Magnesium wheel experts wanted

Okay - I thought I was being funny in Post No 25, but obviously it missed so I'll put you out of your misery - Quien sabe? is "Who knows?" in English....

 

TADA....the only reason why I know is because a buddy of mine has these on his midyear Corvette...they are called Sterling wheels...also used in the Greenwood Corvette race cars. Not clear if they were a regular aftermarket wheel you could buy or an exotic race wheel...I am thinking the latter. I am sure they were very expensive when new and only serious guys would buy them...pretty sure they are from the late 60s early 70s...

 

Are they still availible, and is that $85.00 US? Can you put me in touch with who sells them or where to buy them, thanks![/QUOTE]

I do not know if they are currently in production, the price I gave you was an old ebay auction

 

Yes, but in Argentina was named "Torino" and made it for an argentinian company called IKA, Industrias Kaiser Argentina.

 

I do not know if they are currently in production, the price I gave you was an old ebay auction[/QUOTE]

Do you have a link to the old auction?

 

I may be mistaken, but these look like Sterling Mags. Look up the Greenwood Corvettes.


The next Ownership link---

It looks to be a Bob Conners or Connors who bought it needing restoration for a discount. In one magazine article on Bob Conners, I think a typing error occurred in that article because of it stating the purchase price being $350??????, but I think it was $950 from what I remember being told when I acquired the car. Thus there is a discrepency here?????? Basically the car was an unregistered race car and the car year 64 was listed in one of the ads and was missing in the other, but the asking price was $995 in both. (when the typical uncrashed Corvette Race car was changing hands at about $2500-$3500 during that era). A helluva deal!

I believe Bob was a notable Socal Slalom racer and former NHRA Drag racer holding 1/4 mile class records at one time as early as 1967. Thus it was with him up in Fontana/Rialto Area and I believe semi repaired at first after buying it wrecked with the basic single roll hoop as the little picture below shows where it is parked next to the building. It seems to have been entered into local Slalom events around 1974 and possibly earlier after purchasing and fixing. I think he was connected up with a Large Auto Parts Chain, one of the biggest in that area close to where the first Super Shops Franchise started. This was the period where Ontario Motor Speedway was just down the rode, and Southern California still had a number of Drag Strips.

The car was then further modified by Bob following the trends to put large flares and a large spoiler on it. It also got a full rollcage. Then it was driven the very next day after the car was finished through a chain link fence accidently by his wife who was actually a very accomplished racer and wrecked again (it was bored out to about 370 cubes and turned less than 12 second quarter mile times), but was fixed for the WSCC (Western States Corvette Convention) in Wichita Kansas 1975. At that convention, it won the Concourse Competition car trophy, and both the Husband and wife took trophies home from the Autocross portion of that event. It was at Ontario 1975 Corvette Drag Nationals event and continued to be autocrossed and then at the next WSCC in Salt Lake Utah, it ran all of the events again. It remained in the yellow color, and was photographed at Ontario Motor Speedway 1976 and put on the front cover of one of the popular Corvette Magazines in this configuration. Also I don't think the WSCC had an event in 1977.

I post this picture up again of the crash photo at Riverside for comparison!



Shown at Ontario Motor Speedway.

If you study the photograph on the magazine cover, there are no headlights. Thus it was renosed without the headlights initially. Also as you can see in the crash picture I posted up again, the hood was damaged is the reason why I believe it got the 1967 Stinger Big block unit put on it. I still have that hood in yellow with the pinstriping and will get it photographed and put up here. The car also was flared with Thumper units, but glassed in to the custom Thumper spoiler. Another Clue of chain of Ownership, is that Cormany had the Yellow with Red trimming and sponorship and if you look at the trim of it with Bob Connors, he pinstriped it in Red on the yellow. Thus this is not a popular color combination red accents on yellow (thus a further clue of the link from Ownership to Ownership in the early 1970's! I also have the yellow decklid with the rollcage holes.

Also in 1975 Bob Connors took 4th place in the final Southern California Slalom Championship standing behind Dennis McCosh, George Lynch, and Schafer. Unfortunately I don't have anything from this period of Ownership in the way of plaques, trophies, etc.. but I do have a blue California license plate from the period when Bob owned it.

Here is a small picture that I tried to enlarge with the driver track meeting at an event, with our Car pictured parked next to the building in the background. I can't get good resolution, but in the very small original shot, the rollcage is not in the car yet------ it still had the square looking Angell/Cormany roll bar.


