1957 Corvette Super Sport

[Todd H.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

What an extremely exciting car, Rich. And you get to work on it? You lucky dog!

A couple questions. Did styling build it before the pilot FI cars that were started in late September, right? And tested in early October? Weren't FI Corvettes thought to have been available to the general public after November 1? But the SS wasn't shown until the Waldorf Astoria show in January of '57?

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Todd, Yes I am truly honored to have the opportunity to help my friend work on it.

I'm not sure exactly when Styling began work on the Super Sport, but the car was completed on Dec based on the photo dates. I have no idea how many wall-clock days they were on it and no idea if any records exist showing those details. Based on some of those custom features and interior pieces, it had to take some substantial time.

If there is still someone out there somewhere that worked in Styling back then, wow that'd be a real treat to talk to them.

My hunch is that if they did indeed have a Pilot line fuelie available for the show they would have brought one. Maybe they figured rather than shipping a pilot car, the Super Sport would be more "Blingy" than a "Stock" Pilot car. I'll ask my friend this morning when I head over for my first tinker-day with the Dream Car of My Life.

Rich

[Tyler T.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Don't you ever sleep? Thanks again for your help this last week.

Tyler

[Michael J.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

That's what I'm remembering that the first '57 FI was built much earlier than this car. It has been for sale too recently. VIN #10 John Ames restored it, it has #3 FI unit, it is supposed to be the first FI car.

[Bruce B.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Rich,
Very cool opportunity to work on a historic car.
BTW, I hope I did not screw up your video of the swap inside meet, DUH......
Great seeing you again.
Bruce B

[Carl D.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Rich, I can almost make out the serial number as E57S001580 or 1589 or 1689. I think that means that the car was pulled out from the assembly line between January 4 and January 10 1957? This is a great story I have already sent it on to four friends, I too would be very interested in seeing the car in San Antonio. Thank the owner for sharing the great find. Carld

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Tyler, Your welcome. It was fun work........And Thank You for what you do.

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Bruce, I have 5 videos on YT and will post them here in a few.....stand by. yup you're in one and I recall you walking by. You are * now.

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Todd, It's #1589, but in 1956 the vin sequence started at 1000. Remember that this is a 1956 car that got re-vin'd into a 1957. 1957 starts at "0000" but this is not really a '57 vin, it's a modified '57 vin.

1956 vins E56S001001 ............

1957 vins E57S100001 ............

The car used was: E56S001589 (the 589th '56)

From it they created a unique vin: E57S001589 Note the 1 after the S was changed to a 0. The normal production 1957 Corvette was E57S101589, the 1,589th Corvette in '57.

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Michael, Coincidentally, today we received some documentation from someone that is a Build Order for "#E56S-001589", the "donor" car. It's a little confusing, and we need to understand it better. If it''s deemed valid, I'll post a copy of it later. It may shed some light on when the Super Sport build started.

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As the story has been told to me, the FI unit was put in a shed when the car came out of the junk yard and into the garage of the prior owner in Albuquerque. It was told that the FI Unit was stolen out of the shed some time later. The FI Unit on the car was allegedly either Chromed or Polished. Hard to see in the Chicago 1957 photo I posted earlier what it could be. I'd say Polished as you can see the Chromed valve covers look quite different.

Rich

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Here is the work order information which we just discovered yesterday. This is exciting to us. My jaw dropped yesterday when my friend showed it to me. He said go ahead and post it up. I said what? You kidding? Done!! He is in total "share mode" now and is very happy he can share this for all to learn.

I wish many thanks to the person who shared this significant piece of 1957 Corvette Super Sport history to us and the Corvette Community. Feel free to jump in if you'd like. Thank You !!!

So.... A red 1956 Corvette, E56S001589, was on display in the GM building in early 1956. I suppose since this car was a special display for everyone who walked into the GM building, they felt it imperative to make sure it looked nice. It would be quite exciting to locate a picture of the car when it was on display then. Maybe it's out there somewhere.

