What Is The Story Of The Camoradi Corvette? | Le Mans Corvette CORVETTE TODAY#228

Name: What Is The Story Of The Camoradi Corvette? | Le Mans Corvette CORVETTE TODAY#228 | Open Video
Uploaded: 2025-05-09T00:37:28+00:00
Duration: 44 min 22 s

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[Music] welcome to Corvette today the show that
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City for over 45 years here's Steve
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Garrett thanks for listening and watching Corvette today the show that talks about everything Corvette and the
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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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7429 and a shout out to Canadian Corvette forum and Corvette forum welcoming Corvette enthusiasts from
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around the world when we talk about the 1960 Lama race we usually talk about
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Briggs Cunningham's three Corvettes that raced that year what you may not know is there is a fourth Corvette that raced at
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Lama in 1960 the Camara Corvette my guest on today's show will talk about
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that fourth Corvette please welcome back with me to Corvette today the official photographer for Corvette racing and a
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friend of mine and a friend of the show Richard Prince Richard welcome back to Corvette today buddy thank you Steve as
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always it's truly my pleasure and my privilege to be here with you I know I speak for the entire Corvette Community
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everywhere when I say that we really sincerely appreciate all that you do for the hobby buddy it's a labor of love and
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before we get into the show congratulations to you on getting voted into the Corvette Hall of Fame well
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thank you very much that is really a humbling honor particularly because it
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results from multiple rounds of balloting and the people who do the voting are sourced from throughout the
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entire Corvette World from the Corvette hobby from Corvette businesses and from General Motors so it is really
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appreciated that I've been recognized in that way and as I said it's also very humbling it's a huge congratulations to
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you my friend I am elated and I will be able to be there for that honor to see you get inducted all right Richard let's
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start with this let's talk about the camarate Corvette it all started out with Lloyd lucky Caster talk about him
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to begin the show well he is one of those epic characters from Days Gone By
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it seems like for whatever reason racing in general and sports car racing in particular attracted these kind of
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Larger than Life figures and he certainly fits that mold he was born in New York City in
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1928 and went to the University of Miami graduated in 1950 with a business
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administration degree but he had a burning interest in flying so after college he went through Flight Training
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and he got his pilot's license and went to work for Pan-American Airways as a pilot and he continued doing that until
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1954 he was flying a South American route and they intended to change his
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route so he had to fly transatlantic and he didn't want to do it and he had other interests so he quit being an airline
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pilot and went into the car business he opened up a Cadillac dealership in Miami
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sold new and used Cadillacs and did reasonably well at that and that helped
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fund his entree into what he really wanted to do which was sports car racing he got involved in sports car racing in
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the mid-50s that led to the car that you mentioned among many others and really
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an incredible story Alto together about his racing activities and his team
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one of the more interesting things about him was he wanted to go racing in a
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really big way and couldn't afford to fund it himself so he had to look to others for funding and by all accounts
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one of his most important skills was the ability to convince other people to bend to his will to do what he wanted my
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favorite example of that is at one point he convinced the Dal chemical company
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which at that time was the world's largest manufacturer of Automotive antifreeze to be the primary sponsor of
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his racing team huh and at the time his racing team had two cars and they were
