Month: June 2013

If Steve McCain was a fisherman, he’d have quite a few tales to tell about the big ones that got away – as well as the big ones he did manage to reel in. Fortunately for Corvette enthusiasts, McCain’s tales aren’t fishing-related – instead they have to do with some of the very first Corvettes ever made.

You see, McCain fell in love with Corvettes as a youngster and bought his first one – a 1965 model – while he was still going to high school in the 1970s.

One of the rewards back then was that all Corvette owners received a subscription to Corvette News, where McCain just happened to see a feature seeking the oldest 1953 in existence.

“I thought the car looked really neat and decided I wanted one,” he said.

That was the beginning of his life-long love affair with first-generation Corvettes.

In fact, he’s owned plenty of them ever since, including a 1953, four 1954s, and a very special 1955.

He found the ’55 in Lexington, N.C., more than 30 years ago, buying a very rough example from the owner of The Corvette Center for just $500.

After he and a friend, Larry Melvin, found the serial number, they discovered they were looking at the very first 1955 model ever made!

“I had always heard that Smokey Yunick got the first five Corvettes off the assembly line, but I guess not,” McCain said.

It took him four years to restore the ’55 and he eventually sold it in 1976 to a collector who also had the first ’56 and ’57 models. What a trio that made!

McCain had another chance to buy another unusual 1955 model a couple of years after he found serial No. 1. It turned out to have been built by Zora Arkus-Duntov, who had exercised it at the GM test track in Arizona.

Unfortunately, by the time he saw it, the Corvette was “in pretty sad shape,” McCain recalls. “It had a big headrest that was molded into the rear trunk, holes in the frame, and holes where a small windscreen had been mounted. But it was a thousand dollars, and I just thought it was a botched up car, and I didn’t want another ’55, so I didn’t buy it.”

McCain bought a 1954 in the late 1980s and used it as a parts car for a custom ’53. Then he turned around and used the leftovers from the ’54 to make another hot rod with a late model LT-1 engine and a 700H automatic transmission.

The Bowling Green factory is proud of its environmentally friendly operation these days. But McCain is proof that Corvettes have always been good for the environment. You might say Corvettes never die; they’re just recycled.

The original story of the find and rescue of the #001 1955 Corvette comes from Tom Cotter’s bookThe Hemi in the Barn.

Source:
Barnfinds.com

Related:
Mecum Offering Collection of Three Serial #1 C1 Corvettes at Bloomington Gold High Auction
1953 Corvette VIN #005 Sells for $445,500 at RM’s Scottsdale Auction
[VIDEO] 1965 Corvette VIN 00001 Sells at Mecum’s Indy Auction

 

Here’s another way for Corvette lovers to celebrate our favorite mark’s 60th birthday. Corvettes in the D will be taking place this Sunday, June 30th at GM’s world headquarters in Detroit. The event is being coordinated by Larry Courtney who also organizes the annual Corvettes on Woodward food drive each year in August. Click past the jump for all the dirty details on Corvette’s 60th birthday party in Motown.

This first year event will kick off by celebrating 60 years of Corvettes. Several events will make up the event including a caravan of cars making the trek from Corvette’s birthplace, Flint, southward to downtown Detroit and GM’s world headquarters at the Renaissance Center. There kids of all ages will be able to hang out with the Detroit Tigers’ mascot Paws while perusing the Corvettes in attendance. In addition, General Motors will be conducting a ride and drive so you can get behind the wheel of some there latest offerings.

And, of course, you’ll be able to check out the new 2014 Corvette Stingray as well. Just make your way over to the Ren Cen where the general will have one display. And, no it’s not one of the cars available in the ride and drive. Maybe next time…

Corvettes in the D takes place this Sunday, June 30th from 10am to 4pm. Cost for this event is a modest $10 donation per car. Any funds leftover after expenses will be donated to the National Corvette Museum’s Motorsports Park.

