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[Music] welcome to corvette today the podcast
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that talks about everything corvette with your host steve garrett mc and dj at one of the largest corvette weekends
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in the country corvette fun fest president of the corvette club of kansas city missouri and radio disc jockey at
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the number one radio station in kansas city for over 40 years here's steve garrett
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thanks for listening to corvette today the podcast that talks about everything corvette i'm your host steve garrett i
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welcoming corvette owners from around the world in 1960 briggs cunningham took
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three c1 corvettes to race at le mans the number three car won its class that year but what happened to those cars
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after they raced at le mans well the number three car that won the race is now owned by lance miller the owner of
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carlisle events and corvettes at carlisle the number two car is owned by bruce myers who's a big car collector in
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los angeles but what happened to that number one car well my guest on corvette today returns to the show to tell you
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the history of the number one car what happened to it and where it is now plus the future plans for it i welcome back
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to the show kevin mckay the legendary corvette hunter kevin welcome back to corvette today well thank you steve well
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blessed to be here i'm glad you're here buddy because this is a phenomenal story
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let's start off kevin talk about the history of that number one corvette well bruce cunningham was very very involved
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with racing at a early age got really into it i guess in his college days and was over at europe and watched some
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of these cars races you know i could do that one day he came from a very very successful family
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i know his family was in the meat packing business and i believe he married a young lady that was in the oil
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business money was never an issue with him and his family what was really cool about that his father died when he was
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only five years old he never really got to know his father that well and his mother said
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bricks promise me i know you just love racing promise me and i can do any race while i'm alive well so she passed away
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i was told he went berserk into racing and built his own cars and everything else in his dream was to win le mans the
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24-hour race overall and he did that on a few occasions i know he brought two cadillacs over there one was the monster
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car which is an amazing car itself and a 1950 cadillac didn't do too well there but it made a lasting impression on him
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for the years to come in 1960 there was never a corvette that ever entered at le mans and he was going to try that effort
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and ordered three corvettes right here in new york city at a place called don allen chevrolet they all got special
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treatment they were fuel injection and had large fuel tank in the car the first year for the big tank which is only 10
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produced that particular year which makes the extremely rare little white color with blue interior and then they
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went back to a place alfred momo had a jaguar distributor it was brought there and they were being worked on over there
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and did some serious modifications on them they put helibrand wheels on them they extend the tank from 24 to 37
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gallon tank and they put a roll bar in it they put two coils in it and two batteries and two fuel pumps remove the
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wiper system from the outer part of the dash on the passenger side to the center of the dash this way the wipers don't be
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clashing they put a hood louver in and they de-chromed the whole body of the car and they put a quick release
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halibrand fuel cup on the car and they put these a special airplane fighter seats in a car made out of aluminum they
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put like a blue and floor interior in the car they put like a special nascar dashboard setup in it jones tack the
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still wanted gauges rear quarter vents in the back of the hard top special side exhaust oil cooler also i even had an
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additional star switch inside the firewall of the car and so on also we had these special headlight covers on
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the car which is kind of cool if you look at the pictures online the three cunningham cars actually had they were
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red white and blue the number one cover had the white headlight covers the number two car had the blue headlight covers and of course the number three
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car had the red headlight covers so they'd be identified when they went around the track but two out of three started the race at sebring in march of
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1961st so this gets a little bit confusing but after all the research we've been involved with these cars that at sebring
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believe it or not the number one car at sebring would turn out to be the number three car at le mans oh which is very
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very important here and how we found that out when we hunted down the number three claire squinter car that's owned
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by lance miller now by body damage after we stripped that car down we noticed that the driving
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side front fender had some severe damage at sema because the car had a broken axle when john fitch was driving the car
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at sebring and crushed the driver's side fender and crush the hardtop on the car
