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Features Corvette hot rods - picture thread

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by KING CHASSIS, Jan 1, 2011.

  1. 31hotrodguy
    Joined: Oct 29, 2013
    Posts: 2,698

    31hotrodguy
    Member

  2. Probably had to keep the lady’s at bay with this one... DA5F8398-5431-4DD6-9A02-0102C9538E23.jpeg
     
  3. loudbang
    Joined: Jul 23, 2013
    Posts: 40,276

    loudbang
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    Clearance lights???

    hot10 clearence lights.jpg
     
  4. loudbang
    Joined: Jul 23, 2013
    Posts: 40,276

    loudbang
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    The day before the Los Angeles Times Grand Prix in Riverside, Carroll Shelby (right) and Ford upstaged Zora Arkus-Duntov (left center) and Chevrolet by sneaking the second Cobra ever built into a so-called Experimental Production class and race that SCCA conceived for brand-new Sting Rays; in particular, the fearsome foursome of Z06 fastbacks entered by Mickey Thompson.

    Despite Bill Krause’s sizable horsepower handicap, his spunky, 260ci roadster swapped leads with Dave MacDonald’s 327ci Corvette (background) until the Cobra’s rear hub carrier failed an hour into the 300-mile enduro.

    [​IMG]
     
  5. jimdillon
    Joined: Dec 6, 2005
    Posts: 3,291

    jimdillon
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    I wonder if it was signals to the pits and possibly another way to ID the car at night.
     
  6. elgringo71
    Joined: Oct 2, 2010
    Posts: 3,823

    elgringo71
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  7. jimdillon
    Joined: Dec 6, 2005
    Posts: 3,291

    jimdillon
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    Jason, Deloy Naeb in the Pooch 58 Corvette at the Tulsa World Finals 1966 with Stormin Bull in the far lane.
     
  8. elgringo71
    Joined: Oct 2, 2010
    Posts: 3,823

    elgringo71
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    Thanks, Jim
    I can find the vintage pictures from time to time but there aren’t many people that can fill in the blanks on who, when and where
     
  9. @jimdillon is the MAN for all the old race vette info!
     
  10. 65pacecar
    Joined: Sep 22, 2010
    Posts: 16,808

    65pacecar
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    from KY, AZ

    [​IMG]


    Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
     
  11. Sky Six
    Joined: Mar 15, 2018
    Posts: 9,480

    Sky Six
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    from Arizona

    What a sweet looking ride, but what in the world is following the car????
     
  12. Dave Gray
    Joined: Sep 4, 2010
    Posts: 283

    Dave Gray
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    Looks like Don Yenko. I have seen this determined look on his face before.
     
  13. Boodlum
    Joined: Dec 19, 2007
    Posts: 353

    Boodlum
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    That car is Jim Hall's original Grand Sport Corvette he bought from John Mecom Jr. in 1963 (Mecom bought all five Grand Sports from Zora Duntov to get them out of GM - I'm open to discussion whether George Wintersteen and Dick Thompson's Grand Sports went through Mecom). Jim co-drove this car with Roger Penske at Sebring 1964. This car is on right in the Sebring drawing with Delmo Johnson/Dave Morgan blue Grand Sport.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2019
  14. Boodlum
    Joined: Dec 19, 2007
    Posts: 353

    Boodlum
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    Mickey Thompson Z06 in February 1963 driven by A.J. Foyt. At the time rumored to have an all-aluminum 427 Mystery Motor. Unfortunately ran up against another Mickey Thompson-related car at Daytona that year. A Pontiac Tempest with a 421 Super Duty engine driven by Paul Goldsmith. IIRC extreme engineer Herb Adams also had a hand building the Pontiac. Pontiac won the race, eight laps ahead of one of the Ferraris.
    [​IMG]

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    Last edited: Dec 3, 2019
  15. Boodlum
    Joined: Dec 19, 2007
    Posts: 353

    Boodlum
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    Think that's Dave MacDonald with his back to us in the foreground. One of my all-time favorite drivers. Miles and Gurney could not out-drive him.

    ETA: A young Mark Donohue at far left?
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2019
  16. jimdillon
    Joined: Dec 6, 2005
    Posts: 3,291

    jimdillon
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    Boodlum, I agree on Dave McDonald being in the foreground. I also agree he was one of the all time greats. I think he was maybe a bit too anxious to please with the dangerous car he was killed in. He should have walked away from that ill fated car like I have read others did-sad.Not sure if that is Mark Donahue though.
     
