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CORVETTE TODAY #250 - The Legend of the Corvette SS
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Jul 12, 2025
Many people do not know the story of the Corvette SS and maybe have never heard of it. It was the first purpose-built GM racecar and personal project of Zora Arkus Duntov's. It was raced in 1957 at the 12 Hours of Sebring by John Fitch. A number of technological features were first tested on this car, including fuel injection. This car will be sold at auction at Sotheby's in Miami in February 2025. Your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett, is joined by Jan Hyde, Corvette race car historian and founder of Registry Of Corvette Race Cars.com. Jan gives us the complete backstory of this legendary Corvette. You'll learn about it's origins, it's development, it's racing pedigree and the estimated price it will sell for at auction. Learn about an integral piece of Corvette racing history, the Corvette SS, on this episode of CORVETTE TODAY.
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0:00
[Music] Welcome to Corvette Today, the show that
0:06
talks about everything Corvette with your host Steve Garrett, lifetime member of the National Corvette Museum,
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president of the Corvette Club of Kansas City, Missouri, and radio disc jockey at the number one radio station in Kansas
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City for over 45 years. Here's Steve Garrett.
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Thanks for listening and watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything Corvette and the only
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current podcast dedicated to Corvette. I'm your host, Steve Garrett. I appreciate you tuning in. Corvette Today
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is brought to you by Wheelcraft. Want to dress up your Corvette with bright chrome or black chrome wheels? Visit
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And a shout out to Canadian Corvette Forum and Corvette Forum welcoming Corvette enthusiasts from around the
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world. Coming up in February at Sabes Miami, the one and only first Corvette prototype race car will be sold at
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auction. Returning to Corvette today to tell the story is Jan Hyde. Jan is the
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Corvette race car historian. He's the co-founder and manager of registry of corvette racecars.com. And Jan was
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actually on Corvette today number 22 back in September of 2020 to talk more about the registry of Corvette race
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cars. But today we are going to be talking about the Corvette SS. Jan, welcome back to Corvette today, my
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friend. Hey Steve, it's a great pleasure. Thank you. Jan, let's get right into it. Give me
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the backstory on the Corvette SS. Well, Steve, the backstory is that the museum
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at the Indie Motor Speedway is going through a big renovation and they have
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decide to sell some seven cars in their collection that don't actually relate to
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race cars that ran at the ND500. And so, the Corvette SS is one of those
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cars. We talked a little bit about graphics and we have a lot of photos of this car which maybe we can use. I want
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to put in a big thank you to Lewis Galanos who's an author and historian
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who is known Sebring backwards and forwards and can he curated photos
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especially by a photographer whose name was Jean Busian who showed up at that time and got all these candid shots that
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you wouldn't find from a PR point of view and also to Doug Morton who is an
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incredible seing race car historian and has hundreds and hundreds of photos So,
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having paid our thank yous to them, the story really begins in 1955
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because, as we know, the Corvette was not doing so well before they they had
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the Blue Flame 6 and it was overpriced and they weren't selling very many of those cars. Obviously, the Corvette SS
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was a creation of Harley Earl, who you know was a great stylist. But let's go
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back a little bit to 1956 if we could. In 1956, Ed Cole, who was the chief
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engineer of Chevrolet, developed a V8 engine. It was 265 cubic in, and it
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packed more punch and it weighed a lot less than the blue flame 6, which is
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installed in the 1953 and 54 models. At that time we also know that Zora Dunto
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who racing in his DNA knew this car was not selling too well and he prevailed
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upon Ed Cole and the folks at GM they say hey we've got to prove this car in
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competition or it's going to die and I don't think that GM folks wanted that to
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happen. The place to race his car was Sebring and this was in late 1955 and
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the 12 hours of Sebring was coming up on March 24th of 1956. It was only months
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away. Dant was very very worried. There was not enough time to prepare this car.
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Smokey Unic, I think we've all heard about him. He was a guru of race cars in Daytona. They sent him a 1956 Corvette.
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His comment was, "This thing doesn't handle better than a manure spreader. It's too heavy. It can't stop.
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Everything's wrong." Of course, they were upset and they didn't want to have anything more to do with Smokey after that. But nonetheless, Zoro legitimately
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was very concerned because he felt that if the Corvette failed, the odds were
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not very good. He would be very embarrassed. It was one of those times. I think we all try to summon up our
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courage, but Zora honestly felt that, hey, maybe it's better not me. Ed Cole
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was not a man to sit on his hands. He said, "Look, I'm going to go find John Fitch." John Fitch was really America's
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top sports car racer at that time. One of the incredible things about John
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Fitch is he was the only American invited to drive for the MercedesBenz
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race car team. and he would have possibly continued but you know there was this huge crash at Milman's in 1955
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and Mercedes dropped out of racing right but in any event we have John Fitch they
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put this car together it's unbelievable they had to build these cars so fast that they scavengered frames off of 1955
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Corvettes they got rid of those bodies they put the 56 body on which you knew was a big improvement and had roll up
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windows didn't have those silly side curtains and all this stuff. They got the car into the race. And the
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interesting thing also is there were three other Corvettes that were part of this entry also. It was called Raceway
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Enterprises because GM did not want to tell the world they were behind this. But in any event, they had four cars in
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here. And there was the five, six, and seven cars which did not finish. But Fitch's car was a little bit extra
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prepared. I think he had a four-speed transmission, a little hotter motor, and he was in a class that turned out to be
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a one of one because Ford Thunderbird was going to do an entry, and they dropped out at the last minute.