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so they put a replacement fender only on that driver's side so when we stripped
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that car down we noticed they had these special little spring-loaded ferrari hood pins on the car to keep the hood down so the holes were still visible on
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the passenger side which was a virgin fender and on the driver's side we saw the ferrari holes evidence of that where
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there was a hood pin on that side too so we knew for a fact that the number one car at sea ring was the number three
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car at le mans very cool the number two car that was at sebring became the number one car at le mans that's it the
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other cunningham car was not ready yet so they bought the two at sebring and then in june they put the three out for
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the first time now briggs cunningham his nickname was called mr c and he was born out of cincinnati ohio and he was just
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obsessed with racing now kevin this car has been virtually unknown of its whereabouts for six years where was the
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car found the car was found down in saints peterburg florida in a warehouse
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when we were able to go back and do the research on the corvettes that race at le mans 1960 i was able to get a fax
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copy of the vin numbers of those cars that went to le mans in 1960. so i had
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the holy grail on my hands which is really cool at the time it was a 19-year search to try to find that car and of
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course the number two car was found in a junkyard but three hundred dollars back in 1980 by a guy named michael pillsbury
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wow the number three car we located in st louis back in 93 or 94. i remember
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after we got the shield numbers we got that call from an airline pilot believe it or not in st louis so the only car
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that has not been found was the number one car that was at one time registered down in tampa florida it was just pure
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luck i shared the serial number with lance's father chip miller who was a very very dear friend of mine since we
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got the number three car for chip at the time chip says kevin we got to go after the number one car you and me are best
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of friends let's hunt around we got the vin number which was the number 35 35 i think at that time was maybe seven years
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search chip and i were around we looked at every 60 corvette we could think of we went to a lot of car shows in the
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area every time we saw a 60 corvette we look underneath the hood of the car see if it's 35 35 maybe the guys who's
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driving on the street had no idea what he had but lo and behold i got inducted at bloomington gold everything called
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the great hall and i was one of the fortunate people that got inducted into that and at the time lance miller who
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i'm very very close with lance after ship passed away said to me kevin i got a call from a guy named larry berman it
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runs the cunningham website and there's a gentleman down in st petersburg that claims that he has the number 3535 and i
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said look lance why are you breaking my shoes right now i mean i'm about to be inducted into this thing i'm running
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late i got to get there in time because no no no no i'm telling the truth but what happened was this was when chip
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knew his life was shortened he gave the vin number to larry berman vermin took
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that and put that on his website so now the whole world knows about the cylinder car at the time i didn't know who larry
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berman was i didn't know there was even a cunningham website that lists all the serial numbers on the car so for a
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couple of years i don't think about this until one day chip gave the vin number to larry because look whatever you do
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don't tell kevin mckay that i gave you the vin number because he's going to be really upset with me but i think my days
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are numbers so i want you to have this maybe the number might be out there somewhere so it kind of turned out was
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when this gentleman had this custom corvette his name was rick carr and they took the cell number off the chassis and
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they did a google search and it came up larry berman's website of 3535 is the missing number one cunningham corvette
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that races lamar in 1960. so he got a hold of larry and larry knew the story about ship sharing that number with him
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he gets a hold of the son which is lance lance contacts me and basically the rest is really history because what happened
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was i really didn't believe lance because lance and i we practical jokers a lot of times when we get around so that's what friends do so after i came
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back from bloomington lance says kevin i'm going to get some photographs of the car this gentleman claims and i said
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lance i just don't believe you it's too good to be true this is like a bit like a 19-year search for me because look
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let's just see what happens so he gets these photographs he emails them to me and within a second i knew right away it
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was the number one cunningham car because the wiper hole was still there in the center of the body which just
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completely blew me away so instantly i got on the phone with that goes it's the car well how you know it's the car i said well look at that hole in the
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middle of the body that wiper hole that they moved the wiper transmission from the outside of the car to the middle of