Then, on April 26th, a work order was placed to dress it up and do a mini-restoration on it. Imagine, a brand new '56 Corvette sitting in the headquarters display area needing a body-on freshening-up to ensure it stayed a "Quality Corvette".

As you'll read, the Power Top unit was replaced. I'm wondering why they would go to the trouble of replacing it, when the car had a Hard Top installed on it. Interesting. They also replaced the soft top lid with a "overformed" lid, which I have no idea what that is. Anyone have any ideas?

Remember the photo of the soft top lid above in my earlier posts? It has red paint on the area where the lid lift cylinder hinge arm mounts. The lid that's presently on the car must be this "overformed" lid, because they must have painted the lid in the paint shop by itself and covered the hinge area with paint, then installed it on the car and fastened the hinge to the lid. Normal production cars would have the hinge already mounted to the lid before paint, so there would normally be bare fiberglass under the hinge. They scrapped the original lid.

The information states the car work was completed June 28, 1956 and it was sent back to the GM Building display area. So this means the car was sent to Styling some time after that on Shop Order# 90181 to become the Super Sport Show Car, then by late November or early December it was completed as the Super Sport. Maybe there's another Work Order out there which moved the car over to Styling. We are on the hunt for that one and would help define when this fuelie was actually built.

Also, yesterday we went over our own "freshening-up" plan. I will add extra circuit fuse protection using my "removable for judging method", whereas no wires will be cut when I add fuses for the Main Feed and the Ignition circuit.

We also had to send out a email and some pictures of the car up to some Italian sounding island place in northeastern Florida. Yup, you guessed it. The car has been invited to the Amelia Island Concours. Bill told him he can have any display area he wants and suggested the 18th Green. Bill has been trying to get this car up there for many years. It's up in the air but it's quite a honor for the car to be invited. We'll see what happens. It's funny in a way. My friend and his wife and myself and my wife were already planning to go up this year on late Saturday and stay over for the day Sunday. Looks like we may need to go up a bit sooner if this happens.

Also, I keep mentioning San Antonio to him. We were out most of the day yesterday and I'd bring it up now and then. He's not really sure if he wants to do that. I keep telling him that many of you would love to see it in person. I'll keep working on him for you all. To me, that might be more fun than the Island.

More to Come,
Rich

[Michael J.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

This is all very interesting, I am wondering now what the FI unit's serial number was. Since the previously reported first fuelie has #3, and it was a full engineering test car Zora used, I wonder where in the sequence a design display car would have been.

[Carl D.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

[QUOTE=Here is the work order information which we just discovered yesterday. ] Rich, I do not see the work order information posted. Are you going to put it up? Or did you post it and my computer didn't get it? Thank you, Carld

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

.] Rich, I do not see the work order information posted. Are you going to put it up? Or did you post it and my computer didn't get it? Thank you, Carld

Carl it's a pdf attachment at the bottom of my previous post.

Rich

[Michael J.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

It is an attached file, your computer should have downloaded it when you clicked on it.

[Carl D.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Thank you it did not come through on the original post. Got it. Wow, am I learning a lot. Thank you, Carld

[Edmund C.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Rich: This is an incredible article on the 1957 Super Sport. It's very well-researched; informative; and the storyline and photographs are historically amazing. Well done; you should consider giving up your day job and go into writing. The "owner" is fortunate to have you as a friend. There's certainly lots of buzz on this vehicle among both national and international collectors. It'd be a jewl in anyone's collection. Thanks for sharing it. Best, Ned

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Rich: This is an incredible article on the 1957 Super Sport. It's very well-researched; informative; and the storyline and photographs are historically amazing. Well done; you should consider giving up your day job and go into writing. The "owner" is fortunate to have you as a friend. There's certainly lots of buzz on this vehicle among both national and international collectors. It'd be a jewl in anyone's collection. Thanks for sharing it. Best, Ned

Ned, Thanks. This is a highlight I will never forget. The car is really the one telling story and I'm just writing down what she's whispering to me.

Rich