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Wow. So, long story short, John Fitch and Walt Hanskin, all they had to do was finish, but they did. Fish was an
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intellect. He said, "We got more than we expected and more than we deserved."
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However, the interesting thing is that the folks at GM, they know how to tell
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stories. and they said, "Wow, we won a 12-hour race in our first time out. This
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is terrific." That was the impetus to go all out. Instead of going to win a
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class, there was Maserati, there was Ferrari and Jaguar. They were going for the number one. They said, "Hey, let's
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build something super special, a prototype." That was the genesis of the
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Corvette SS. It was originally called Experiment Project 64. Jan, let's take
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our first break here and when we come back, we'll talk more about the Corvette SS coming up next here on Corvette
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Jan Hyde. We are talking about the famous Corvette SS that's going to be auctioned off at Saves Miami in February
13:42
of 2025. Jan, a lot of elements of this car were borrowed from other brands, weren't it?
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That's correct. General Motors say, "Hey, we're pretty hopped up by winning in 1956. let's develop a Carter when the
13:55
whole thing the prototypes at the time were Ferrari, Maserati, and Jaguar.
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Thanks to what Fitch knew about the Mercedes because he raced with them and
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he was an engineer also may not be aware of it. Pretty sharp guy. The chassis was
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built quickly from scratch, but it bore a lot of traits from Mercedes. But
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notwithstanding, the Corvette SS was again done on a very short timeline, and
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it was riddled with problems leading to failure that put that car out of action for good. As we shall see, by happen
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stance, an offshoot of the Corvette SS became the precursor of the Stingray
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look. The offshoot came from a car called the Mule. Duntov thought, "Wow, I
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know that this car is going to be styled to the max, but this race is coming up and we don't know much about Sebring and
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how it's going to work out." So, he took the initiative to build a car. It was
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kind of rough looking, but it would mimic the Corvette SS in most respects,
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mechanically and all that. So, this car was called the Mule. And again, with no
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time to lose, Fitch was stationed at Sebring and they gave him this car and
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he spent January, February, and March pounding around that track finding every
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possible defect. I mean, the brakes weren't very good and wasn't handling and it could overheat. So, what they had
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to do then is go back to GM and order parts that they would make and put a
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part number off it, ship it back down there, put it onto the car, go run it out again, and try to get it ready for
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the race, which is in March 23rd, 1957. It's worth a minute to talk about the
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mule because we're all familiar with Bill Mitchell who pioneered the stingray look. He took over for Harley Earl when
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the Corvette SS failed. And we can get into that a little bit. This mule was hanging around and Bill Mitchell again
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was a pretty dynamic guy and he said, "Wow, I'm gonna buy that thing." And he paid for it, pay GM, out of his own
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pocket and he designed this body that was the precursor of the Stingray. He
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hired Dick Thompson, who was one of the big Corvette racers of the time, to drive it. The car was incredibly light.
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It weighed only 1,850 lbs. It was lighter than a standard Corvette by about 1,000 lbs. and Dick Thompson won
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the SECA C modified championship in 1960. Yeah. So Harley Earl and his stylists back in
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Michigan were going over every detail and they were did a great job. They chose to make the body out of magnesium
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because it was lighter and it saved weight. But here again, because they don't have a chance to test things out,
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magnesium conducted a lot more heat. When they got the Corvette SS down
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there, even a short amount of time, the cockpit heat became a real problem. And you know, when you're driving a race
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car, the last thing you need to be is not be comfortable, right? During the time that the SS was being
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worked on back in Michigan, Zora Dunto was buzzing all over Sebring when he
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could and he sought out the great Sterling Moss and Juan Miguel Fangio. He
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said, "Hey, you know, I'd like you guys to try this car out. you know, it may be a little bit crude, but give it a go.
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Each of them agreed, okay, we're going to get into this thing. And they went out and each of them beat the lap record
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at Sebring. Wow. That's how good this car was going to be mechanically. But they also had some
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great misgivings because they said, "Hey, they knew the real car was still being worked on. In fact, people say it
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was still being worked on in his trailer on the way to Sebring." and they said, "Wow, this thing's gonna arrive way too
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late. It's not going to get worked out." And they were 100% right. Dunto
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recruited someone called Pierro Terufi. He's written books on racing. He was an
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Italian called the Silver Fox. And he said, "Pack your bag and get over here. We're going to drive the Corvette SS."