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  17. Boodlum
    Joined: Dec 19, 2007
    Posts: 353

    Boodlum
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    The Sears Allstate Special that killed Dave MacDonald was one of only a few Mickey Thompson failures. Aerodynamics seem to have been unstable in traffic. Even USAC did not want the car to run. MacDonald SHOULD have taken more experienced driver's advice and done as you say.

    Dave MacDonald was pure hell in a Corvette.
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    About Mark Donohue, the pic seems vaguely similar and the guy is Donohue's size and build. Here's my favorite pic of Donohue from the 1967 Green Valley TX Trans-Am race.
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2019
  18. jimdillon
    Joined: Dec 6, 2005
    Posts: 3,291

    jimdillon
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    You could be right on it being Mark Donahue-I am far from an expert on him. I thought the receding hairline was a bit much but then the picture above shows he had a bit of a receding hairline.
     
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  19. Boodlum
    Joined: Dec 19, 2007
    Posts: 353

    Boodlum
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    FIA and ACO require roof-mount "night lights" at Le Mans and other night race events. The three different color lights I can only surmise are for communication with pits.

    Here's a pic of John Mecom's 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO at Sebring. Notice the roof light. Hood light was for pit signals.
    [​IMG]

    (Two Texas-based Ferrari 250 GTO's at Sebring that year, and Ferrari only built a total of 36. Other GTO belonged to Tom O'Connor from down the Texas Gulf coast at Victoria. That GTO was raced for O'Connor's Redbud Racing team, painted a similar blue, raced by driver Innes Ireland and was car number 25. Mecom's GTO was chassis number 3987GT and car number 24 - O'Connor's was 3589GT and car number 25. After a brief racing career, O'Connor GAVE all his race cars to Victoria High School auto shop class - INCLUDING THE FERRARI GTO! That car got re-painted red, sold for a pittance to a guy from up north and sat outdoors in his backyard for decades, became known as "The Forgotten One" and eventually found by a European Ferrari collector and fully restored.)
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Innes Ireland with 3589GT "Forgotten One" restored and painted as it left the Ferrari factory in 1963.
    Think $70 Million.
    [​IMG]

    ETA: BACK ON TOPIC!!
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2019
  20. jimdillon
    Joined: Dec 6, 2005
    Posts: 3,291

    jimdillon
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    If I could wish for one car it would be a GTO Ferrari-but such is not going to happen in this lifetime. When Mike Ernst restored his 1962 Gulf Oil sponsored Corvette that raced at Daytona and Sebring, he of course added the light on the top of the hardtop and told me about it. I figured the extra lights on the car we reference above must be a couple of signals to the pits. The 62 Gulf Oil 62 Vette sold for around a million and a half at auction some years ago, a long way from a GTO price but not bad for an old Corvette race car that some guy had been driving on the street in Minnesota before Mike bought it. The rear springs were wrong when Mike bought it and he sold them to me and they are on my black 62, so I can say I have a part that was associated with the famous Gulf Oil 62-LOL.

    The Gulf Oil 62 Vette was one car that I enjoyed just sitting behind the wheel envisioning what others saw over the steering wheel at speed.

    Ernst 62 5.jpg
     
  21. Boodlum
    Joined: Dec 19, 2007
    Posts: 353

    Boodlum
    Member

    Jim, did that car belong to Grady Davis, as in Gulf Oil Corp. Executive VP Grady Davis or sponsored by them? Grady was a Texas guy that did very well for himself. I remember Grady's personal Corvette being dark blue with burnt orange stripes.

    (I raced a Yenko Stinger that was an ex-Grady Davis car. Lots of stories.)
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    [​IMG]

    Road Atlanta SCCA National Run-Off's 1979
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    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2019
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  22. jimdillon
    Joined: Dec 6, 2005
    Posts: 3,291

    jimdillon
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    Bodlum, yes it was owned by Grady Davis who bought it from Yenko Chevrolet. Every Corvette nut has their favorite and I guess 62 is my favorite (even though I like others) and this 62 has to be one of the most coveted 62s out there. It made it's debut at Daytona in January of 62 and finished 2nd with Dick Thompson driving in A/Production. Two weeks later it won in A/P at the 3 hour Daytona Continental and then won Sebring 12 hours and then won ten of the next eleven races it entered in SCCA A/P racing. Twelve wins in fourteen starts-no wonder I like the car.
     