I didn't get the car through Bob Connors direct, and I am in contact with the individual that brokered the sell to me who is following this thread. Thus it was in this flared/spoiled configuration, when I got it. I hope to not offend the past Owners, but because of Banana jokes, big bird jokes and the like, I am sticking with the Riverside Red on the color. Also I had reshaped the flares with some glass to take the squareness (box) out of these Thumper units. I am an old surfer and used fiberglass from my younger days to repair my surfboards, thus working the glass is a piece of cake!

Here it is about 1990, I loved my wink mirror! You can see I still hadn't put headlights back on it yet! I had cut the nose spoiler competely off!



Lastly I uncovered what I would call a sister car. Another local enthusiast from the Rialto/Fontana area had the same flares and spoiler installed on his car and I believe that is the Ed Schwab SCCA Solo competition car which was ran white but with blue and red graphics and had my favorite C3 styled L-88 hood. I viewed that car personally at quite a number of events and talked to Mr. Schwab because his car competed directly against my Brother in my Father's car and I wish I had both of them in my garage.

Here is a picture of my dad's car back in 1969 and then in it's slalom configuration when it competed. My Father was usually disqualified and was always asked if he was ever going to do his cone duty. He was also protested consistently by fellow club members of his own GRA group! My Father enjoyed having that reputation.

My father James Ekas in his hip clothing! Back in the Day! Every car in the picture has a California Black Plate last issued in 1969. The bus is an out of state plate. All of the cars look to be pre-1970 in the lot (The Mustang, the Bus, the Dodge, Plymouths, etc., etc.)



And the car as it is today! My father is in the cool Steve McQueen replica jacket sitting down!



Video of car in action (younger brother Dean Ekas driving)
Video vette.MOV - YouTube
Vette Video 3 Irvine Meadows 1993 - YouTube


I grew up over the hill from Don Steves Chevrolet (La Habra) in Hacienda Heights and I now continue to live in Whittier which is the City next to and west of La Habra where Don Steves Chevrolet is and those are just a few miles to the west of Brea. My family was living in Brea while I was in the military (Navy) when I bought the car and where Dave Cormany was also living (Brea), but back when he raced this car and I am not sure after that. And as I said, I bought the car in this flared/spoiled configuration. I also did some Autocrossing even though I enjoy other disciplines, but I wasn't bad at it.

After owning it coming up on 30 years, I had cut the flares off to get it into a Vintage Racing Class around 1993, but I am now putting these original Thumper flares back on with all of the Racing parts that came with it. I have a build plan that includes putting my vintage appropriate old ATL Fuel Cell, the J-56 proportioning valve and the flip filler which has to be repaired shown in the Cormany era, that was cracked at the thread base and needed repair. But also alot of the racing parts never came off of the car, and I still have Guldstrand pieces, the spreader bar, the J-56 Disc Brake calipers (front and rear) and reinforcement brackets front, Moog K-6037's, etc.. still on the car.

Also the car was registered previously as a 1963, because that was the original year of sale. I also have a 1965 El Camino that is DMV listed as a 1964 also. That sometimes happened!!!!!!!!!!!

I have had the car over in a storage garage, where it is hard to work on it. I have my 1968 T-top and my 1965 El Camino cluttering up the garage and in the way currently, but my plan is to hopefully finish it (my restoration project, here in 2013). It will stay Riverside Red with the these Thumper flares, but not all molded in (I recut and narrowed them to look good- fit the tires and rims), the spoiler will be also a Thumper unit, but I will be running their Trans Am unit and not the custom unit, because the molded in Thumper spoiler that was on the car when I purchased was all cracked and split from scraping the ground. I am putting an L-88 C2 hood back on it and not the stinger one that I have, because that was changed when it was first restored more to the 1970's theme of the era, and to clear the air gap high rise Bowtie Single Plane. I am also in the process of putting the full roll cage back in and not as crudely. It was upgraded to a Special Heavy Duty ROD tranny 6-speed, and I have my Tom's Differential stuff in the back and the special Bowtie Aluminum Block and Heads are going in, but I do have the vintage 327 and alot of the Vintage pieces from it's racing days!!!!! I will add some more pictures!



Lastly, I have never taken interest in the precise history and putting this finally on the forum was on an impulse and have been adding to it since, because I late last year started considering getting the car into the upcoming August 2013 Monterey Corvette Reunion. But to do so, the cars have to have a pedigree. Thus to be considered, you have to present your history. Thus I will be missing Monterey entry because it is fast approaching and the car would not have been ready, but I thought it was time to put the Ownership chain together. Thus before posting this I had tracked down three individuals named Dave Cormany and was only successful in talking to one which was not our Dave of Corvette fame. I also attempted to locate Bob Connors, but do believe he left the area with the last address being in Rialto.

For years I have talked on this forum of getting into Vintage Racing and instead did timed lapping events with like the old TCRA (the retired race car group). But I have had some serious life events and setbacks in my defense!