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both aircooled Porsches he managed to talk the largest maker of Automotive anti-freeze into sponsoring his
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aircooled Porsches and that pretty much sums up Lucky cno's perhaps his greatest
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skill in Motor Racing which was again to convince anybody to do anything yeah now I know lucky started castner motor
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racing in 1959 and in its abbreviated form which was Camara that sounded
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Italian which was really good because all the high-end racing teams were owned and subsidized by wealthy connected
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individuals like that wasn't it yeah this was of course the era long before
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corporate involvement really got involved in a very very big way so a lot
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of the more memorable more successful sports car racing teams were funded by
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very wealthy Sportsmen who simply wanted to go racing that included of course brids Cunningham and Lance for vento
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with the scarabs so Lloyd kind of fell into that mold except again he didn't
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have the great wealth to funded himself he managed to talk others into doing it and one of his many employes for doing
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that was forming a race team that just had the sound of aristocracy of old European involvement Camara stood for
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kasma motor racing the sound of an old Italian Enterprise and he presumed that
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would help him sell it yeah and his goal was really to race in Europe and more specifically Lamont wasn't that right
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yes at a an Seca event in March of 1959 that was held on a temporary circuit at
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alaka Naval Airbase in Miami he grabbed the announc his microphone announced the formation of camarad and invited those
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present to become quote members of his team and what he was asking for was
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people to join the team and pay the team membership fee which he would use to go
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Big Time Racing in Europe the humorous part of that is he was speaking to a population of racers it was an Seca
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National and he was speaking to people who would have loved to go racing in Europe if they could afford it right and
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he was asking them to fund his race team to go to Europe so he was met with more than a little bit of ridicule when he
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made this announcement but there was one person in the audience who thought this
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was a fantastic idea he saw it as an epic adventure and he approached lucky
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after lucky made that announcement and made a proposal to him that man was Fred Gamble and Fred proposed that he would
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volunteer to help this program help get it off the ground and he would travel at his own expense he offered travel with
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the team throughout Europe and as a journalist which is what Fred was at the time he would raise a little bit of
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money to help fund his way by writing a series of articles for car magazines about the team's efforts yeah and with
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Fred on board he was able to secure good your as a sponsor which opened the door to other sponsors like Chevrolet yes
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lucky saw something magical and Fred and he on the spot said I have a better idea
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why don't you partner with me on this and together we can make this thing happen and Fred was in his mid-20s a
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racing Enthusiast a recent college grad with a journalism degree he was the
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perfect balance to Lucky kasner who was really a wild man he was out there and
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Fred Gamble was highly intelligent and very measured and it was just a perfect
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marriage the two of them working together Fred over the next several weeks wrote a very comprehensive
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proposal that lucky could then take to potential sponsors goodye was as you said the first to sign on with that and
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once Lucky had good year that became a selling point for additional corporate sponsors it created certainly the
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illusion that this was a well-established program and was on its way when a big glob company like goodye
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tire and rubber was involved with it yeah buddy let's take our first break when we come back we're going to talk
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1550 this is the Corvette Today podcast with Steve Garrett thanks for checking
