Rare '70 on ebay

[Charlie P.]

If this was already covered, sorry I missed it. There is a '70 coupe on ebay claimed to be #38 of 40 "Apollo 11" cars, purportedly copies of the cars presented to that crew of astronauts by GM. Could this be for real? I never heard of any special edition Corvettes prior to '78.

[Kevin M.]

Re: Rare '70 on ebay

What a POS, ruined, are the pictures after the resto? How did they get it to look like it was in a slide standing still?

Kevin

[Jerry C.]

Re: Rare '70 on ebay

I saw one of these at Bloomington Gold this year and talked to the owner. He said it was a real car and was trying to get GM to document it as being real.

[Chuck S.]

Re: Rare '70 on ebay

Charlie, it is hard to say if this particular car is genuine, but that "Apollo 11" class is real. There was one on display at Galveston, either at the Texas Regional (11/2000) or the National (7/2001). They were a "special edition" of sorts, but never available from GM to the public.

As I remember, it had a special red, white, and blue paint scheme with hand lettered personalization. Otherwise, it appeared to be just another Corvette coupe. There was some documentation to view, and the car appeared to be the "real deal". I don't remember there being that many cars (40), or that they were a gift of GM.

[George D.]

Re: Rare '70 on ebay

I believe there was a special edition 69 for the Appollo astonauts. I spoke with a guy (Danny can't remember his last name) that had one of the 69's being flight judged at Hersey. It was riverside gold and black. He is from Texas so it may have been his car that someone saw in Galveston. Danny may be able to help with you if they were also some 1970's produced. His name would be it the Restorer that has the list of cars flight judged at Hersey. Incidentally he got a Top Flight.

Good Luck,

[Bob D.]

Re: Rare '70 on ebay

Danny Reed is the guy you folks are referring to. He lives in Austin, TX. He has a 1969 Riverside Gold Vette with a black wedge shape painted over the back. As Chuck said it has a red, white, and blue bar painted on the front fender and the astronaut's initials above the bar. The bar is just above the gills. The car belonged to one of the Apollo 9 astronauts. As I recall GM loaned or leased these cars to the astronauts for one year and then sold them off to various dealers. Danny has a pretty complete history on his car with pictures of it with the astronauts. Not sure about 70s, but I would surmise that various dealers loaned these cars to the astronauts for the publicity it would bring.

[mike cobine]

Re: Rare '70 on ebay

There were gold big block 1969 coupes given to the crew of Apollo 12. I believe an old article in Vette Vues told that Chevy had given Corvettes to several of the astronaut crews over the years. I seem to remember a Vette Vues cover with a red, clue, and white trio of C3 Corvettes but I don't remember which mission that was for.

However, since the Apollo 12 crew (Nov. '69 moon landing) got 1969 Corvettes, I seriously doubt that the Apollo 11 crew (July '69 landing) got 1970 coupes.

Quite possibly someone is using the movie "Apollo 13" to validate their car. In the movie, there were several mistakes of years such as having '70-'71-'72 cars being driven with it was still too early for them to be out. and the '70 didn't come out until January 1970, so that is 5 months after the moon mission.

Here is Buzz Aldrin and his '69 before the moon mission.

Pete Conrad's Corvette at NCM

Alan Shepard's at NCM

Gus Grissom's '67 Corvette

According to Alan Bean,
from 1963 to 1971 the astronauts were given two cars on loan from Chevy each year. They'd take a family car and a Corvette. It is possible this is one of those. But in this day of frauds, I'd expect to see a long list of papers that prove it.

[Chuck S.]

Yeah, You Guys Are Right...

It was a 69, riverside gold with a black wedge, and red/white/blue bar on the fender (I got that red/white/blue part right, eh, Bob? ).

[Harmon C.]

Re: Yeah, You Guys Are Right...

It was on display at the regional in Waco two weeks ago as I seen it their. Lyle

[Todd H 26112]

Re: Rare '70 on ebay

There was if my memory serves references to Corvettes being somehow or other provided or made available to astronauts in the Wolfe book as well as perhaps the fictionalized Mitchener book. The Right Stuff film may have made a 'reference' to them and of course several were featured in the Apollo 13 film. COrvettes again appeared randomly in the HBO spinoff series by Hanks. I believe there was even a series of shots w/ those red/white/blue sharks on one episode.