In case someone can add to the history or share information on that racing era!

I feel that I have the basic chain of ownership history now with a few holes to fill after owning the car 30 years and first starting to research things back about 10years ago!

My Search:

As I dig stuff out, I am better remembering the timeline. It is amazing how 10 years can fly by!

I started to document the car during that time 2002/3, but had some real negative interactions with two guys on the log book shown that I had (the SCCA Novice Green one pictured- Cloyde Angell). Basically some regions used these while a driver was in training, but the formal SCCA log books (usually powder blue in color) basically showed up around 1971. At that time (10 years ago) I only had two magazine copies of Finish Line Magazine (which is the SoCal Region stuff- Cal Club), but not the months or years that covered when my car ran. And because the records are so scarce, I then quickly lost interest in researching for awhile. At about this same time, my Aunt started a Family geneology project, so I jumped in to help her and got caught up in that. Thus growing up, none of this mattered (the truly ancient history of the Family or where the car had been and what it ran in)till about this time frame 2002/3. Thus researching my car, was the "original primary reason" why I joined the Corvette Forum! Naturally I always knew it was a former race car from the parts on/with the car. I also thought the stuff I had with the car was cool. I am glad I stored this stuff and didn't toss it all!

Because it is a race car, there were a number of cars that I had researched and stopped following until about 7 or 8 years ago, when I found some more issues of the Finish Line Magazine, which caused me to focus on three cars initially that were possibilities. Because nothing was matching up exactly, it seemed like I was running into dead ends (wrong paths) which was frustrating, and I didn't have the source to research it thoroughly or have the ability to do so because of the limited information available from that era. Also because the Cormany name wasn't coming up in the SCCA magazines related to a C2, initially I discounted his association with my car primarily because his name was only coming up related to the C3 race car. (1972 SCCA magazines/records). I now see that he would have had to take all of the steps to get licensed and it connects with the 1968/69 period and then he was only racing at the regional level, which is where a new driver would have started. Also I didn't have records to uncover that.

Then I came across the C2 picture with him and Don Steves sponsorship, thus I visited Don Steves Chevrolet in 2006/7 before they lost their Chevrolet Dealership rights and I got some leads from just a few guys there that had worked with the dealership long term. I also saw that this car was believed to be a 1963 and my Vin is a 1964, thus again I basically discounted Cormany until it hit me that my car was registered as a 1963, when I first bought it. It is an early 1964, made in 1963 and like the 1965 El Camino I have, it was registered as an earlier year model. Thus on repeat visits (2007-2008) and after taking the car into the dealership a few times, that led me to meeting and talking with Don Steves himself. In turn this led to some records turning up and the DANA connection/Cormany etc. Thus about 4 years ago or so (2009), I finally figured out who's car it was. I also learned on this forum, that guys in a heartbeat will phony up a car especially for profit and that this is a very hotly contested thing in the collector car world (L-88's, Z-06, COPO, rare options, etc.). I have no intention to sell. I have had it 30 years and it is a Family member now. Then my accident that occurred early 2010 and new life worries, and three years of anguish (bills, mobility problems, healing). Thus I wasn't in a position to worry about all of this!

Thus now 2013, I am pretty solid now on this era of Ownership for my car! It all lines up! Thus I finally posted up this thread which I am working on and as I learn new or match things up, I will keep updating!


The Dana Frame I have and shown is of the later vintage 1968/69 cars. This is the only late year frame, that I have ever seen. The earlier ones have the ears! And I pictured the 1966 Cloyde Angell log book (novice). Also the car might have ran one actual race, but not with Angell driving!

Also here is the Don Steve's Chevrolet frame that I have.

Then recently I obtained the Pylon magazines and then I acquired the early picture of my car!. Thus it looks like Angell started down the path to enter formally into SCCA racing, but might not have ever ran a race (still being researched!). So I have two things instead of one, that connect him to owning my car (our car!). The other is his 1965 registration card from the good ole California DMV.

I am going to keep the paperwork and specifics on the log books private and that information unphotographed to keep someone from making a phony car! I would think it would be too hard to recreate the plaques or make a flag, or a license plate, so I hope I am safe sharing those photos!

Thus I am still not done, but I am close and still working on the history!

Thanks everyone.

 

Do you have a link to the old auction?[/QUOTE]

Unfortunately I can not find the 'auction but here you have the link with info about the manufacturer:

http://exiexplorer.nosis.com.ar/exi...605-Munro-Buenos-Aires-Argentina-7614-EN.aspx


I think they make them on request.

 

Hey tcracingcal would you sell the 68/69 dana plate?