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decom today or give them a call 833 639 4231 I'm your host Steve Garrett with me
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is my buddy and the official photographer ACC Corvette racing Richard Prince we're talking about the camarate
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Corvette that raced at Lama in 1960 Richard castner got Corvette to sign up
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with GM's general manager Ed Cole which is a big deal and with Zora Arcus dunov now he received two 1960 Corvettes let's
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talk about those two Corvettes that were given to camarad racing sure uh yes in the summer of 1959 lucky casner met with
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Ed Cole and Zur DAV and at the time zor's title was Chevrolet director of high performance he was not yet called
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the chief engineer but he obviously was the point person for all things Corvette Chevrolet agreed to provide lucky kasner
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and Kamara with two brand new completely competition ready Corvettes so they had
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the high compression solid lifter fuel injection engines four-speed Transmissions posy rear heavy duty brake
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and suspension and they were equipped initially with the regular production option 24 gallon fuel tanks because
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Chevrolet was still committed to the June 1957 AMA ban on all forms of
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Motorsport they had to phase the relationship in a different way as was
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often the case back then Chevrolet was providing those cars through a Miami dealership called Don Allen chevrol to
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camarad racing and with the cars came a contract through Don Allen Chevrolet for
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heavy duty field test and development so Camara was not quote racing the cars
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they were running the cars through the ringer and providing feedback to Chevrolet on what parts needed to be
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strengthened what could be done to improve the cars so that's how that all got going those cars were delivered at
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the very beginning of 1960 the first outing was at Daytona International
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Speedway where the cars would just run through a Shakedown I believe that was an Seca event at Daytona and then in
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February of 1960 both cars were loaded on a ship and sent to Havana Cuba for
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for what was then called the glan Primo de la Havana which was a race that attracted top competitors from America
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South America Central America and even Europe it was the final race in Havana
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because of the Revolution that had just taken place so there was one more race February of 1960 and kamarad brought his
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top drivers and the whole team there Jim Jeffers drove one of those cars to the
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win in the all GT race which was as the name implied a race for glan teres Mo
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production sports cars Jeff drove the same car to eth overall in the main
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event a first in GT class but eighth overall against purpose built sports racing cars more like prototypes as we
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would call them today so it was a great success for the team they were really off to a fabulous start the cars and the
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spares and all the equipment came back to the US and preparations were made for the next outing which took place in
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March in the central Florida of Sebring so they were going to Sebring for the
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12-hour race in 1960 that was the second outing for the cars and Jeffers had some
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really good teammates like Dan gurnie Carol Shelby Sterling Moss well that's
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another another kind of interesting in humorous part of the lucky kasner story as part of his fantastic salesmanship he
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at the beginning when the team was being created he represented that his team
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included some of the top driving Talent of the era and he had a long list that included as she said besides Jim Jeffs
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Dan gurnie Carol Shelby Sterling Moss Manon Gregory Jim wrathman who had just
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won the Indie 500 wow Etc and I could find no evidence that this incredible
18:15
roster of drivers was actually at that time contracted to Camara but it
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certainly lent a certain air of credibility to the team so lucky kasma
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could go into a meeting with Ed Cole general manager Chet and zor dunov and say this is what we intend to do and