For more information on the Corvettes in the D event, you can check out 60thcorvettebirthdaybashdetroit.com or contact organizer Larry Courtney directly at Michcaravan2014@aol.com. You can also follow the event thread on the CorvetteForum.

Source:
Corvettes in the D

Related:
Back to the Bricks / Corvette Reunion
[PICS] The Corvettes of the 2012 Woodward Dream Cruise
[PICS] 2012 Corvettes on Woodward Food Drive

 

It’s the last full weekend in June which means one thing to Corvette enthusiasts – It’s Bloomington Gold weekend. That also means it’s time for the annual Mecum auction at Bloomington Gold. At last check there were just over 100 Corvettes consigned for this weekend’s sale in Champaign, Illinois. Mecum Bloomington Gold will take place this Saturday, June 29th on the Assembly Hall grounds on the University of Illinois campus as part of the Bloomington Gold Corvette show.

The Bloomington all-Corvette sale offers cars from the 1954 through 2010 model years. The breakdown by year looks like this: 15 C1’s, 34 C2’s, 31 C3’s, 12 C4’s, 4 C5’s, and 6 C6’s. Some of our favorite Corvettes rolling across the red carpet this weekend include the entombed 1954, a mean 1963 Drag Car, a green/saddle 1965 fuelie, and a Daytona Yellow 427/435 1969 convertible.

Some other significant offerings are a 1969 L89 coupe as well as 1967 VIN 007 which is being offered as a pair with an unrestored 1967 327/350 A/C coupe. There’s also Gus Grissom’s 1967 427/435 convertible.

It’s hard to pick our top 3 (or 4) Corvettes when we want to buy essentially all of the available cars this weekend, but here are a few more worthy of a closer look.

Lot S76 – 1957 Silver/Red 283/245 Convertible:
This stunning C1 is 1 of 65 Inca Silver Corvettes produced in 1957. In addition to the red interior it features a 283/245hp dual quad engine, 4-speed transmission, and a 3.55 rear gear. Other options include a heater, Wonderbar radio, emergency brake warning light, and the Y-50 mirror. A 3 ring binder full of documentation from the previous owner of 37 years is included in the sale.

Lot S50 – 1967 427/390 COPO Convertible:

Here’s a color combo you don’t see every day: Elkhart Blue paint with a Goodwood Green stinger and green interior. The NCRS Top Flight winner is documented with the tank sticker, an original journal from selling dealer (Smith Brothers of Hammond, IN) and owner history. The drivetrain consists of the L36 427/390hp engine attached to a M21 4-speed transmission with a 3.36 rear end. Other options include bolt-on wheels wrapped in Coker redline tires, AM/FM radio, and tinted glass.

Lot S87 – 1967 Yellow / Black 427/435 Convertible:
This NCRS Top Flight 1967 roadster was built March 29, 1967 and sold new by Clements Chevrolet in Rochester, MN. Power comes courtesy of the matching number 427/435 Tri-Power engine which is backed by a M21 4-speed manual transmission. Other options on the car include F41 suspension, hardtop, off-road exhaust, rally wheels with redline tires, AM/FM radio, and tinted glass.

Lot S84 – 1984 Coupe with Tri Coat Paint:

We don’t often feature 1984 Corvettes in our auction previews, but this one is truly unique. It’s 1 of 2 cars that we used to help develop tri-coat paint technology. The special hue, called Tri-Celeste, is documented with a 3 page plant trial report and R-M paint repair source contact. The build sheet also shows a hand written note for the special paint. The window sticker and copy of the original title go along with the sale.

Mecum’s Bloomington Gold auction begins at 12 noon central time on Saturday June 29th. There is no TV coverage, but you can catch all the action live via webcast on Mecum’s website. Stay tuned here for a full wrap up of the auction as well as the entire Bloomington Gold show coming next week.

