The reason ‘70s porn star entourages never caught on was because C3 Corvettes only seat two. However, today's Corvette America custom 4-door could be how the whole gang-bang rolls.

Pretty much nobody wanted to roll in yesterday's , as an overwhelming 82% of you found it to be little more than a Prelude to the Pipe. Still, while deemed asstastically priced, at least its professionally undertaken convertible conversion made it more interesting than the average bear. Let's see if today's also customized contender fares any better.

Wordsworth's poem, The Prelude, was intended as prologue to his work, The Recluse. In contrast,…

For decades the Corvette has assumed the crown as America's sports car. America, however, is a big-ass place, and, from sea to shining sea, it's plum full of purple mountains majesty, alabaster cities gleaming, and a whole bunch of fruited plains. If it's your intention to see all that on a road trip, plus the amber waves of grain, there are worse ways to go than in a Vette, and as our great nation is so freakin' huge, you might want to bring along some friends to help with the driving. With this , you can bring three.

California Custom Coach made a name for itself building Auburn Speedster replicas back in the ‘70s. The company was founded by Cecil Gold and Ray Oja in 1976, and they located their showroom in an ornate former Packard dealership on Pasadena's famed Rose Parade route. Annually, parade goers would have been able to marvel at the gleaming sidepipes and tapered boattail bodies of the massive two-seat Speedsters on the showroom's checkerboard floor. And in 1979, the parade's panoply of floral fascinations had to compete for attention with CCC's latest marvelous creation – the 4-door Corvette America.

While extending the C3 Corvette's coke bottle shape to the extreme, it's surprising how natural the America's transition to sedan appears. The only thing that's really questionable here is the heaviness of the B-pillar and what to do with the four T-tops once they're removed. That's right, all four of the high-backed buckets gets its own hard roof section for all your spacious skies viewing pleasure. The number of ‘Vette Americas built by CCC varies somewhere between five and ten, and whatever the number, there's only a handful left today. As I recall, Leno used to own one, and he may still, but I never see him driving it if he does.

This one, built in 1980, and one of the last, is claimed to have fewer than 20,000 miles under it, and to have been kept in a really long garage when it was not out amazing small children and taking up two parking spaces. I happened to run into this car at the Concorso Italiano the year before last, and as you can see from the snap below, this ‘Vette is all about the length, and not the roundth.

Under its non-elongated hood, the seller claims there is a 350 cubic inch engine, making this not originally a California car. For 1980, the Golden State ‘Vettes were relegated to only the wheezy 305 V8, while everybody else got golden showered with 350s. Those remaining 48 states got the L-42 350 base, which put out 190-bhp that year, while checking the L-82 option box garnered an additional 40 ponies. Whatever checkbox this one had filled, you can bet that the Corvette America lacks the cornering prowess of its 2-door progenitors, and while its weight is undisclosed, it's pretty likely that this America shares the rest of America's private shame which is obesity. Go away, pain.

Regardless, this is more a conversation piece, as well as a minor epoch of Corvette history. You naturally wouldn't be taking it to the Gymkhana, but who wouldn't want to roll up to Prom in it, and, if you're a porn star, you can finally have that entourage you've always dreamed about.

That dream might soon turn into a nightmare however once you discover that this Corvette America comes with an asking price of more than $300,000. Now, that's just the starting bid for this car on eBay, and while we don't normally consider open-ended auctions like this one, this is at least the second listing for the car at that price, so you can be pretty safe in assuming that the first 300 grand will take it.

So what do you think, is three hundred thousand for this 4-door Corvette a price that makes you proud to be an American? Or, does that price suck from sea to shining sea?

You decide!

or go if the ad disappears. H/T to west-coaster for the hookup!

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