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this is who we are we have this incredible roster of drivers goodye tire and rubers our primary sponsor Etc and
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there was no question about it you can have two Corvettes and lucky kasner more or less did the same thing with Maserati
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and became the deao representative Maserati Racing Maserati bird cage
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prototypes alongside the Corvettes both in America and in Europe so yes the list
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of drivers was an important part of the story and then came Lamar let's talk about that race and how camarad racing
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did at lar with that Corvette well let me just explain how they ended up at Lal with one Corvette they intended to race
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two Corvettes at lar throughout the entire season in Europe unfortunately Sebring was an interesting outing for
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them the two cars were entered and one car had the lead drivers that included Jim Jeffords again the other car was
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more or less a backup car at the very beginning of the race the Jeff's car was
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damaged likely something in the valve train was damaged and the car would not R over 5,000 RPM so it was down on speed
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the other car was being driven by Fred gamble the same Fred gamble who helped launch the program and he was the team
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manager at that point he told me last year when I spoke with him that he never
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intended that he would actually drive at Sebring he would have loved to drive but he was the team manager not really one
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of its drivers but he put himself down as a Reser driver on the entry forms he
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really did it just for a laugh just so that he would see his own name in the program well one of the contracted
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drivers at the last minute backed out didn't show up and it left a seat open for Fred gamble so Fred started the race
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when the Jim Jeffers car got damaged when the engine got damaged and wouldn't rev above 5,000 Fred was called in and
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directed to turn his healthy car over to Jim Jeffords and the star driver lineup
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initially Fred thought but well that stinks this is the end of my Sebring Drive which he was enjoying very much
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Lee Lily who was the team's Chief mechanic said to Fred well the other car is still running if you want to get in
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it and trudge around nowhere of it over 5,000 RPM and might hold up a little
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while and you can drive a little bit until the engine blows up huh Fred gamble got in the other car drove very
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conservatively that car never missed the beat and driving solo finished the entire 12-hour race to my knowledge I
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believe he's the only the second person in history to drive the entire 12 hours of Sebring by himself wow nowadays and
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for many years that's not even permissible anymore for obvious safety reasons they don't want exhausted
21:13
drivers out there driving the race solo so that was quite an accomplishment for Fred gamble the other car also finished
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the race but had some mechanical problems the car that Fred drove suffered a fuel line failure one of the
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lines broke huh they sourced a replacement fuel line out of a production car that was in the parking
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area they borrowed a fuel line put it in the car Fred finished that evening after
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the race they gave the fuel line back to the Corvette owner who loaned it to them wow the next morning one of the team
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mechanics got in that car to move it it was in a warehouse on the evening property that camarad had rented for the
21:53
team he cranked the engine there was no fuel line so the fuel pump sprayed fuel all over and it caught fire and that car
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burned to the ground it was destroyed by fire wow so only one car survived Sebring that's how they ended up with
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one car at Lama in June how did that car do at Lama then well that car is one of only two cars to
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finish the race at Lama it ran a conservative Pace Fred gamble drove the
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car with Lee Lily but that time Fred and Lee were a little bit at odds with one another Fred was more interested in
22:27
finishing the races all the races and Le Lily was more interested in hammering the car and trying to go as fast as he
22:34
possibly could then that reached a little bit of a pitch at nurburging where Lee was really flying in the car