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the car so the wipers wouldn't clash i said i can't believe it's the car and then they had the original serial number which was actually buried on the
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steering column because what happened was the car was so severely customized they put a 1956 57 front nose section on
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the car so as you know in 1958 to 1962 the corvettes had four headlights in the
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front right this car only had single headlights in the front had one on each side only two headlights on it so it
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could have been either a 53 to 57 corvette because of these single headlights in the front but we found out
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later on and i'll discuss that with you later on that i see this extremely customized corvette i said boy you know
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it doesn't look as uh you know a 60 mile a year because it's got single headlights on it but it was so customized and back then in the 60s and
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probably the 70s that was a very very common thing to do so i physically went down there and by the way the reason why
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they checked the frame numbers because they didn't think the car had a vin tag on it because on an earlier corvette the
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vent tags are on the driver's side door post and then sometime in early 1960
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they took the serial number tag or vinteg and they spot-wheeled it to the steering column on the car oh so when
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people looking at the car at the time there was no ceiling on it but was nice about that rick carr lift the body up on
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one side and was able to remove at least take a picture of the chassis numbers of 35 35 and realized it was a 60 corvette
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and that's how we did the google search and the rest was history so it's just kind of neat how this all kind of twisted and turned a whole bit
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hit the car sitting in this warehouse since 1976. wow we located a car sometime in about
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2012. that's amazing i tell you what let's take a quick break and in segment number two we're going to talk about the
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the state of kansas this is the corvette today podcast with
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steve garrett hey thanks for listening to corvette today the podcast that talks about
14:14
everything corvette i'm your host steve garrett with me is legendary corvette hunter and the owner of corvette repair
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in long island new york kevin mckay we're talking about the number one corvette from le mans 1960 and what
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happened to it in the second segment we're going to talk about a lot of different players claiming that they own
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that car kevin the legal battle kind of ensued because there are a lot of people that claim they own that number one car give
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us the entire back story of what happened after you guys found it well actually steve it's a very delicate
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topic to talk about that at all and i want to talk about positive things about the car and that negative things about
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the car and i want to just leave it like that only because it was just a very very bad time in my life that experience
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that i had but i think we came out the winner at the end the car is in our possession it's in the middle of a
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restoration which is great most people might not know yet who purchased the car back was the actual brix cunningham
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family and has hired a repair of alice in new york to do the complete restoration on the car which i'm just
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thrilled to death to be a part of it we do have the extensive experience that put that card together the proper way
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because we did that 20 something years ago with the number three class winner cars so we made a lot of duplicates of
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the parts of the car we have the knowledge and the experience and i'm just really really excited to start all
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over again because we've had literally thousands and thousands of hours of research on the cunningham effort i'm a
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little rusty right now i mean also a little bit older but i'm also a little bit wiser the lawsuit part of it i don't
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even want to discuss because it's behind me i can't change what has happened the thing is we have a very very happy
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ending that the car went to a great place i couldn't ask for to be at a better home which is very privileged to
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be a part of this whole thing here what i can talk about basically what's neat about the number one car out of the
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three cars are ordered out of don allen chevrolet the one car had a c z engine code which which is on the
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inspection sheet which that only car that had aluminum heads on it where the number two car and the number three car
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were coded c s as in sam and they were cast iron heads now the car was really
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at 290 horse car but they listed it on the spreadsheet as a 315 horse car which is okay another great story about the
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number one car the original individuals that are supposed to drive the car is supposed to be two drivers per car was
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actually brace cunningham himself and zoro august duntov wow wonderful story
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is that a gentleman named jerry burton who wrote the book about zoro august dontoff i was with another gentleman
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named franz x striker who was another engineer that lived down in michigan and i was visiting with franz we had lunch
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with jerry and jerry says what are you guys doing the rest of the day today i said well i'm just going to just go to
