Early 1963 Corvette Questions

[Rich G.]

Re: If your car carries a VIN of thirty something,

1963 serial # 13 was delivered with KO's and has them today. What happened between the picture of it at the LA auto show with those 2 bar KO's and today with 2 Bar Ko's is anybodys' guess. But it does exsist. I wonder if we'll be having the same discussion about 06 ZO6 polished wheels 43 years from now.

Rich Giannotti 38594

[John D.]

knock off's

A lot of you have heard this story from me but you shake your head no and that's Ok. In the fall of '63 at Grabiak Chevrolet in New Alexandria PA the owners son, Sam Jr. hollered at me to hurry and run out front of the dealership because he wanted to show me a new '63 with knockoffs on a car carrier. Sam Jr. was all excited because he said these are not available and I have customers whose car orders are tied up because GM is having problems with the wheels. Then he said this car is not for a typical customer but for some top brass. No I don't remember if they were two or three bars. I do remember the blackwalls and especially remember the fuel injection emblems. The car was silver. Clem Zahrobsky used to hang out at this dealership all the time. So at least one was delivered. I told Howard Baker, a friend of Bill Cluppers this story on June 11th at our chapters car show and Howard said no way DeGregory, no way. I said Howard I remember it like yesterday and if you don't believe it so what. But it was the real deal. After I joined NCRS around 78 or 79 and heard the hype about no knockoffs on '63's I talked to Sam Jr. and he remembered the day we looked at the new silver '63 with the knockoff's. He's still kicking if anyone wants to talk to him. Dealership is still in existence under new owners. No there is no documentation.

[Mike M.]

Re: Early 1963 Corvette Questions

ditto on chuck's post that we don't believe any 63's were delivered to dealers with K/Os. it you have documentaton, we'd all love to view it. mike

[Michael H.]

Re: Early 1963 Corvette Questions

This 14 September "stop order" was sent to all Chevrolet dealers. The P48 option was held up and released at least six times during the 1963 run. It's possible that several units actually left the St. Louis plant with P48 but not many. (that's a different debate entirely) I have the whole pile of stop orders and release documents. The 14 Sept order was the first of the series. The date does not necessarily mean that any cars were assembled/released with P48 prior to the order. That would be very unlikely.

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14 September 62 **CORVETTE**

RPO P48 - ALUMINUM WHEELS (ALSO INCLUDED IN OPTION Z06 - SPECIAL PERFORMANCE PACKAGE

This option is temporarily held up by engineering department due to production difficulties. Testing is expected to be completed shortly, at which time an availability date will be determined.

[Boyan B.]

Re: knock off's

Pete, to add to everyone's response, your car is what would be classified as early. The 63 had alot of running changes throught the model year, I dont remember anyone mentioning the toolbox-like depressions under the seats. These were just changes and not big errors or defects. More like refinements. One curious question, does your car have 2 or 3 bar knockoffs?

Boyan.

[Rob M.]

Re: knock off's

BTW the toolbox depressions were for power chairs (I've seen AIM sheets of the 63 prototype to prove this matter). More in future Restorer magazines is to be expected on this matter.

greetings,
Rob.

[John D.]

Re: I made an error

As Harry pointed out to me it was the fall of '62 not fall of '63 in my knockoff story.