Fact Check Please

[Jim L.]

Re: Fact Check Please

This photo of GS chassis 004 came from the Revs Institute in Naples FL. It is the best automotive museum I have ever seen. Much better than the fine Peterson Museum of LA in my opinion. GS 004 is actually in the Revs museum in its final race configuration, unrestored and beautiful.

GS #004 most definitely HAS been restored. In the '80s, it was campaigned here on the left coast in something like its Nassau '63 livery, which looks nothing like the car looks today.

You may be thinking of the GS #002 roadster. Altho the chassis was treated to an extensive restoration, it wears its unrestored body with the same paint and livery as it wore when last raced.

[Patrick B.]

Re: Fact Check Please

GS #004 most definitely HAS been restored. In the '80s, it was campaigned here on the left coast in something like its Nassau '63 livery, which looks nothing like the car looks today.

You may be thinking of the GS #002 roadster. Altho the chassis was treated to an extensive restoration, it wears its unrestored body with the same paint and livery as it wore when last raced.

[Jim L.]

Re: Fact Check Please

Lewmme see if I can unscramble this without being a total hijack of the original point of this thread.

Early in this century Grand Sport #002 was restored to its pre-race condition by a fellow in Norcross Ga whose name escapes me at the moment. This restoration included the reproduction of a compleat new body, the most accurate re-creation ever attempted. When compleated, #002 looked like this:

121009_8.jpg
1963GS002-01.jpg

#002 was displayed like this for a few years. Ultimately, the original, real-deal, un-restored, survivor Grand Sport body was re-united with the restored chassis. This body wears the ***actual paint and livery*** as it wore when last this vehicle turned a wheel in anger back in the '60s.

071417_11b.jpg

4494071658_42ab312b06_b.jpg


DELMO Johnson (NOT Junior Johnson) and Dave Morgan co-drove a different Grand Sport, #004, a coupe.

6fe6ff81c2c380f6f7b9dbb2e175723a.jpg

This Grand Sport also competed at the 1963 Nassau Bahamas "Run whacha brung" race at which the Grand Sports overall were 11 seconds PER LAP faster than the Cobra entries.

In this livery GS #004 wore a white nose stripe (not shown here in this picture from Nassau)

91868b0f58bf7ffabe8613cd3509ac73.jpg

It was in the Nassau livery, more or less, that GS #004 competed in left coast vintage races in the '80s. Those fortunate enough to have attended the 1987 Monterey Historics got to see what was perhaps the finest ever race between Grand Sport #003, Grand Sport #004, and the also-ran Cobras. It wasn't even close. If you missed that once-in-a-lifetime event, I feel for you.

78468.jpg

Sometime after Monterey 1987, Grand Sport #004 was restored to the appearance and race livery it wore AFTER the Nassau '63 Cobra rout. It is this appearance it sports to this day:

Grand_Sport_004-10.jpg
Grand_Sport_004-1.jpg


Does this clear things up??

[Jim L.]

Re: Fact Check Please

Epilogue:

Beyond the end of the relevance of the Grand Sport front engine architecture, long after mid engine racers were the state of the art, GS #001 was retrofitted with an L88 and competed at Sebring against the emerging F*rd GT40s. They held their own.

Said A. J. Foyt, "What’s in that damn dinosaur? It went by me like I was stopped.”

[Patrick B.]

Re: Fact Check Please

Lewmme see if I can unscramble this without being a total hijack of the original point of this thread.

Early in this century Grand Sport #002 was restored to its pre-race condition by a fellow in Norcross Ga whose name escapes me at the moment. This restoration included the reproduction of a compleat new body, the most accurate re-creation ever attempted. When compleated, #002 looked like this:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]120504[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]120506[/ATTACH]

#002 was displayed like this for a few years. Ultimately, the original, real-deal, un-restored, survivor Grand Sport body was re-united with the restored chassis. This body wears the ***actual paint and livery*** as it wore when last this vehicle turned a wheel in anger back in the '60s.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]120505[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]120507[/ATTACH]


DELMO Johnson (NOT Junior Johnson) and Dave Morgan co-drove a different Grand Sport, #004, a coupe.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]120508[/ATTACH]

This Grand Sport also competed at the 1963 Nassau Bahamas "Run whacha brung" race at which the Grand Sports overall were 11 seconds PER LAP faster than the Cobra entries.

In this livery GS #004 wore a white nose stripe (not shown here in this picture from Nassau)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]120509[/ATTACH]

It was in the Nassau livery, more or less, that GS #004 competed in left coast vintage races in the '80s. Those fortunate enough to have attended the 1987 Monterey Historics got to see what was perhaps the finest ever race between Grand Sport #003, Grand Sport #004, and the also-ran Cobras. It wasn't even close. If you missed that once-in-a-lifetime event, I feel for you.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]120510[/ATTACH]

Sometime after Monterey 1987, Grand Sport #004 was restored to the appearance and race livery it wore AFTER the Nassau '63 Cobra rout. It is this appearance it sports to this day:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]120511[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]120512[/ATTACH]


Does this clear things up??

[Jim L.]

Re: Fact Check Please

Yes, Jim. I knew there was a 60’s driver named Johnson who was not Junior Johnson. Thanks for reminding me of Delmo. So GS#004 has been restored and/or reconfigured several times : began in Nassau livery and small block (327 or 377?); second livery as raced by Johnson and Morgan - at some point raced with 427; repainted in Nassau colors and vintage raced (with 427?); repainted in time frame of Johnson/Morgan; refitted with aluminum 377 (done by Revs or last restorer?). All this is very interesting to Corvette lovers. I really liked the picture of GS #004’s original configuration looking a lot like at stock 63, ready to race 289 Cobras.