Source:
Mecum Auctions

Related:
Entombed 1954 Corvette to be Auctioned at Mecum Kissimmee
Gus Grissom’s 1967 427 Corvette Sells at Russo & Steele
Gus Grissom’s 1967 Corvette Listed on eBay

 

Sometimes just getting to a car show can be more difficult than winning.

Take, for example, this case of a truck carrying four Corvettes to the Bloomington Gold show in Champaign, Illinois.

The truck got stuck in a viaduct on Springfield Avenue in Champaign, forcing the road to be closed for several hours on Monday.

We don’t know many details about the accident, but we’ve been told that the cars apparently belong to Ed Foss, the “Low Mileage Corvette King from Indiana,” who was bringing them to Bloomington Gold.
News reports say that one of the Corvettes was damaged, though we don’t know how badly.

Let’s hope it was nothing serious because if you remember, Mr. Foss has made a habit of buying only the lowest-mileage collector Corvettes – ever since as a novice buyer in 1997, he paid about $20,000 too much for his first ’Vette.

Check out this video by Michael Brown of vettecollections.com for more details on the Foss collection, which includes some of the lowest mileage Corvette models known to exist.

Source:
News-Gazette.com

Related:
[PIC] C5 Corvette Goes Up in Flames in South Beach
[ACCIDENT] Mans Buys a C5 Corvette, Crashes into Power Line Pole
[ACCIDENT] C6 Corvette Struck by Train in Washington

 

Most Corvette enthusiasts were in love in 1968 with the all new third generation Corvette, which wore a completely new body style based on Larry ShinodaÂ’s Mako Shark II concept car. One of the new design features which created considerable excitement was the introduction of T-tops. The 1968 Chevrolet Corvette was the very first American production car to offer this innovative roof style and several buyers thought that it offered the best of both the hardtop and convertible.

T-tops offered more body and chassis rigidity than an open car, better insulation and protection from bad weather, and fewer rattles than the convertible while still allowing the occupants the enjoyment of open air driving if desired. GM marketed the body as a “convertible coupe” and as the copy reads, “Look it’s the 1968 Corvette Stingray Coupe: sleek, snug, sporty. Look again. Now, with the roof panels off, it’s open to the sun, the sky, the air. This ‘convertible’ feature is standard”

All C3 coupes came with the dual roof panels that could be removed leaving only a center stile connecting the back section of the roof to the windshield cowl. The stile was needed for structural rigidity.

Though the convertible outsold the coupe in 1968, as it had in every other prior year, it was more the result of limited coupe availability. GM was not convinced how the new roof would be received and production continued to be based on prior years’ historical sales heavily weighted to the convertible. But the buyers’ preference clearly favored the T-top coupe and from 1969 thru the last year of the C3 convertible production in 1975 the coupe dramatically outsold the convertible. For the entire C3 production run six times more coupes than convertibles were sold, 472,275 coupes versus 70,586 convertibles.

The popularity of the dual roof panels spread and virtually every American auto manufacturer began offering the popular feature on several models. T-tops were particularly popular on the GM F-bodies and Ford Mustangs in the 1970′s, 1980′s and early 1990′s. Slowly, however, the once innovative panels were shunned by the enthusiast. The tops were notorious for leaking, inconvenient to store while not in use, and on sunny days with the glass T-tops in place interior temperatures became almost unbearable.

Today no American manufacturer offers the T-tops in their original configuration with the center roof style. GM switched to a one piece removable roof panel with the new C4 design in 1984 and to this day they continue to offer a targa-style roof derivation on most coupes.

Rick Tavel writes about automobiles with an emphasis on Corvettes and the hobby in general. You can see his website at revenantrt.blogspot.com

Source:
Corvette Forum

Related:
Jay Leno and a C1 Corvette Featured in New Burger King Commercial
Corvette Ad Watch: The Genius of David E. Davis Jr
Corvette Ad Watch: 1969 Corvette Magazine Ad