sports car design for the next decade. Bill Mitchell and Larry Shinoda created a body that worked equally well as a coupe or convertible, and for the first time since 1955 the Corvette had a roof option. The coupe came with a unique split rear window that Zora Arkus-Duntov opposed on visibility grounds. He won that argument for 1964, which makes the 1963 split-window one of the most identifiable single-year Corvette variants ever built.
Studebaker was fighting for survival and produced the Avanti as a Hail Mary. Raymond Loewy's design team delivered something genuinely unlike anything else on American roads, a fiberglass body without a traditional grille, supercharged Studebaker R3 engine available as an option, and disc brakes on a production American car before almost anyone else offered them. Andy Granatelli set 29 speed records at Bonneville in an Avanti in 1963. The car was brilliant. Studebaker's finances were not.
Pontiac's Super Duty 421 program produced race-ready Catalinas and Tempests that dominated NHRA Super Stock. The factory pulled the program mid-year under pressure from the AMA racing ban, making documented late-production Super Duty cars especially rare. Roughly 88 Super Duty cars were built before Pontiac shut it down.
- The 1963 Corvette Sting Ray split rear window coupe was produced for one year only, with 10,594 coupes built alongside 10,919 convertibles, and the distinctive divided backlight was eliminated for 1964 after engineering objections.
- Studebaker Avanti became one of the first American production cars to offer four-wheel disc brakes as a factory option, years before most domestic manufacturers considered the technology viable for passenger cars.
- Pontiac built an estimated 88 Super Duty 421 cars before General Motors enforced the AMA racing ban in early 1963, making these the last factory-built Pontiac race cars for several years.
Showing 23 listings
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1963 Ford F-150
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1963 Chevrolet C20
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1963 Chevrolet C/K Series
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1963 Chevrolet C/K Series
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1963 Chevrolet C30
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1963 Chevrolet C10
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1963 Chevrolet K10
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1963 Chevrolet C10
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1963 Chevrolet C10
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1963 Chevrolet C/K Series
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1963 Dodge D100
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1963 Chevrolet C10
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1963 Dodge D100
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1963 GMC Suburban
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1963 Chevrolet C10
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1963 Chevrolet C10
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1963 Chevrolet C/K Series
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1963 Ford F-100
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1963 Ford F-100
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1963 Ford F-100
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1963 International Harvester A-Series
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1963 Chevrolet C/K Series
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1963 Chevrolet C30
Market: A 1963 Corvette split-window coupe in strong documented condition regularly brings $70,000 to $110,000 at auction, with fuel-injected cars pushing toward the top and over it. Studebaker Avanti prices have settled in the $20,000 to $45,000 range for clean drivers, though R3-equipped cars with documented Bonneville history trade higher. Pontiac Super Duty 421 cars are six-figure machines when authenticated.
Buyer's note: On 1963 Corvette split-window coupes, verify the body tag data plate is present and matching, and have an experienced appraiser check for evidence of rear window modification, as some owners removed the divider bar in period and the alteration is sometimes difficult to detect without close inspection.