A great thread that is hard to resist. For those that may wonder how the history of these cars can escape some of the prior owners, there are other stories out there that show it was not just this one Corvette. I include a picture of two of the most famous solid axle Corvette road cars. The front car is the Gulf Oil 62 that raced in 14 SCCA events in 62 and won 12 of them. The second car is the 1960 Corvette that won at Lemans. Chip Miller who owned the winning 60 car, became aware of the VIN and tracked it down and (if my memory serves me) he found it restored to a driver status in St Louis I believe. I think it was red with white coves and Chip paid fair value for a standard 60 but did not inform the owner of it’s prior history. He then restored it to the Lemans livery. In the 80s Mike Ernst who was the 1962 Corvette guru at the time, called me at my shop in San Marcos California and asked if he could come out and look at the numbers on my side windows in my 62 Corvette since it was the earliest 62 he knew of (#12). I thought it sounded crazy but said sure. He came out and we ended up friends. I had some big brake racing parts I got with another 62 and he was really interested in them and told me he owned the Gulf Oil 62. He lived in El Cajon at the time and I went to his house and we did some horse trading. Seeing the car all restored was pretty magical to me. I am not overly sentimental with whether cars have a soul but I asked if I could sit in the car while he dug up some parts and I looked over the gauge cluster and through the front widnshield and imagined all the sights the drivers experienced. I still remember it was special to me as a Corvette fan. I asked Mike how he found it and he told me a college student was driving the car as his daily driver in Minnesota or Wisconsin (mike was originally from Wisconsin and lives there now) and when Mike saw that it had the big brake option and a 37 gallon tank he wanted the car. During restoration he found it was the Gulf Oil 62. I could never imagine not restoring these cars to as raced condition. The history is too important IMO. A few years ago I had the chance to meet Bones Balogh at the Meltdown and I asked him if he had any paperwork on his J & J Muffler Corvette that he won at the U.S. Nationals in 1962. He said no and said they were just old cars when they bought them and old cars when they sold them. No one gave a second thought to the VIN numbers. Guys like Kevin McKay who was involved in documenting the car that is the subject of this thread is pretty knowledgeable. I would venture a guess if he said this was the car he is most likely correct. By the way here is a picture of the number 3 car that ended up winning at Lemans when it carried the #1 livery at Sebring. It appears they had a bit of work to do in getting it ready for its chance at immortality at Lemans.
I understand Kevin is restoring the car but it took kind of a circuitous route to end up there. Lawsuits and co-owners and all sorts of stuff that make up a sordid story. I agree that the car will take a bit of work and like the old tale of George Washington's axe it will make a few people raise their eyebrows. Funny thing about George Washington, when we visited his famous homestead my wife wanted a small tree from his apple orchard. We planted it in our side yard and I snickered every time I cut around it. Ugly as hell until it finally gave up the ghost.
My contribution: if anyone gets this bodywork and decides to clone this version of the car, those are '61 Polara wheel covers.
I love the story for a few reasons, The main one being that I am a huge fan of Zora Arkus-Duntov and anything that he took part in. He was not only the creator of the Ardun Flatheads but He is the reason for the much loved 327 and the Famous DZ 302 Z28 engine. I read most of the comments on this thread and there seems to have been some doubt of this being legit do to this car Flying under the radar for so long. That is not Uncommon at all. For example I was in a huge building just last week that was full of what most of us consider "The Holy Grails" of Hot rods, Just to mention a few I am talking about 32's 34 3 window Coupes a 40 ford convertible and a ton of hard to find parts. And almost all of it had been in there for the last 42 years. Nothing has been forsale nor is it forsale. It is the guy who owns the stuffs personal indoor salvage yard. He did sell me a complete 34 3 window roof that had been cut off a car sometime in the 70's but I am sworn to secrecy about the location of the building due to him not wanting a bunch of people bothering him about selling his stuff. To sum it up, There is alot of stuff out there that has been stored away and people just don't know about.
Jim Dillon, in keeping with the race car story, Chip found the Purple People Eater too. It was just an cheap old straight axle he and his buddy bought to autocross when they realized the roll bar looked familiar. Race cars need to be maintained as race cars.
Doug, always liked the Purple People Eater. Saw it up close one time and I became an instant fan. I agree that race cars need to be maintained as racecars but we know that is not the case in some instances. As you know I have been into these cars for over 50 years and have run into restorers that told me the car they were restoring had some drag racing history. Every time I have asked them if they ever tried to track down the history they could have cared less. I used to see a mint green 62 prostreet car at local car shows and was not really a big fan of the look. I was really disappointed when I found out it was Chester Houghtaling's old modified production drag car from the 70s. Lots of examples like that I am afraid. Glad we have a few that have been left as drag cars. The road cars seem to hold a higher reverence in the hobby.
Four Corvettes raced at Lemans in 1960. Number 1. 2. And 3 were Cunningham entries And number 4 was a Camoradi entry. #3 was the only successful entry. ’
There's a lot of interesting finds out there; never know what might turn up. I remember an editorial in Hot Rod Magazine some years ago (Pat Ganahl, I think) who bought a '67 Camaro for his daughter. It had a two barrel carb V8 and Powerglide. It turned out to be a real Z/28.
The Jalopy Journal