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shops and talk to people and that goes well if you're not have any plans later on today would you like to go to duntos
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home i said what wow i said really i said yeah elfie's still there we you know we go say hi hello to her i knew
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her over the years her and her husband so many shows that we've been to i said are you kidding me let's go we went
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there and she could be more gracious franz and i and jerry walked in there and i was able to go through the place
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just kevin go wherever you want to go i went through all her personal belongings and went through all these dresser
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drawers and closets you name it i went through it and i found this retirement book dated july of 74 to remember and
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there was like a two-page handwritten letter from brix cunningham and he's talking about the le mans effort which i
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was able to get a copy of that letter which is wonderful but in that letter i didn't know this but duncan was such an
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important driver an important employee for chevrolet that ed cole did not want to go over to lamar and briggs pleaded
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with ed cole to look he's a very important part of this team he has to be there i give you my word that i will not
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let him get behind the wheel of the car because cesaro was a good driver but he wasn't a great driver le mans is the
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most prestigious race in the world to me representing the united states like going to the olympics they got another
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general named bill kimberly who i think was at the time was like 24 years old to replace guntor but they wanted dun12
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there but i had this handwritten letter which is amazing not knowing that but duncan did go over there and it was so
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big part of that team and the effort when the car crashed that was the first car out of the race was number one car
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what had was cunningham started the race as a le mans start and hop in the car and took off and did very very well and
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then kimberly got into the car and it started raining i mean heavy rain like a wall of rain and i guess he went down a
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turn and lost control of the car and the car flipped over and burst into flames luckily enough the flames were was
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diminished quickly because let's face it when you're at a racetrack what's there emergency crew fire truck so they're
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able to get the back on the four wheels and they dragged it into the pits of course the car was out of race after 32 laps and we of course we know what
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happened with the number two car number three car they both did extremely well and knowing that the three car warner's class april world was just an amazing
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accomplishment in itself that's really important but what's seen about this we found the complete chain of ownership
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history on the car which is wonderful after the race at le mans in 1960 cunningham decided to get rid of the
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cars so they took out the original special engines and they put back the stock motors and they sold the cars to
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local people one general was a guy named perry barwell who was a known customizer good friends with bill frick who was in
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charge to sell the three cars perry took the car and started customizing the car and what it looked like when you saw the
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car online or rm emotion it looked exactly like that but it was in black and color believe it or not
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so actually this guy perry did all the customizing work and we had photographs of it back in april of 1962
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him customizing the car which is pretty cool wow also we even see a picture of the number one still on the door when he
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was customizing the car he's the gentleman that took a 56-57 nose and installed it on the front of the car and
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then modified the back of the car but he did use the original doors still got the original bird cage original flooring
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original firewall in the car that was all there of course the nose had to be changed the red clip had to be severely
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changed and repaired but the basic structure of the car was there the original rolling chassis where all the
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original suspension was still there the vent tag was still there knowing that we have all the history of ownership now
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the car was absolutely bulletproof and the work orders and the engineering drawings and all the confined letters
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from gm we were able to accumulate a lot of it there's still maybe some pieces we might be missing we have all the
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inspection sheets from le mans with all the steel numbers of all these cars so these cars are bulletproof a-z
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documentation i'm just thrilled to be a part of this because we started with nothing back in 1993 when we were able
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to get the first seal numbers of the cars so now we have also and we're still collecting stuff and people still donating stuff to us which is nice to
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see so we're really really excited to have eventually all three cars back together again we have decided when
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they're going to be debuted because we're still working on the number one car it's right in the middle of restoration right now as we speak but
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we're so damn excited to have the first time in history having all three cars together again since 1960. you're
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talking about 55 plus years i'm sorry 60 years it's pretty exciting that is exciting and it's amazing all the
