Features Corvette hot rods - picture thread

If someone made a recreation of this body it wouldn’t break my heart.


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I'm sure you have the numbers correct. This happened a few years before I worked there.

Where was Gary Laughlin's Chevy dealership located? Most of the Chevy parts I saw used came from Johnson Chevrolet on Ross Avenue near downtown Dallas. Johnson Chevrolet was home to Delmo Johnson and older brother Tom Johnson racing activities.

At the time Jim Hall was partners with/worked for Carroll Shelby at Carroll Shelby Sports Cars located at 5611 Yale Blvd (now SMU Blvd and now a Twisted Root burger joint). All this happened prior (1962) to me getting paid to turn wrenches/clean parts/sort tools/push broom at Shelby's when things got slow at Tom Johnson's shop Precision Motors/Performance Incorporated located two blocks away at 5608 E. Mockingbird Ln.

Tom Johnson contracted to Michigan-based Vanguard Corp and did the work modifying the original Ford Mustang Concept vehicle into the Vanguard Warrior 1 and a couple years later purchased the rights to the Apollo and re-named it Vetta Ventura when the Warrior 1 project dead-ended. We completed about eleven Vettas before I left for college in New Orleans in 1967 and Vanguard/Johnson had about eight more uncompleted Vetta Ventura rolling chassis (Intermeccanica products).

Jim Hall got the idea for side-mounted radiators on the Chaparral 2E/2F/2G from the Ford Mustang Concept at Vanguard/Precision Motors. The operations were two blocks apart separated by the old Dr. Pepper bottling plant and Shamburger Building Supply. Take those two away and they could look in each other's front doors.

All this was happening while the original five Grand Sport Corvettes were filtering through John Mecom's racing operation in Houston. That is the connection for three of the five original Grand Sports coming to Dallas/Fort Worth - Jim Hall and Delmo Johnson got their Grand Sports and Ed Sevadjian's Fort Worth Grand Sport was the fifth and last - George Wintersteen and Dick Thompson had dibs on the first two.

 

"Where was Gary Laughlin's Chevy dealership located? "
At least one of them was in Houston as that is where the two partially completed cars were shipped when the program stumbled.

Incidentally, one of the Scaglietti Corvettes was in the basement at the Petersen Museum when I was last there in 2016 but I am not sure which one as at the time I did not know enough of the history to check--one car was a stick shift fuelie and the others were autos with dual quads. Photos were not permitted on the basement tour so I don't have anything for reference either.

Roo

 

Roo, my mentor into the racing fraternity was Bill Fritts. Bill Fritts was a furniture salesman from Midland Texas who, along with co-driver and fellow Midlander Chuck Hall, drove to the first Corvette GT class win at Sebring in 1960 in Augie Pabst's rented Corvette.

Chuck Hall was either brother or cousin of Jim Hall and older brother Richard Hall (both of them also from Midland). The Hall brothers co-owned the 1955 Ferrari 750 Monza that Carroll Shelby drove at Willow Springs and Sebring. The Ferrari was owned by Alan Guiberson of Dallas and Shelby later sold the car through his Dallas dealership - I have a copy of the flyer.

Bill Fritts and Chuck Hall with 1960 Sebring trophy. Bill Fritts in blue Tiki shirt and Chuck Hall is the tall guy.


Carroll Shelby in driver's seat of the Alan Guiberson Ferrari 750 Monza at Willow Springs in 1956. Brothers Richard and Jim Hall far left.


Guiberson 1955 Ferrari 750 Monza. It still exists and owned by guys in California.


The 1960 "big tank" Corvette that Bill Fritts and Chuck Hall won with at Sebring. Last time it sold brought $440,000.


Bill Fritts making suspension/brake adjustments at Sebring the morning of the race. I think thats Charles Pritchard standing. Zora Duntov was there to assist as well.


