The Big Block Hood on the '67 Small Block

[Mike Cobine]

Found one.

Must be true, the guy says so.




1967 Chevrolet : Corvette

[Gerard F.]

Check with Roy Braatz, he says he has one

vin 12345. Maybe Roy will post a pic.

[Tom M.]

Looks like alot of his friends are bidding too!! *NM*

[Roy B.]

Re: Check with Roy Braatz, he says he has one

I know nothing about nothing! But his vin# is 114110 and mine is #12345. and people say it happened in a matter of days. So his number is way off. I don't care ether way any more , but many Corvette fanatics DO. I'm a fanatic about 55's.

[Mike Cobine]

Re: Check with Roy Braatz, he says he has one

Maybe one day, a letter from Chevy will surface about having to substitute hoods at VIN 12300 to 13000 or so. They you can wave a copy at everyone and say "Leave me alone."

I knew several guys that told stories of things no one can support today, and the retired foremen, engineers, and such at the seminars deny, but the fact is that the American worker has been known for doing things at work too outrageous to be believed and darn good at covering their tracks so as to not get caught.

Your hood could easily be a swap by an employee for his own or a friend's car regardless of the so-called safeguards against it.

The mold could have been temporarily indisposed but all records disappeared because there may have been some company action against an employee for misconduct that caused the mold to be out of use.

In the meantime, enjoy those '55s.

[Roy B.]

Re: Check with Roy Braatz, he says he has one

Mike thanks I do

[Wayne W.]

Re: Check with Roy Braatz, he says he has one

Yea, I guess that special hood option went along with the AM wonderbar option that he removed. Also an AOS car which was not normally an installer of BB Hoods in 67.

[Mike M.]

Re: Check with Roy Braatz, he says he has one

i, for one, am tired of dealing with the issue of 67 small block vettes being delivered during a purported"lack of small block hoods during spring of 67" with big block hoods.i'm tired of members citing nolands book as a reference to such an occurance. roy bratz's "documentation" doesn"t do much for me. till someone comes up with better bondfide documentation, i'll stand by my conviction that NO 67 small block vettes, whether st louis or ao smith,were ever shipped from the factory with big block hoods. mike

[Mike Cobine]

Having no documentation means one thing

- You have no documentation.

It does not mean all apples are red or only Corvette people eat bananas or anything else you try to pass off as logic. It definitely does not prove some car is not original.

Whether Roy's is real or not, I can't say, as I have never seen it and may not know even if I did. But there is no reason to criticise him or his car.

However, I know that things came out of plants that weren't supposed to occasionally.

A friend bought a '64 Impala SS from an older lady years ago. Nice old car, untouched, unmolested, and straight as an arrow. 283, PowerGlide, etc. Except he pulled that 283 and gave it to me, since he put a 350 in to drive and the 283 was "shot".

I opened it up, and it was a 327. Even the registration on the car showed the hp rating for the 283 (Illinois registered by taxable HP and 283 is different than 327).

A friend's neighbor told stories of doing exactly that type of thing on the line at St. Louis. And the reverse. But that is "impossible" with all the inspections and such.

The Corvette Restorer a year or two ago had an article about an original '61 (I think) with no front emblem. He changed it to comply with NCRS rules. Sometime afterward, he ran into another such car, but now, his was changed and couldn't prove it was originally without.

So much of NCRS claims to be about education, but rather than documenting items that do not follow the norm, and keeping track in case another shows up whenever, there seems to be more emphasis on telling people they are wrong until they prove themselves right. The ordinary person is never going to be able to prove themselves right. They do not have the resources and do not have the connections.

That is why at least on the surface, the law of the land is innocent until proven guilty. As far as Roy goes, until someone proves he changed it or someone else changed it, I'd accept it as a deviation.

Proving someone changed something isn't hard. Proving no one changed it is nearly impossible.

In the light of all eternity, none of this really matters. In another 10 or 15 years, a third of those on here will be dead and their cars will be in the hands of who knows who. Quite possibly, someone who likes the idea of stuffing a C8 suspension and engine and seeing how cool the car looks with 23 inch rims.