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documentation that you've collected now in this year may of this year the car was sold at auction at rm auction talk
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about the sale the price and everything about the auction well i've been approached by the cunningham family a
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year before believe it or not they expect interest on the car i said to them that eventually the car will be for
21:36
sale according to the court order which it did i thought the car would go for more money be honest with you but i
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think people were afraid of the lawsuit at the time that a lot of people just ran away they wanted to do with it but
21:48
the cunningham family wanted that car back in their possession it was there from the very very beginning and i'm
21:53
just thrilled to be a part of that whole thing but i thought they got the car at a very very fair price for the amount of
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history that car really is i think once the car is done and it's debuted i think the value is going to soar like the
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other two cars are but knowing that all three cars have survived we just got to pick a place in time where would they
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view it i would love to bring those three cars back to le mans that'd just be insane so whether it'll be there
22:17
either at pebble beach or amelia island maybe at provides a carlisle i wouldn't mind there debuting it i think the
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public can't wait like i can't wait so we're actually to get this car done and it's going to take a little time because
22:28
the car is definitely rough but it's real most bars were beat to death we're going to make this car into a what they
22:34
call it a diamond in a rough for now yes kevin this car sold at auction at rm auction in may of 2021 for 685 000 and
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with the commission the drive-off price was 785 thousand dollars i thought that was
22:49
a good price but i agree with you it probably should have gone for more well i bought the car for 25 000 steve wow
22:56
originally okay and at the time the record price for a corvette to sell that fact was a car
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that went to sebring in 1960 it was also a big tank car one of ten built called the rat read car and that car was fully
23:11
restored still for four hundred thousand dollars so we went back to red car i said rick
23:16
i'm willing to pay a fair price for the car so these are the prices where these cars have went for at the time and this
23:21
car as you know needs a complete restoration it's not in the best condition but i really like to have the car we
23:28
came up with a price of 75 000 and he thought that was fair and i wasn't trying to take advantage of anybody but
23:34
that's the facts so i don't think there's another 60 corvette as of today that went for more than 785 000 i think
23:41
this car has broke a world record for a car that needs complete restoration it's not even in concourse condition it's
23:48
still a tremendous amount of money but i think because of the history and what we know about the car today i think the car
23:53
bring much more value than that down the pike but if i had a car that belonged to
23:58
my father that's priceless to me it's not about the money it's about wow that car was part of our family i want that
24:05
back in my family right that car's just priceless i mean knowing that the father or grandfather drove that car lamar he
24:11
was part of the team i could pick a better family to own that car than the cunningham family themselves getting
24:16
that car back in their family loom and kevin if there's any shop in the world that can take care of that car and
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restore it back to the way it was in 1960 it is your shop corvette repair in
24:27
valley stream new york that can do it because you guys are simply amazing buddy let's take our final break and
24:33
then in segment number three we're going to talk about where that corvette is now as far as restoration goes on corvette
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and now back to corvette today with your host and my husband steve garrett
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[Music] hey i appreciate you listening to corvette today the podcast that talks about everything corvette i'm your host
25:55
steve garrett with me is legendary corvette hunter and the owner of corvette repair in valley stream new
26:01
york kevin mckay in this final segment as you know kevin has that number one car from le mans in 1960 and his shop is
26:09
the only one that can repair it and bring it back to its 1960 livery so kevin you've got the car right now talk
26:16
about the condition of the car what the color was when you got it talk about what it's going to take to get that car
26:22
back to its livery from 1960 great steve i will we have a car at our shop right
26:27
now in our possession it was shipped directly from r.a martians directly to our facility in valley street long
26:33
island new york or corporate repair probably the following week we got right on it very very quickly here we removed
26:39
the nose off the car removed the rear section off the car it's amazing how much was still intact on that car
26:45
between the firewall the floor the steering column all the suspension was still there on the car the big tank was
26:51
still there on the car the front brake drums were still there on the car even the starter remote bracket was still on
26:57
the car also the fresh intake for the driver's side was still on the car some of the sebring exhaust brackets were
27:03
still in the car the fresh air tube was still on the car all the wiring was still on the car it was just
27:08
unbelievable the sebring cutouts for the exhaust that the back was still on the car i learned so much in that car
27:14
because when we had the number three car in our shop we learned so much on that car because our car had all the original body panels including the splice fender
27:20
that we discussed before that was done at sebring and then lamar they replaced that fender the car really was in
27:26
amazing shape considering that it just was an ugly car the car was more like a like a brownish burgundy color but a lot
27:34
of that behind that was a yellow paint and then there's some evidence of black paint and of course the original color
27:40
was white with a blue interior but the car was pretty amazing how much that was still attacking the car now we did take
27:46
the body off that car the frame that car is absolutely amazing there's not one pit on that frame you got to remember
27:53
that car sat in a warehouse since 1976 so you figure okay with my mathematics are correctly here 1960 to 1976 it's
28:00
only 16 years and probably three of the years or so it was being customized by perry barwell and then another gentleman
28:07
had the car for a while that painted yellow there's a guy named bobby bollinger who died at 32 years old of cancer and he sold to another guy in