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Nice. Anyway, arriving the day before the race, turned out the Corvette completed
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just 23 laps. A bushing in the rear suspension had collapsed. that couldn't be fixed. But there were other problems,
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too. There were brake balance issues and all kinds of things. So, that led to unfortunately the demise of the Corvette
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SS. What ultimately happened to the SS? Well, here's what happened. They said, "Okay, no big deal. You know, we learned
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our lesson, but we're going to go prepare for LAMA. That's where we're going to be able to have a chance to race this car and prove it again." I
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think the prototype and again I'm not sure people knew at the time but the track at Sebring which is made up of
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airport runways and asphalt and all kinds of things it pounded the heck out of cars and people felt that 12 hour
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sebring if you could get through that you had a better chance of lemons but that's just another thing and again I
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don't want to go into this right now but I did a little homework on a man named Alec Alman ul l mm-m who started the
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race at Sebring and it's a fascinating story because he was such a interesting
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engineer race car pioneer guy in SECA. And so the Sebring race and we might
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talk about a little bit later became the crucible for Corvettes when they developed Corvettes over the years. Very
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shortly after Sebring was April 1957, GM pulled the plug. They said, "We are
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getting out of sports car racing." And it turned out that put the Corvette SS out of commission. It was toast. It
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would never race again. The official word was safety, but the real reason was
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much more sinister because the threat of corporate breakup at the hands of US
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government was a real threat. There were antirust watchd dogs out there. They
19:47
noted, Steve, that GM controlled 50% of the market. Wow. In fact, Eisenhower was president
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at the time and his secretary of defense formerly was president of General Motors
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and his name was Charles Wilson. His quote was, "What's good for General
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Motors is good for the country." Now, this was some serious serious issues.
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Race fans are very upset about this to the day, but you know, when it comes to a big corporate issue, it dwarfs
20:18
everything else. Yeah. So GM being a public company, what do they typically do? They sent these things to the
20:24
Crusher. You know what? That's a good place for us to take a break, Jan. Let's take our final break. We'll talk about the
20:29
Crusher and what happened ultimately to the SS coming up next on Corvette today.
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And now back to the only current podcast on Corvettes, Corvette Today with your host, Steve Garrett.
24:01
Thanks once again for listening and watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything Corvette.
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Corvette Today is brought to you by Wheelcraft. I know you want your Corvette looking its best. We'll dress it up with bright chrome or black chrome
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wheels. Visit wheelcraft.com. Learn about their advanced PVD chrome finishing. They can refinish your wheels
24:19
or do a wheel exchange and you also get a 5-year warranty. So visit wheelcraft.com today or just give them a
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call 8336394231. I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me is
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Jan Hyde. Jan and I are talking about the legendary Corvette SS that will be sold in February 2025 at Sabes in Miami.
24:40
In our last segment, Jan, you said fate intervened because the Corvette SS was destined for the crusher. This has got
24:47
to be a great backstory. What happened to the Corvette SS and why did it not go to the Crusher?
24:53
Well, again, we can thank Zora Arcus Dunto for that. While he played a great part in engineering and designing the
25:00
SS, there's probably something emotional in Zora. There's a lot of emotion in Zora to be honest with you. He was
25:07
concerned about this. GM being very profit and lossoriented. They said, you know, we can't have this thing hanging
25:12
around. It's going to cost us money. He managed to dodge those folks for a while. He hid the car and he also
25:19
reached out to the folks at the Indianapolis Speedway Museum. It was kind of getting started at the time
25:25
also, right? And he prevailed on them to take the car. Some people say he hustled out in
25:31
the darkness of night. I don't know about that, but the car was moved to the Indie Museum. It has been there until
25:38
now when the in museum, as we mentioned, is selling off some cars to help in a big makeover. The nice thing about the
25:45
Indie Museum is that they were very willing to lend the Corvette SS for
25:51
display. So, a good part of the story is a happy part because instead of just
25:57
sitting there under wraps or in a corner, they were willing if you showed up and I guess you had to sign and shure
26:04
it and make sure it was going to not get hurt and all that, bring it back. Of course, the car did get around. Now, I can't
26:11
talk about all of them, but I'm very attracted and emotional about this car if you haven't figured that out by now.