22:42
and nurburging was then as now one of the most difficult circuits in the world because of its length and its elevation
22:48
changes and a lot of it is on public roads and the roads are rough in places
22:54
L ended up breaking a wheel bearing by getting Airborne in the certain area of
22:59
that circuit where the car was pitched sideways a little bit got up airborne and would come down and really slam the
23:06
suspension and load up the wheel bearings unreasonably and it broke one of the front wheel bearings and that was
23:11
the end of their race at the nurburging so Fred gamble was adamant and almost physically threatened l lily we are
23:18
going to run a conservative race here and they did and they did finish they finished in 10th overall position huh
23:25
which was a remarkable accomplishment of course for solid axel Corvette it's the first year that Corvette ever
23:31
participated at Lama and of course we all are familiar with the Cunningham team cars the three team cars two of
23:37
those cars didn't finish their third car of course won the class in the hands of John Fitch and Bob grman so two of the
23:44
four Corvettes entered finished and one of those was the camarate car there you
23:49
go all right buddy it's time for our final break when we get back we're going to talk about what happened to the
23:55
camarate Corvette after Lama coming up next on on Corvette
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I'm your host Steve Garrett with me is my buddy Richard Prince the official photographer of Corvette racing we are
27:04
talking about the camarate Corvette from Lama in 1960 in this final segment we're
27:09
going to talk about what happened to that car after Lama Richard a Corvette Enthusiast named Lauren lunberg started
27:16
searching for the camarate Corvette and ironically it had been crashed on the way from Sweden to a race in England
27:23
talk about that crash and what happened to the car well yes that's correct Steve car was raced in Sweden on a circuit
27:31
called Coga the day after that race a Swedish Formula 1 driver named Joe Baner
27:37
drove the car to several new Swedish national speed records for production
27:42
cars on public roads it became quite famous in Sweden Joe Baner was Sweden's
27:47
first Formula 1 driver the first Swedish Formula 1 driver to win an F1 race so he was quite famous the car became quite
27:54
famous and after boner drove it to the new speed records Fred gamble the team
28:00
manager and the team's mechanic at that point a guy named Bob Wallace were scheduled to bring the car to England to
28:08
Goodwood for the next race to indicate what Big Time Sports Car Racing was like
28:13
back then they didn't own a transport truck or even a trailer wow so the car went from One race to the next under its
28:19
own power so Bob Wallace was driving the Corvette and Fred gamble was in the support vehicle which was a Ford station
28:26
wagon that was full of tools and some spares and unfortunately while still in Sweden Bob Wallace fell asleep at the
28:33
wheel of the Corvette went off the road went into a ditch the car rolled several
28:38
times and ended up back on its Wheels but it was effectively destroyed it was a mess Bob olace went off to the
28:45
hospital checked out okay he had no injuries he was just bruised and bumped up a little bit the car got towed to a
28:52
local repair shop in this small town in Sweden Fred Gamble and Bob wace looked at it realized that was hopeless the car
28:59
was gone they took the engine and transmission out of it and they gave the remains to the policeman who had shown
29:06
up at the accident scene and written the reports wow and they assumed that he would maybe keep a few pieces off of it
29:13
as souvenirs or maybe make a few dollars selling pieces of the car to locals
29:18
because again it had become somewhat famous all of a sudden in Sweden as this new National Speed Record holder yeah so
29:26
that was the end of the Corvette the team was still racing with Maseratis through the end of the year by the end
29:33
of 1960 camarad itself was nothing but a distant memory the team disbanded and
29:39
everybody went their separate ways wow now Lauren lunberg found the owner of the car in 1994 I know he wrote to him
29:47
expressing interest in buying the car what happened with all that then Richard well how luren lunberg got to that car
29:53
is an absolutely unbelievable and fascinating story Lauren lunberg was a
29:59
passionate Corvette Enthusiast he lived in a town called Glendale Arizona in oh
30:05
I believe it was 1990 Lauren was asked to help put together a display for an
30:13
ncrs show a Southwest Regional ncrs show and was given the task of putting
30:19
together a historic Corvette race car display so on his list of people to contact was a man named Mike Pillsbury
30:26
Mike Pillsbury lived in California and he owned one of the 1960 Cunningham Lamar Corvettes which he had found in a
30:33
salvage yard in California recognized that it was a big break heavy duty brake 37 gallon fuel tank Corvette that had
30:40
done some serious racing he researched it discovered that it was one of the Cunningham Lama entries and He restored
30:46
that car so Lauren called him to see if he'd be willing to bring the car for this Southwest Regional ncrs display and
30:53
in the course of the conversation Pillsbury said oh you live in Glendale Arizona that's pretty close to Phoenix
30:59
isn't it yeah you must know Bob Wallace L lunberg said I don't who's Bob Wallace
31:05
and tobery said Bob Wallace was one of the Mechanics for the camarad team at
31:10
Lama in 1960 and he's got a shop in Phoenix Arizona you ought to go see him he's probably an interesting guy so
31:17
after camarad disbanded at the end of 1960 Bob Wallace went to work for an