28:14
tampa florida so that car pretty much sat most of its life it was on the road sometime in the 70s but other than that
28:20
that's why the frame is in such excellent condition and all the suspension pieces are in excellent condition what was missing on the car
28:27
obviously the fighter seats were missing on the car the dash cluster was missing on the car the road bar was actually
28:32
chopped out of it there was still evidence of the roll bar still on the car itself as well the doors the rear
28:38
deck was still on the car the rear trunk area was still in the car they modified the trunk area the rear trunk lid was
28:44
still there amazing it just was and a lot of the things on the car steve were molded out of balsa wood and the balsa
28:50
wood is if you're a carpenter at all it's a very very soft wood it's very easy to sand very easy to shape and that's why he got
28:57
that shape when perry modified that front end of the car that was all done by balsa wood which was pretty amazing
29:03
here even the fender skirts were 56-57 style that's incredible kevin it really
29:08
was so taking all that out we took the nose off the car ready we took the rear clip off the car already so we're really
29:13
excited about the restoration of car the restoration would take approximately two years to do it may take less and then
29:19
we're gonna have to figure out a game plan where we're gonna debut the car but i wanna debut the car when all three
29:25
cars are together for the first time i don't think i want to debut the car well hopefully the family will agree with me
29:31
i want to make a big splash i want to do a press release we're going to do it right we're going to notify the car community because it's not just corvette
29:37
people it's the car community i think everybody in the world that's a car enthusiast or at least a corvette
29:42
enthusiast has got to know about the cunningham cars and i believe in my heart i think that the most famous
29:48
corvette as of today in 2021 is probably the number one cunningham car everybody knows this car and it's been publicized
29:54
since 2012 when we discovered the car by accident until years now it's 21 so
30:00
that's already nine years already so between hunting the car down the litigation stuff which is behind us now
30:06
i'm really really excited to be a part of this and i'm so blessed and fortunate that i have such a great team my staff
30:12
is just amazing to me we're like family so i'm really blessed that we have the right people to get the job done the
30:18
proper way i don't want to disappoint anybody we're pretty particular i want it right we have the number three car in
30:24
our possession too this way we have any questions on certain things we can look at the number three car which helps us out tremendously in the restoration i
30:31
did take a lot of notes over the years i made templates of a lot of things beforehand when i did number three cards
30:36
i figured maybe one day or another we're gonna find this number one car and it just kind of fell in our laps by
30:41
accident we're pretty excited about it and like i said i want to go back to le mans with all three cars that's my goal
30:47
you said it's going to take a couple years when did the car actually arrive there at corvette repair less than a
30:54
week after the auction the car went directly to me gotcha we jumped on that car very quickly within days of
30:59
delivering it we were so excited about this steve i've been waiting for this day think about this now i've been thinking about this car since 1993. so
31:06
it's finally coming to reality that we have the opportunity to get the job do the restoration and to tell the story
31:12
that's 28 years my friend 28 years it is i'm not getting any younger steve you
31:18
know you and me both my friend you and me both now obviously lance miller is very close and always has been his father was
31:25
before his passing have you guys talked with bruce meyer in los angeles because he owns the number two car and bruce has
31:32
been affiliated with the petersen automotive museum there in los angeles is he on board with getting all three
31:37
cars back together absolutely matter of fact mr myers bruce was there at the auction house we were a little bit
31:43
concerned that maybe bruce or maybe a good friend of his may have an interest in purchasing the car we didn't know
31:48
what to expect at that auction but he was there he was a couple seats away from us in the back row there and as
31:54
soon as the car sold bruce came over to us and congratulate family and lance was
31:59
there i was there all three of us were there and bruce is just as excited as we all are we're all gonna be on board he's
32:05
a car guy very well respected hobby he's got an amazing collection of all kinds of cars great guy we're gonna all get
32:12
together we all work together we get along together we all have the same passion so is he on board yeah
32:17
absolutely why wouldn't he he knows the history like we know it it's going to happen and we're very very excited to be
32:22
all be a part of it and to tell the story and people are going to get a big kick out of it that sounds great kevin
32:28
if it's going to take two years we got to have you back on corvette today maybe after a year and give us progress on how
32:33
this number one car is coming along well as of right now it's coming along very very well as long as we don't get held
32:39
up with any kind of special parts because there's still some parts i have to have handmade or whatever it may be done less than that steve i'm just
32:45
giving a window it'll be two years or less it's gonna be my window so this way if i get it done in say a year then we
32:52
look like a hero absolutely right and make sure you keep me up to date because we'll have you back on corvette today
32:57
and we'll talk about the progress of this number one le mans car i can't wait the one thing i wish i never met bruce
33:03
cunningham himself i know he passed away i think at the age of 96 years old he had a full life when we found the car
33:09
the number three car at the time he was still around but i heard that his health wasn't that good so we never had a chance being chip we're gonna go out
33:15
there and visit him at a nursing home but i heard he was just too far gone at the time it was just said i just want to let him know that we're thinking of you
33:21
and we have your cars they're going to be in great homes kevin thank you so much for being on corvette today this
33:27
story has been amazing and i'm anxious to hear how progress goes on this number one car thanks for being here anytime
33:34
steve always a pleasure and i'll see you next week my friend thanks again for listening to corvette today and please
33:39
be sure to tell your family friends and other corvette enthusiasts about the corvette today podcast and thanks to our
33:45
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33:57
with steve garrett if you'd like to contact steve with any thoughts on the podcast or ideas for guests on corvette
34:03
today you can email him at stevegarrattdj gmail.com
34:09
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34:15
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steve garrett dj thanks again for listening to corvette today