History Heavily modified 1954 Corvette

Like a car with bright lime green or purple paint, you better LOVE IT because you have to look at it EVERY TIME you get in and out of it!

 

Its got a non stock dual master cylinder and also what appears to be a added hydraulic clutch master cylinder on a car that would have had mechanical linkage.

Has the tach drive generator missing the tach drive .

Loose the wing and front air dam redo the bumpers back to chrome .
Add some wide magnesium 5 spokes .
Satin black paint and 600 hp and drive the hell out of like a hot rod should be ( after it gets real brakes)
I'd go for a road race sports car look .

If its not previously wrecked I bet the wing would cut off leaving the rear quarters under it .
Kind of stuck with the flares but anything is fixable to a point especially with fiberglass.

 

If that was a significant show car with history, someone here would have identified it by now.
Cut the ugly off and make it respectable.

 

I think it is a factory experimental

 

As radical as it is, I'd imagine it's been featured in a magazine at some point.

Weird.

I'd drive it, just to piss off purists.

 

I agree to a point, but for me that point is "vintage race cars" or vintage customs. Nothing about that wing says vintage to me. And it's more like someone saw a Mopar Super Bird, or modern wing on an import car and wanted to stick it on his Corvette.

 

If it walks like an (ugly) duck and quacks like an (ugly) duck then ITS AN UGLY DUCK!

 

Which factory?

Jon

 

that poor thing has had a rough life! Look at the fender to inner fender glass work. Check out the clutch cyl mount. That car would make a great race car or even better yet a bad ass hot rod. Think 409, nailhead, hemi, bbc etc. Put the body back to sorta/kinda stock-ish or even tasteful mild custom.

 

I'm guessing early 70's build.

I'm wondering if the car was completely one solid color or one solid color with chrome accents, then Bubba got hold of it and said "hey it needs some gold accents!" And went to painting things gold or the chrome started pitting and rusting and Bubba grabbed an old can of paint he had sitting on the shelf which happened to be gold and said "yep that works!"

The stupid spider and web looks like an added later after thought to me. Maybe when Bubba sold it to Bubba Jr. Bubba Jr. had to add the spider to the roof to match the one on his left hand that he had done in prison...


....

 

And amidst all the bashing of the car it IS still a 54 Corvette. And DOES still have some decent parts. And I bet what's left of the original fiberglass under all the add ons is likely solid even if it needs work. So definitely a car worth fixing

 

Do you own a Sawsall? not too expensive to buy one

 

I don't think anyone is bagging the car........ just all the shit that's hanging off it.

 

Few guys in there came a bit close though lol. Even with the bizarre stuff on it it's a Corvette still worth more than I can afford lol

 

Just a wild guess here: I think the builder might have been inspired by the Batmobile in the 80s Batman movies and then converted to the spider theme sometime after the big Sam Raimi Spider Man movie was made (2002) ... this definitely looks like a comic book guy's idea of a cool car.

As far as history - I think others are correct... if this had any significant story attached, someone on the HAMB would have recognized it... I mean, it's a 1954 Corvette, so people would have paid attention even if they didn't like it.

If it was me, I'd want to knock most of the growths off and build a late fifties mild custom out of it.

 

^That's an interesting take on the situation^. Sounds plausible.
So does Willy Wonka's factory.. I don't hate it. but the painted, what, Keystones are tough to look at.

 

Interesting find for sure. One thought if it were me is since it's already heavily modified the guilt not to keep it bone stock would be mostly gone, leaving potential to do with it what you want. You must have had some thoughts about it being you bought it so enjoy at your will!!

 

SPIDER MAN HERE. HAS ANYONE SEEN MY CAR?

 

^^^^^ Manx, Vette, it’s all fiberglass.

 

As it sits this car does absolutely nothing for me (well maybe my gag reflex, lol), but the fact that it is what it is and the opportunity to re-make a '54 Vette into something cool gives me chills
Tim

 

To me based on the paint the wheels and the Accel coil I am going to make an educated guess that this is a mid 70s to late 70s maybe early 80s style build.
The chin spoiler, rear spoiler "wing", and fender flares are very much in line with the vans were doing in that era.

As hard as is to believe 1980 was 45 years ago!

Last summer my aunt said something about 1994 being thirty years ago instinctively I started to say check your math than I realized 1994 was thirty years ago!
Although that was not as big a shock to my system as hearing Y2K was 25 years ago, I was 18 and a senior in high school.

Personally, I despise the both the Eliminator coupe and CaddZZilla nor do I think of them as vintage, but the Eliminator was built 42 years ago and CaddZZilla debuted 36.

1983 and 1989 are not that long ago in the grand scheme of things.
However, in the hot rod world it's an eternity, and both represent a time in history and introduced many people to hot rods particularly Eliminator.

We are getting to a point where there are fewer and fewer built in period cars, even many of the hot rods of the golden era have been restored (over restored) they are no longer what they were and many of the most famous cars have become caricature of themselves.

 

We're closer in age than I thought. I turned 16 in 2000


As for the eliminator......one of the few boydalism rods I'm ok with. Of course I'm a die hard zztop fan

 

So we could reasonably assume that drugs may have been involved...

 

Very possible!

At the risk of taking this thread down the rabbit hole, I hear people talk about historical significance when it come to a hot rod/racecar. Historical significance is somewhat relative.

There are two cars that come to mind.

The first is the Golden Gaser, this car is a local legend!

N.H.R.A. record holder and 1968 N.H.R.A. Summer National Englishtown NJ winner, I have always heard my father and the guys his ago speak of the car, there were people looking for it, others claimed they knew where it was.

About ten years ago it was found and was being restored, now outside of the Capital Region of NY (The greater Albany area) or western Massachusetts doesn't hold much significance.



As found roughly 10 years ago it was being restored to its former glory




The second car has a huge amount of historical significance because of the people and the one race win it has.

That car is Mario Andretti 1967 Daytona 500 wining car, Mario ran 6 races in 1967 and after that the car went back to Holman Moody...


...where it was reskinned as a 1971 Mercury and became Darrell Waltrip's rookie car...



...I don't know if Darrell owned the car the whole time or he found it either way he had it restored to his rookie car.

Which begs the question which way is it has more significance?

As the a car that was only driven a hand full of times by arguably the greatest racecar driver ever to his only Grand National win at the Daytona 500 or as the rookie car of a 84-time race winner, a three-time Winston Cup Champion and NASCAR Hall of Famer?

Arguments could be made for both.

The Mario Andretti 1967 Daytona 500 in the NASCAR Hall of Fame is a clone.

 

I'm thinking 70's and agree that drugs likely played a part in the build.

I like the idea of getting it running and taking it to a Corvette show before firing up the sawzall and removing some of the more egregious mods.

 

Well, it just made it's debut here..... The "this is just wrong" thread
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...st-wrong-thread.1317626/page-37#post-15467748
Page 37, post #1105.

 

you're welcome

 

If you surgically removed that chin scoop atrocity and chromed the grill teeth that would be a real nice front end. Shit i could have thing looking decent in an hour. The wing would come off( mostly) in a few minutes. I think the flared rear fenders would have to go. The hood might even work. I suspect the grill may have been from earlier work. I’d love to see the dash/interior

 

Corvettes need modifications to fix the ugly

 

I can't say drugs were involved but I bet Timothy Leary would approve.