Features Corvette hot rods - picture thread

Hoodlums!

 

Too bad the soundtrack sounded like a six cylinder.

 

That is ***s! Love It!

 

Thanks

 

There's a piece of TP stuck to the bottom of your sneaker.

 

All my Corvette buddies I found this while cleaning out my tool box. My two friends and their cars. From 1966

Pat

 

Today at Commerce Dragstrip.

 

Pretty cool Pat. Here is the one car in color, I believe. I believe at 3700 he was adding some ballast.

 

Jim that's one of my photo's. Ray owned that car and was still alive 4 years ago. The car probably a concours matching numbers now. He ran C/MP after his first year. Peter's car was awesome a 426 wedge w/cross ram manifold and torqueflite I was only 16 by this point but hanging out with these guys. Peter p***ed away around 76. I'm going to see if Ray is still above ground I found his address with that paper.

Pat

 

Pat thanks for the info. I can understand the whole stock NCRS mentality and actually made a living for awhile taking cars back to stock and enjoyed it. As everyone knows though there are many facets to our hobby and racing and performance was an important element in developing the Corvette. I do not spend any time at all at shows looking at stock Corvettes and would not want to own one (other than a few examples like a true performance model-like a big brake or tanker). Many of these old Corvettes sound no different than the family sedan when they p*** by at shows.

I find it really discouraging though to see cars that made their bones on the race track turned back into stock models. We all know what the stock models should look like but once the racecars are returned to stock their soul in a sense is gone. Sad but then again I am howling at the moon.

 

Jim, I hope you don't mind but I wanted to try and clean up this photo a bit. Also, I don't mind the
idea of restored Corvettes, there have to be excellent examples of the marque to be appreciated as
time goes on. What I don't like is the at***ude that goes along with some of these cars at gatherings.
That being said, obviously, modified 'vette owners have the same at***ude, maybe slightly worse. I
can see keeping a racecar a racecar if it is historic (which many could be considered as such) or if
it is a prime example. If it was rode hard and put away wet throughout its life and is left languishing
behind a barn, then by all means, sell it to someone who will gladly start its circle of life all over
again. Who knows, it might be brought back to the racetrack.

 

I posted a bunch of videos on YouTube. Some are not HAMB appropriate. My username on YouTube is enloe1966

 

I don't think your howling at the moon Jim & there are many others that will agree .

 

Very well said.

 

Quick 85, I appreciate your posts and pictures and realize we both have been p***ionate about these cars for some time but sometimes people see the world through different lenses (and filters).

Although I don’t want to get into a long dissertation on stock vs modified I would have to disagree with some elements of your statement. There are guys at both extremes that belong in ins***utions IMO but for the most part I believe the modified guys are a little more grounded in reality. I have been around stock zealots for eons and some are tolerable and some not so much. The modified guys that I have hung with have been reasonable-more reasonable than the stock guys IMO. Obviously you have different experiences I guess-can’t explain it or justify it or maybe even understand it.

There have been some great sports cars around the world in the same period as the early Corvette be it Ferrari or Mercedes but the Corvette was saddled with maybe a bit too much of Harley Earl when I would have preferred Zora Duntov from the git-go. Earl was big on do dads and gadgets so we have him to “thank” for silly hubcaps with pretend spinners when other sports cars needed a hammer for their “knockoffs”. Dunton was grinding camshafts when Earl was whittling trunk spears on the 58 (figuratively).

Some American youths though saw the potential in the car and modified them so they would fit their needs and it was this that helped grow the mystique of the Corvette. We all know what they should look like as they came on day one but some of us like what they became on day two, with “necessary modifications”.

I really like Corvettes but I also realize what they are. They are a production car that are cool but they made them in bunches. A 62 GTO Ferrari is a car I would not touch as I respect it as Enzo built it on day one-the same goes for a 300SL. I also would not touch a 62 Corvette big brake or tanker car as they were built for racing at GM and they were “perfect” on day one IMO (although I like them even more when they have a little war paint on them some time after day one). The balance of Corvettes may need a big of tweaking to make them a really “perfect” performance car that would hold its own on a twisting circuit or the ¼ mile. Others may feel they were perfect with a low hp 283 and wide whitewalls and that is their prerogative but I am not so sure that these low hp cars added to their “rep” on the track, but they did fit the mold of the vision of Harley Earl.

As the two examples as pointed out by Pat they were not historic in the truest sense but they influenced people like me to believe they really were a sports car that could hold its own against other compe***ors-in a sense they are historic but the term is always subject to interpretation. I for one would like to see cars like this preserved as race cars. They would tell me nothing as a stock car-nothing I have not seen over and over again. As race cars they would show others and remind me of how they earned “their bones” and history would be preserved for those that want to see examples of how they earned the reputation that they deserve today and should for some time to come. The supply of race cars is much more finite-the stock cars are plentiful. Guys in 50 years may have to dig up an old Corvette hot rod thread on the HAMB to see what they looked like on the race track-I hope not.

 

Speaking of stock Corvettes here are a few posted by Johnny Steele in the Junior Stock thread. Stock has more than one definition in a sense but the guys I ran with ran a 283/270hp 61 with a 5.13 gear and allowable cubic inch to 292, I believe. It was still some of the greatest racing and more than respectable by any standards. I remember we ran in F/S in 68 and Lombardo and Carmen Rotunda (and a few others) were duking it out in the mid to low 12s (as low as 12.30s). We were always a couple of tenths behind them but it still was exciting racing. Wish we could see more of these cars today. I imagine that some of these cars were not cannibalized and may carry lawn chairs to the local cars and coffee events these days.

 

Jim, still not a better looking wheel on an early Corvette than the Cragar.

 

Doug, I agree with you on that score. I could not afford them as a kid so I went with off brands but today I seem to be collecting Cragars. I have a buddy that hates them so it is a personal choice for sure.

I also have a set of Cragar Super tricks and they are ridiculously light and it makes me wonder why the junior stock guys in the early 70s did not make the switch sooner. The HAMB police squad are always vigilant to make sure that we do not post the super tricks so maybe there were more than I seem to remember on the junior stockers in the early to mid 70s. I kind of forget when they first came on the market.

 

I bought my first Cragars (S/S) when a jr. in high school in the early 70's for my 57 Belair, my second Cragar purchase was in 1976/77 (Super Trick), I think the Tricks came out about 1970/71.
As much as I love the early cars with the S/S wheel, when the S/T started showing up on the Pro Stock and Modified Production cars I really thought they were the coolest wheels on the planet, so of course I had to have them for my first real race car.

 

This Corvette was at the NSRA Nats North event this past weekend in Burlington VT.

 

Nice looking Vette. Can't tell what the wheels are, are they just polished Americans?

 

Just polished Americans!

Pat

 

Thanks, that's what I thought. The centers looked funny, just the picture I guess.

 

I'm with the Torque-Thrust crowd.......

 

Just getting the bugs out of this old drag car brought back to life.

 

Very nice. Looks great. Mechanical or electronic injection ?

 

Enderle running off a FAST ECU. Step by step process but I will not be deterred. Makes your eyes water and not tears of joy. Good idle and WOT but still a little a little spooky in between. Looks good though.

 

Hollywood, are you bringing the car to the Dover Nostalgia Drags at Lebanon Valley this weekend?

Pat

 

Hollywood41-very nice car-injection sure is eye candy even though it may affect your eyes otherwise. Feel free to fill us in on any of the details be it history and/or build. Bet it is still a blast to drive.

 

Hayseed ??



From Bangkok Dean