Just for fun, Chuck Hall driving a Troutman & Barnes built Chaparral 1 at Sebring 1962. This is the year I got started but of course I was not Sebring-level for a while lol.

 

Boodlum were you around long enough to know Chuck Cantwell?

 

If memory serves, Chuck Cantwell was a California guy and I was in Dallas. Mr. Cantwell I believe was one of the Original Venice Crew. When I see Shelby's former accountant JRLee I will ask. JRL kept Shelby's books and remembers everybody.

ETA: I may have briefly met Charles Cantwell at Green Valley Raceway TX in February 1965. If so he was working on Jerry Titus GT350R (I think it was 5R001). Ken Miles won that race, the first win for Shelby Mustangs, in 5R002. During practice on Saturday, Jerry Titus in 5R001 missed the right-hand turn at the bottom of the drag strip straight, went off course, missed the newly-built concrete bridge and went headlong into the creek thereby forever naming it "Mustang Creek". I was crewing for Delmo Johnson's Corvette Grand Sport that day (no surprise) and didn't get to see much of the Shelby pits. Few weeks later came 1965 Sebring and The Flood.


After a rocketship start, Delmo led the first lap!
Here's Delmo leading Richie Ginther's Ford GT40.


Jerry Titus' Shelby Mustang at Green Valley Mustang Creek Inauguration Ceremony.
ETA2: Wrong year! These pics are from 1967 Trans-Am where Titus crashed again!

After being beat back into rough shape for the race on Sunday.

 

I wouldn’t either. I was thinking more like pick the coffee up and go To a park and sit and drink the coffee, relax and enjoy looking at the Vette. If your allowed in the park


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Detroit Dragway....

 

Boodlum,
Chuck was Jim's brother (along with Richard who was generally known as Dick).

Roo

 

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@Moriarity I would love to see a picture of your car without the WW tires.

 

I got wood!!!!...
Damn! That's nice....

 

Roo, I was a teenager just turned thirteen in 1962. They were all "Mr. Hall" to me.

Don't remember seeing Chuck Hall personally. Jim and Dick of course at Carroll Shelby Sports Cars but Jim much more often. (Bill Fritts talked about Chuck Hall and Chuck Daigh as co-drivers.) I heard Dick Hall had responsibility for managing the family oil business in Midland. Jim Hall and Dick Hall both attended Caltech but I don't know about Chuck Hall.

Always wondered if there was a financial connection between the Hall family oil business in Midland and John Mecom's oil business in Houston and King Hussein of Jordan. I know about Mecom and Hussein but teenagers don't ask those kind of questions. Jim Hall bought his Corvette Grand Sport from John Mecom (Roger Penske co-drove it with Jim Hall at several events like Nassau and Sebring).

Sebring 1965 was a Texas family get-together. There were at least five Texas teams I was aware including the guys from Austin sent by Enzo Ferrari with a Ferrari factory race car after FIA pulled Enzo's Competitor License as a result of the 1964 Monza debacle. (Austin-based Kleiner Racing was loaned Ferrari #33 275P for the race with a couple of Italian factory drivers.)
See Texas stickers on hood and rear fenders - KRT stands for Kleiner Racing Team.


Mecom "Hussein" based on Cooper Monaco with Chrysler 426 Hemi power.
A.J. Foyt driving.

 

Photoshop!....

 

Nah...it’s a mild Kustom...perfect as is..

 

I agree, looks right out of the CARS movie. And I am not normally a WW guy.

 

I don’t know. Not that is a written rule but my car brain always associated two tone early corvettes with wide whites/full wheel covers and single color cars with black wall tires and small hub caps. I’m sure there are plenty of examples on here that would prove me wrong but as a whole they seem to flow this way.


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Uncle Halley’s 58 while he was a Corpsman probably around 63-64. Car was sold, went to Oklahoma and caught fire during an accident. The car probably survived the wreck.


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Another Saturday at Detroit Dragway...

 

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