I guess they must have enjoyed their Corvettes because they seem to have been 'remembered' over the years when many other nuances and memories faded and probably weren't recalled as well during our recent pop culter focus on remembering the good ol' days of space exploration.

Sometimes it's fun to spy the glitches in period films using old cars. I was always impressed by the opening shot of 'Christine' where they showed the old assembly line and all the Furies were eggshell white as they should have been w/ a wink towards their 'special order' red one. I realy never figured they'd bother to paint the rest the correct eggshell white but they did. Most quality film productions put a reasonable effort to get things right 'enough' and that's fine by me. Perfection would be boring and no more fun to pick up on the glitches and ticket prices are high enough as it is! The one that stood out for me was a shot of the astronaut (Sinise character?) seeming to look up and watch a launch while standing by his Corvette - nice cinematic shot that I wouldn't take out but funny thing is they lived in Houston and 'commuted' to Florida via their T38s or whatever. His Corvette should have been parked back at Ellington I figure.

[Roberto L.]

Re: Rare '70 on ebay

Thanks Mike for sharing these pictures, Aldrin's one is great.

Roberto, NCRS #30019, RMC

[Bill W.]

Re: Rare '70 on ebay

All astronauts Corvettes were provided by Jim Ratthman (sp?) Chev/Cadillac in Melbourne, Fl. They may have also had Corvettes in Houston, but several of them had cars in Florida. While working on the launch pad, we could always tell if any of the astronauts were in the area because they were allowed to park on the apron at the top of the pad.

If anyone thinks they have an "astronaut Corvette", the service dept. at Rathmann kept all service records of those cars. Bill

[Charlie P.]

Re: Rare '70 on ebay

Thanks for all the input. I was checking this for someone who was considering bidding on this car. Inquiries to the seller as to documentation or markings go un-answered. I saw a post on another board linked to an article in Vette magazine about that '69 in Houston area. I've seen varying input as to what years were involved, and from what dealers (one in Houston, one in Florida?) The whole picture still seems a little fuzzy. Sounds like a challenging project to get all this pinned down.

[Chuck S.]

Re: Rare '70 on ebay

Hey Bill...Good to see yer "voice".

[mike cobine]

Red Flags A- wavin'

One thing I've learned in the last 30 years is that there are darn few definites with Corvettes. As such, I never want to position myself to call someone a liar.

BUT . . . .

1. Do you really think Chevy gave Corvettes to the Apollo 11 crew at least 6 months AFTER they went to the moon and 2 months AFTER the Apollo 12 crew went?

Come on, the WHOLE WORLD watched them go and come back. Chevy couldn't have said "oops, we didn't realize you went there."

I was in Brown County, IN, state park glued to the TV at the store, along with about 50 other people that evening. If anyone missed it that day, they sure didn't miss it that night.

2. He states it was for Apollo 11. Well, Apollo 12 got 1969 Corvettes. They were AFTER Apollo 11. Did Chevy give them USED Corvettes since they were only second?

3. Read the ad. It has all the ear marks of one who knows a little about Corvettes but doesn't know enough. How many Corvettes had M22 transmissions? (All of them of course). Fuelie heads. Lots of 461 fuelie heads on the production run in 1970.

4. If it is so rare and valuable, why would anyone mess it up with poly bushings, KYB shocks, Edelbrock intake, and other various non-stock items if they are supposedly restoring a valuable car?

5. Other color. Where does he say what color it is? The pictures I see could be brown or could be purple.

6. The big blocks and horsepower were kings. Astronauts lived on speed. The 454 would have been much more appropriate. The next up would have been the new-for-1970 LT1. So why would Chevy give them the 350 hp? Especially since the Apollo 12 crew got '69 Big blocks.

7. No VIN listed. I have _ASSUMED_ it is about 6 months after, but if the VIN is later, this car could be a FULL YEAR after the Apollo 11 crew got back.