26:17
We raced a straight axle Corvette in vintage races and that took me out to Monterey in 1987. Steve Earl hold to
26:25
Monterey Historic and I think that was a 75th anniversary of Chevrolet and
26:30
believe it or not they reunited John Fitch and Zora Duntov with the Corvette
26:37
SS there. The thing that was kind of amusing to me because I enjoy thinking
26:42
about people and their personalities. John Fitch drove that car around on the
26:47
paceel laps. Zora was not allowed to drive the car and yet it was his
26:54
creation. And this probably got him a little bit steamed. But I think he and
26:59
Fitch got along, but there might have been some strains of resentment going
27:04
back when Zora took himself out of the 1956 project and Fitch stepped in.
27:10
Yeah. But anyway, I had another encounter with a Corvette SS in June
27:15
2013. Tony Pereella had taken over SVR. It's a big vintage racing organization.
27:21
And Tony has huge ambitions and he prevailed on the Indie Motor Speedway to
27:26
have a big vintage race weekend. And so the Corvette SS which was at the museum
27:33
was rolled out. We got a good chance to interact with it at that time. Another time was more recent. couple more times.
27:40
In September of 2022, Limerock, they jumped the gun on the 70th anniversary
27:46
of Corvette. They had an event there in 2022, a year early, and they did an
27:51
incredible job. There were some fellas who just really knew their way inside GM and they got race cars and all kinds of
27:58
displays going on. And in fact, Mark Royce, the the president of GM, came there. He's the coolest guy. And so they
28:04
brought the SS to what they call Limerock Historic Festival 40. Finally,
28:10
last September of 2023, not 2024. There was a great event in Pontiac, Michigan
28:17
at a place called the M1 Concourse. Steve, if you haven't been there, you might want to try to check it out. It's
28:24
a track that was built on like 80 or 90 acres. It was formerly a GM plant that
28:30
some folks got a hold of and they reszoned it and they have it's like a motorsports country club. They have all
28:35
these garage condominiums around there and they have a racetrack and so they can drive around the track and also keep
28:42
their prized possessions there. It's really cool. We had the Corvette SS there. Now we are up to present and and
28:48
the Corvette SS is going to go for sale. Yeah, I was going to ask you Jan Sabes has this estimated at5 to 7 million. Do
28:56
you think that's an accurate assessment of the value of this car? Yeah, I think people have said the market for car, especially cars like
29:02
this is quote paper thin. The auction companies though are pretty sharp. They know what they're doing. I'm not sure
29:09
you might have seen it, but they've already come out, you can find it on the internet, they come out with their hype
29:14
about this car. To their credit, usually the auction companies say, "Oh, this car won it. It won that and blah blah blah
29:21
blah blah." But in this case, never won anything and got stopped in its tracks. But the cool thing about this is it's
29:28
extremely authentic. It took place in a pivotal time in Corvette racing history.
29:35
And the personalities involved, you know, from Ed Cole to Harley Earl to Jorah Dunto and John Fitch and Bill
29:42
Mitchell, these are huge personalities and they all had some kind of an imprint
29:49
on this car. I for one feel very gratified to have this car, but the
29:54
price tag might be an issue. All they have to do is maybe bring in some shield biders or whatever it is. I don't know
30:01
about you, Steve, I think they're going to do a good job. And I think whether it's 5 million or 6 million or 7
30:06
million. My hope is the GM Heritage Collection, which not sure you've been
30:12
to, but it's a wonderful place, it's expanding, relocating from Sterling Heist to Grand Blanc Township. That's
30:18
where the Stingray Racer sits. The Corvette SS and the Stingray Racer are really joined at the hips because, as we
30:25
said, the Stingray Racer is built on the underpinnings of the Corvette SS. So, if
30:31
GM can prevail, and I don't think $5 million or $7 million, that's a speed
30:36
bump in their budget, right? I think that would be a nice thing. But I'm saying this strictly out of
30:41
sentiment. I'm not being practical, but that's my feelings. And then on the other hand, I think that the folks at
30:47
the Corvette Museum, it's a great place for a display there. And instead of having to put up the money, I'm sure
30:55
consistent with the IMS lending out this, GM would be happy to lend the
31:00
Corvette SS out for display at the museum. I'm going to end up with this. I don't know about you, Steve, but when I
31:06
look at this car, and if you see a picture of me next to this thing at the M1 Conquerors, I got my hands wrapped
31:12
around this thing. I could almost make love with this car. I'm kissing it. It just brings out the best feeling. You
31:19
cannot look at this car and say, "I hate that." If you're talking about a symbol of Goodwill and what GM and everybody
31:26
else tries to do on a social media, I think the Corvette SS is a home run. So,
31:31
if I can finish it at that, I hope that that's satisfactory. That's a great place to finish. Jan,
31:36
thank you so much for being back on Corvette today, my friend. It has been too long. Let's make the next one a lot
31:42
closer to this one. Okay. Great. Thanks a lot, Stephen. Best for the new year. Thanks again for listening
31:47
and watching Corvette Today. And be sure to tell your family, friends, and other Corvette enthusiasts about the Corvette
31:53
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