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  23. jimdillon
    Joined: Dec 6, 2005
    Posts: 3,291

    jimdillon
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    Here is another Grady Davis owned car bought from Yenko a 61 that won back to back National Championships in 61 and 62 in B/P. I was with the 1916 Packard V12 Packard racer next to this 61 Vette at Meadowbrook in 2006ish. I toured a bit of the country with this Packard that my grandfather worked on when he worked in the experimental department at Packard in the teens of the last century. The Packard owner drove all of his cars way too fast and I had a few scary trips in this car. Both the Corvette and the Packard won on that day at Meadowbrook. The Corvette followed us up to the reviewing area and even thought the Packard was making a hell of a racket (while I was a passenger) I could still hear the sweet sound of the 61 Vette. If you look closely you will see a roofline of a Yenko Corvair behind the Packard. Somewhere I should have a picture of the Corvair but God only knows where.

    Cool you got to race it or one similar (not too familiar with it or how many they made.

    100_8602r.jpg
     
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  24. Seemed like a good idea to buy that family sports car... 0184E7F5-18C5-439A-BAA8-B8F13524C9E5.jpeg
     
  25. Boodlum
    Joined: Dec 19, 2007
    Posts: 353

    Boodlum
    Member

    Jim, I do see the Yenko roofline and vented deck lid hiding there.

    Though C1 cars were on their way out when I got started in 1962, the guy who mentored me in was Bill Fritts. Bill was a furniture salesman from Midland TX who raced a C1 at Sebring in 1960 and was the highest-placing Corvette that year. I heard "Papa Bear" Fritts won GT class but Bill was the kind of guy who would never say it if he did. Story told me was Bill rented the "big tank" car from Augie Pabst, one of the "River Rat Road Racers" but race car ownership in those days was a fluid thing so I don't really know. Augie never talked about it.

    This is the 1960 car Bill and Chuck Hall (yes, those Halls and yes, that Midland) drove. But I never got my hands dirty on it. Couple years before my time.
    [​IMG]

    Bill Fritts working on front brakes at Sebring 1960
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    Hall and Fritts in the middle holding their Sebring trophy
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2019
  26. 1934coupe
    Joined: Feb 22, 2007
    Posts: 5,051

    1934coupe
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    I with you Jim my favorite is a 62, the very first car I drove more than 20 feet was a 62 corvette 4 speed. My friend would let me pull the cars in the shop for him to work on. This was in NYC so from the street to the garage wasn't too far. But I was only 13 at the time and this was the summer of 62.

    Pat
     
  27. Dave Gray
    Joined: Sep 4, 2010
    Posts: 283

    Dave Gray
    Member

    IMG_0021.JPG

    A couple of West Coast fuelies running at the Hershey Hillclimb several
    years ago. The white 57 was raced competitively by Joe Frietas for many
    years. He was a very good friend of Dave McDonalds.
     

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  28. Offset
    Joined: Nov 9, 2010
    Posts: 1,871

    Offset
    Member
    from Canada

    That is not Mark Donohue in that pic.
     
  29. Boodlum
    Joined: Dec 19, 2007
    Posts: 353

    Boodlum
    Member

    That Mecom 250 GTO kept me in the racing game.

    (tl:dr - kid can't keep his hands off race cars)

    In 1967 I graduated high school and decided it was time to get on with life, get out of racing and go to college. After being accepted at Princeton, couple other east coast schools and Tulane in New Orleans, I decided to attend Tulane, then a men's-only university with a reputation for academic excellence.

    It was early October 1967, a Saturday afternoon and I was headed from my dorm to do chemistry lab work.

    A street named Freret crosses the Tulane campus west to east and divides the dorms from classrooms and labs.

    Standing on the Freret curb waiting for traffic to clear there came this sound.

    Once you hear the sound of an open exhaust Ferrari V12 you will always know the sound of tearing canvas. This was that sound.

    Swiveling right, the sight of Mecom's Zerex Special GTO complete with rondels and stickers was in my face. Le Mans war paint. Being driven on the streets of New Orleans...

    I freeze in place.

    Car eases by with cylinders spitting rich mixture, stops, backs up, driver looks at me and asks "Do I know you?"

    "Yes sir, Mr. Mecom. I met you twice at Mr. Shelby's shop in Dallas."

    The world went silent for me.

    "Get in."

    I got in.

    It was then I learned that John Mecom Jr. was buying an NFL franchise to be known as the New Orleans Saints and they were going to play and practice on the Tulane campus at the Sugar Bowl football stadium and he needed someone to do light wrench work on some of his cars.

    Drove downtown to Mecom's personal boat, a converted WW2 US Navy minesweeper docked next to another similar converted minesweeper owned by the McIlhenny family of Tabasco fame.

    Yes I ended up working on his cars in New Orleans and flying back and forth to Mecom's 40-acre race car compound on the grounds of Houston Hobby airport.

    I was hooked again.
     

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