C2 VIN verification PLS!

[Ian Johansen]

Hi all hope this reaches the right eyes. I currently am working on a 64 Removable Hard Top covertible or is it a roadster i guess?Anyway this car has 2" fenders flares all the way around it and i need to identify the car before i go tearing it up.The customer wants me to rebuild the fenders to a non flare factory spec, yet having cleaned some of the bodywork away i am begging to suspect this maybe a factory race car. I am also told it contains reminents of a JS6 brake system as well.Here are the numbers found off the plaque under the glove box; (1rst plaque)

B7
STYLE 64 867 1303 BODY
TRIM STD 923AA PAINT
2nd plaque
CHEVROLET DD
40867 s 102230
Please either reply here or at my email ian.spaz@excite.com or you can call me at 909.314.3109 This car though is NOT for sale course everything has it price i suppose..lol but i really need to know what the car is.It also has on the left side of firewall a Plaque reading San Fernando Speedway 1964 Thanks all.

[John H.]

Re: C2 VIN verification PLS!

Ian -

Probably not a "factory race car", since there weren't any, other than the five '63 Grand Sports, which were raced by privateers due to the AMA racing ban; someone really enjoyed it, though!

[Duke W.]

Re: C2 VIN verification PLS!

Yes, the J-56 brake option could indicate the person who ordered the car, assuming it was customer special ordered, intended to do some racing or otherwise decided the high cost of the HD brake package was justified.

In the era that car was built - late CY 1963 - SCCA did not allow body modifications and racing tires had not quite yet increased in width to the point that they would not fit within the Sting Ray's fenders, but that would change in about a year. SCCA still did not allow modifications of the outside fender contour throughout most of the rest of the sixties, and I expect that the flares were owner added at some point. Fender modifications were eventually allowed by SCCA, but they had to follow the basic fender contour, so the typical radiused flares that we saw on street Corvettes were not legal in SCCA, but were probaby okay for local non-SCCA club autocross competition.

Chevrolet offered no support for '64 Corvette racers as far as I know. The Corvette banner in SCCA racing was carried by the '63 Z06 Corvettes for the most part, some of which had quasi-factory support in '63, but by 1964 the Sting Ray was totally uncompetitive with the Cobras, and Chevrolet didn't even try to make it competitive. It was, unfortunately, hopeless, but the car was selling very well despite its lack of SCCA victories.

Thought Chevrolet reworking the Grand Sport "prototypes" and sent them to Nassau in December of '63 and December of '64, Chevrolet didn't provide any A-production support. Those racers were stickly privateers up against hopeless odds.

Chevrolet would not provide any serious racing support for the production Corvette until after the appearance of the big block, and it started with the developemnt of the L-88 package with Roger Penske's team doing the field testing, beginning at Daytona in February, 1966.

Duke