31:23
Italian team racing Ferraris and in 1964 he went to work for Lamborghini
31:29
initially as a mechanic he quickly became their Chief test driver and was a very influential person at Lamborghini
31:36
he had a direct role in every vehicle that Lamborghini created from 1964 until
31:41
he left the company he left in 1975 when fucho Lamborghini sold the
31:46
company Bob Wallace didn't want to stay on so he quit and he and his wife considered staying in Italy they
31:53
considered going back home he was a kiwi originally out of the blue and his wife
31:58
decided that they would go across the ocean and move to the United States of America huh they literally looked at a
32:04
map and thought now Arizona looks good it's warm it's dry there's a strong car culture there and he intended to open an
32:11
independent repair shop specializing in Lamborghinis and Ferraris so he and his wife moved to Phoenix in 1975 and Lauren
32:19
lenberg lived 10 miles away coincidentally so Lauren did in fact at Mike Pillsbury suggestion go see Bob
32:26
Wallace and Bob Wall pulled a photo of the wrecked Corvette out of his desk drawer and said this is the last time I
32:32
saw the camarade Corvette he told Lauren the story it crashed we gave it to the
32:37
cop and I'm sure it was thrown away and Lauren said but are you sure how do you
32:43
know it was just scrapped and Bob ol said well actually I don't know I just assume it was look at it it was a
32:49
disaster Lauren said well maybe it didn't get thrown away and Bob W said if you're really interested go find Fred
32:56
gamble he really would be the he he ran the team and he knows more about the car and about the program than anybody Bob
33:02
Wallace had not stayed in touch with Fred gamble didn't know where he was the only thing he remembered was that gamble
33:08
was a ski Advocate very passionate about skiing and he thought he ended up in Colorado doing something with skiing so
33:15
with that little clue Lauren lunberg was off and running of course this was before the internet so you couldn't put
33:21
people's name in a search engine and find where they were right he had to do things the oldfashioned way with the
33:27
telephone and letter writing over the next 4 years he was absolutely
33:33
Relentless and would not let any little lead or any little clue go it was just
33:39
an absolutely unbelievable sequence of events that led Lauren to find the car
33:44
the car didn't in fact survive the shop owner kept it for a little while he sold it to a guy who attempted to put it back
33:51
together that guy got the car basically running and driving again he had it for
33:56
some number of years years and ultimately sold it to another swed and that man took the car apart and was
34:04
planning to do a better quality restoration and got no further than taking the car apart so it was
34:11
disassembled through again an unbelievable unlikely sequence of events
34:16
and strange coincidences Lauren lunberg contacted everybody from the Swedish
34:22
Embassy to local police jurisdictions throughout Sweden to a Swedish member of
34:27
the crisis for Town and Country Club who his brother was acquainted with found Fred gamble through a letter to the
34:33
editor that Fred had written to rod and track magazine wow Lauren ended up greatly helped by a young policeman in
34:41
Sweden who was a car Enthusiast H who took all the information Lauren had put together and invested a great deal of
34:48
his time and effort and actually found the car it was in Stockholm in a garage
34:53
disassembled thankfully it was essentially all there the first man who had put the car back together he just
35:00
literally put it back together he glued back bonded back together all of the shattered pieces of the original body H
35:07
when Lauren found the car it still had its original chassis what was left of its original shattered body it's heavy
35:13
duty brake and suspension setup it's very very special 37g fiberglass fuel
35:19
tank that was created by Chevrolet engineering the only significant pieces missing were the engine and transmission
35:26
which Bob Wallace and gamble had taken out of the car after the crash and of course Lauren set out to try to find
35:32
those pieces too the transmission disappeared and he could not determine what happened to it the engine for the
35:39
Corvette ended up in a Maserati Grand Prix car wow and that's another
35:44
interesting story the Maserati Grand Prix car was owned by a New Zealander
35:49
who had sent it to an agent in Italy and the agent was supposed to be an intermediary between the car owner and
35:55
the Maserati Factory and was supposed to forward the car on to the factory and supervise its rebuild there instead he
36:03
had Fred Gamble and Bob Wallace installed the Corvette engine into it modify it to accept the Corvette engine
36:09
and then he sold the car to another New Zealand racer so he sold a car he didn't own and had no right to sell wow the man
36:15
who bought the car crashed it total the car and the engine was taken out again and put into an offshore racing boat
36:22
that boat ultimately sank with the engine so the original engine for the camarate called is at the bottom of the
36:28
ocean off the coast of New Zealand wow that's crazy all right so Lauren lunberg
36:34
bought the car talk about the process of purchasing it and then getting it back to the United States well again this was
36:40
pre- internet and Lauren lunberg was not in the import export business so it was quite complicated he had a lot to learn
36:48
and of course he had to trust people who were literally at the other side of the ocean he found the car he contacted the
36:55
man who owned it the man was willing to sell it Lauren never told me how much he paid for the car but he described the
37:01