Back up just a bit.....

I'm not aware of GS #004 ever running a big block engine. If you've got information about such an install, I'd like to know more.

GS #003 got a back-door 427 for Sebring '65 when it was in the hands of the Sevadjian family.

GS #001 got an L88 (See AJ Foyt's comments) in '66 or maybe '67 (I'm too lazy to look up which year that was.)

GS #001 also got three (3!) back-door L88s while owned by privateer OJ (Jerry) Hanna in the '68 time frame (source private conversation with OJ in 2005).

For Nassau '63, ALL three Grand Sport coupes (#003, #004, #005) ran aluminum 377 SBC engines (per private conversation with Jim Hall in 2013) and whupped the pants off the Cobras (per Shelby historian and photographer Dave Friedman).

Clear?

[Paul P.]

Re: Fact Check Please

I like the direction this post has gone.

I'm planning a Grand Sport feature sometime in the future. The Fact Check request for that one will be interesting.

~paul

[Gary C.]

Re: Fact Check Please

BTW, the D. Johnson is

Gary
....

[Patrick B.]

Re: Fact Check Please

Back up just a bit.....

I'm not aware of GS #004 ever running a big block engine. If you've got information about such an install, I'd like to know more.

GS #003 got a back-door 427 for Sebring '65 when it was in the hands of the Sevadjian family.

GS #001 got an L88 (See AJ Foyt's comments) in '66 or maybe '67 (I'm too lazy to look up which year that was.)

GS #001 also got three (3!) back-door L88s while owned by privateer OJ (Jerry) Hanna in the '68 time frame (source private conversation with OJ in 2005).

For Nassau '63, ALL three Grand Sport coupes (#003, #004, #005) ran aluminum 377 SBC engines (per private conversation with Jim Hall in 2013) and whupped the pants off the Cobras (per Shelby historian and photographer Dave Friedman).

Clear?

Jim- You are the expert on GS racing history, and I cannot add anything. My only knowledge of GS racing is from listening to Dick Thompson speak several times to my local Corvette club in the 70’s. He explained that the GS was meant to compete with Cobras as a production sports car, but because only 5 were produced, it was forced to compete in the same class as Chaparrals and Lolas. In this class it became obsolete quickly, and GSs ended their racing days with 427’s in a futile attempt to remain competitive. Thompson lamented the loss of lightness and increase of suspension stiffness to accommodate the iron 427’s. It was certainly true that GS 001, 002 and 003 were fitted with 427’s. If GS 004 did not finish its racing days with a 427, I assume that it must have been retired from racing before 1966. Is that true? Did it compete in vintage racing with an aluminum 377 or with something else?

GM began supplying aluminum 427’s to Jim Hall in 1967. It is too bad the GS racers had only the iron block engines in that time frame.

[Wayne M.]

Re: Fact Check Please

Minor point: Lime Rock Park is in Connecticut not New York. I raced there frequently back in the day.

[Duke W.]

Re: Fact Check Please

If GS 004 did not finish its racing days with a 427, I assume that it must have been retired from racing before 1966. Is that true? Did it compete in vintage racing with an aluminum 377 or with something else?.

After a decade of obscurity, I recall the first GS to be restored and hit the vintage racing circuit was 004 owned by Bob Patterson of Woodside CA. I recall first seeing him at a Riverside vintage race, circa 1977, and he gave the Cobras a good whippin' in the big bore race.

He also attended some of Lynn Parks' Cobra Owners' Club of America track time events at Willow Spring in the '80s when I was running my Cosworth Vega with that group. I recall something about an aluminum small block that he maybe purchased from Jim Hall and maybe it blew up???

My memory is a bit hazy on the subject, but maybe Jim Lockwood can fill us in.

Duke

[Jim L.]

Re: Fact Check Please

My memory is a bit hazy on the subject, but maybe Jim Lockwood can fill us in.

Duke

I appreciate your confidence in my knowledge but I know very little about that time frame.

About all I can add is that Bob Paterson owned both #003 and #004 at one time. #004 was sold to Jamie Mazzotta sometime prior to 1987. It was the Bob and Jamie show, them driving #003 and #004 respectively, at the 1987 Monterey Historics which was the stand-out event of that weekend.

[Duke W.]

Re: Fact Check Please

Yeah, I was there. Chevrolet was the honored marque, and I had my Cosworth Vega in the special Chevrolet customer car lot. We got to take a parade lap, so I installed my "offroad" open exhaust that exits under the RH rocker panel at about the mid point of the door.

Exiting Turn 9 I got into a drag race with a C2, and about the time I hit 7000 revs in second gear he missed a shift. He probably got spooked from the sound of that little 2-liter four-cylinder blasting three feet from his ear, which is loud enough to wake up the dead.

Duke

[Peter G.]

Re: Fact Check Please

All the Lightweight Grand Sports were historically documented in my book back in 2008.

https://corvettelegends.com/book/

If you don't have a copy, you need to get one before they are all sold.

Back up just a bit.....

I'm not aware of GS #004 ever running a big block engine. If you've got information about such an install, I'd like to know more.

GS #003 got a back-door 427 for Sebring '65 when it was in the hands of the Sevadjian family.

GS #001 got an L88 (See AJ Foyt's comments) in '66 or maybe '67 (I'm too lazy to look up which year that was.)

GS #001 also got three (3!) back-door L88s while owned by privateer OJ (Jerry) Hanna in the '68 time frame (source private conversation with OJ in 2005).

For Nassau '63, ALL three Grand Sport coupes (#003, #004, #005) ran aluminum 377 SBC engines (per private conversation with Jim Hall in 2013) and whupped the pants off the Cobras (per Shelby historian and photographer Dave Friedman).

Clear?