asking price as shocking given the condition of the car but of course he' been searching this was into his fifth
37:07
year at that point and he finally found this treasure he certainly was not going to let it go because the price was too
37:14
high so he organized the trip with his wife and a couple of friends they went to Europe they went to Sweden he looked
37:20
at the car confirmed that it was in fact the car in fact he took photos back to Bob Wallace and had Bob Wallace examine
37:28
and confirmed that it was in fact the car Lauren also at that point had I believe paperwork from the ACO showing
37:34
the chassis number for the Camara car which also further confirmed that it was in fact the car so Lauren hit the bullet
37:42
and ponied up the asking price and he bought the car and then had to arrange
37:47
to ship it back to the US and adding to the difficulty of that was the fact that the car was disassembled so it was very
37:53
hard to move a car that couldn't roll under its own power and there were Parts over everywhere and once again the
37:59
police officer who had helped him find the car was of tremendous help Lauren went home and the police officer helped
38:06
supervise the Gathering of all the parts the packaging of everything and the loading of the car it was put into a
38:13
shipping container and trucked initially from Sweden to Germany and in Germany it
38:20
was loaded on a cargo ship off it went to the Port of Long Beach in California
38:26
Lauren with a group of his friends had towed a trailer to the Port of Long Beach to pick the car up they did the
38:32
DSR Asia was the name of the cargo ship and when that reached California Lauren and his buddies were there to take
38:39
delivery wow Lauren loaded it up on his open car trailer drove across the state
38:45
of California across the desert and halfway across Arizona to get to Glendale it was at that point 45 years
38:54
and 52,000 miles later after the car had left the United States that it came home
39:00
that's amazing now unfortunately Lauren died in 2021 what happened to the comad
39:06
Corvette after that well Lauren restored the car in his own garage with his own two hands after he bought it it took him
39:13
several years wow he absolutely adored the car and he adored sharing the story
39:18
about the car with others so he was a regular participant in ncrs events and
39:25
Carlile and other Corvette shows around the country he loved that car right up until the day he died in
39:31
2021 shortly thereafter his family decided to sell the car and a man named
39:38
Dominic Testa a New Yorker bought it he'll readily tell you that he didn't
39:43
fully understand what he was getting involved with when he bought the car he just knew that it was a Lamar race car
39:50
and that it was on the road and ready to go he thought it would be fun he's a Corvette Enthusiast he's got several
39:56
other Corvettes and has been a car Enthusiast his whole life it just sounded like an adventure to him when he
40:02
went to pick the car up he was surprised when Lauren's Widow said oh I've got a
40:08
bunch of boxes of stuff for this car I'm just going to throw it out so if you have any interest in it please take it
40:15
Dominic was shocked by about a dozen file boxes stuff full Lauren had saved
40:21
every Stitch of paper every single thing that he had gotten related to the car photographs Chevrolet engineering
40:28
documents ACO documents race entry forms race result forms every bit of
40:34
Correspondence all related to his search for the car the police report from the initial accident W it was just
40:41
unbelievable and Dominic was overwhelmed then realized that he had bought far
40:46
more than just a car he had bought an epic story he brought the car back to New York this was about 27 or so years
40:55
after Lauren had bought the car and restored it the car was showing its Age Again Dominic decided it deserved a
41:03
complete and thorough and high quality restoration so he brought it to a place
41:08
called jtm Motorsports here on Long Island which has great expertise in vintage car restoration and our Corvette
41:15
Specialists jtm did a 100% body off the chassis restoration returning the car to
41:22
exactly the configuration it was in at Lama in 1960 that's an incredible story it really is let me say this I've been
41:30
writing and photographing Corvettes for about 33 years I long ago lost count of
41:36
how many magazine stories I've written but it's somewhere between 2 and a half and 3,000 magazine stories and I can say
41:45
with certainty that I have never written a more interesting story about a more unbelievable car just the fact that this
41:53
car survived is unbelievable in and of itself and then then this incredible
41:58
sequence of events that brought Lauren lunberg in contact with the car is equally unbelievable and his utterly
42:05
Relentless pursuit of it he just would not give up trying to learn the disposition of the car and when he found
42:11
out the car was still alive he had to have it he brought it back to the US it is really an unbelievably fascinating
42:18
story it really is Richard thank you so much for coming back on Corvette today this has been an epic epic story well
42:26
thank you Steve as I said at the beginning of our discussion today I know I speak for everybody in the Corvette
42:31
Hobby and in the Corvette Community when I say that we deeply appreciate all that you've done to enhance our enjoyment of
42:38
Chevrolet sports car a car that we all love very very much thanks again for listening and watching Corvette today
42:44
and be sure to tell your family friends and other Corvette enthusiasts about the Corvette Today Show and thanks to our
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43:50
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