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What Is The Story Of The Camoradi Corvette? | Le Mans Corvette CORVETTE TODAY#228
May 9, 2025
To learn more about the Le Mans Corvette and what is the story of the Camoradi Corvette, please feel free to visit our YouTube channel.
This video covers what is the story of the Camoradi Corvette, along with the following subjects:
- 1960 Le Mans race
- 1960 Camoradi Le Mans Corvette
- Story of the Camoradi Racing Corvette at Le Mans
**********************
- When Corvette enthusiasts talk about Le Mans in 1960, they mostly talk about the 3 Corvettes that Briggs Cunningham raced there.
- There was a 4th Corvette that raced at Le Mans in 1960 - it was owned and raced by Camoradi Racing.
- Corvette photographer, Richard Prince, come back to CORVETTE TODAY with your host, Steve Garrett, to tell the story of this 4th Le Mans Corvette!
- Richard tells the story of the owner, the race team, how it did at Le Mans in 1960 and what happened to the car after the race.
It's a truly amazing story - one that many Corvette enthusiasts don't know. Get the full story of the Camoradi Corvette and where it is today on this episode of CORVETTE TODAY.
Our channel is dedicated to celebrating the rich heritage and ongoing story of Corvette. Don’t miss this insightful episode as we bring to light the hidden gem of Corvette’s racing history and its epic comeback.
CORVETTE TODAY #228 - Uncovering Corvette’s Rich History
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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
0:13
president of the Corvette club of Kansas City Missouri and radio disc jockey at the number one radio station in Kansas
0:20
City for over 45 years here's Steve
0:27
Garrett thanks for listening and watching Corvette today the show that talks about everything Corvette and the
0:33
only 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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exchange for most models and it comes with a 5-year warranty visit wheelcraft
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around the world when we talk about the 1960 Lama race we usually talk about
3:50
Briggs Cunningham's three Corvettes that raced that year what you may not know is there is a fourth Corvette that raced at
3:56
Lama in 1960 the Camara Corvette my guest on today's show will talk about
4:02
that fourth Corvette please welcome back with me to Corvette today the official photographer for Corvette racing and a
4:08
friend of mine and a friend of the show Richard Prince Richard welcome back to Corvette today buddy thank you Steve as
4:15
always it's truly my pleasure and my privilege to be here with you I know I speak for the entire Corvette Community
4:22
everywhere when I say that we really sincerely appreciate all that you do for the hobby buddy it's a labor of love and
4:28
before we get into the show congratulations to you on getting voted into the Corvette Hall of Fame well
4:34
thank you very much that is really a humbling honor particularly because it
4:40
results from multiple rounds of balloting and the people who do the voting are sourced from throughout the
4:46
entire Corvette World from the Corvette hobby from Corvette businesses and from General Motors so it is really
4:52
appreciated that I've been recognized in that way and as I said it's also very humbling it's a huge congratulations to
4:59
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
5:05
start with this let's talk about the camarate Corvette it all started out with Lloyd lucky Caster talk about him
5:11
to begin the show well he is one of those epic characters from Days Gone By
5:18
it seems like for whatever reason racing in general and sports car racing in particular attracted these kind of
5:24
Larger than Life figures and he certainly fits that mold he was born in New York City in
5:30
1928 and went to the University of Miami graduated in 1950 with a business
5:36
administration degree but he had a burning interest in flying so after college he went through Flight Training
5:42
and he got his pilot's license and went to work for Pan-American Airways as a pilot and he continued doing that until
5:49
1954 he was flying a South American route and they intended to change his
5:55
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
6:01
pilot and went into the car business he opened up a Cadillac dealership in Miami
6:06
sold new and used Cadillacs and did reasonably well at that and that helped
6:12
fund his entree into what he really wanted to do which was sports car racing he got involved in sports car racing in
6:19
the mid-50s that led to the car that you mentioned among many others and really
6:25
an incredible story Alto together about his racing activities and his team
6:30
one of the more interesting things about him was he wanted to go racing in a
6:35
really big way and couldn't afford to fund it himself so he had to look to others for funding and by all accounts
6:43
one of his most important skills was the ability to convince other people to bend to his will to do what he wanted my
6:50
favorite example of that is at one point he convinced the Dal chemical company
6:55
which at that time was the world's largest manufacturer of Automotive antifreeze to be the primary sponsor of
7:02
his racing team huh and at the time his racing team had two cars and they were
7:08
both aircooled Porsches he managed to talk the largest maker of Automotive anti-freeze into sponsoring his
7:15
aircooled Porsches and that pretty much sums up Lucky cno's perhaps his greatest
7:20
skill in Motor Racing which was again to convince anybody to do anything yeah now I know lucky started castner motor
7:27
racing in 1959 and in its abbreviated form which was Camara that sounded
7:33
Italian which was really good because all the high-end racing teams were owned and subsidized by wealthy connected
7:39
individuals like that wasn't it yeah this was of course the era long before
7:44
corporate involvement really got involved in a very very big way so a lot
7:49
of the more memorable more successful sports car racing teams were funded by
7:55
very wealthy Sportsmen who simply wanted to go racing that included of course brids Cunningham and Lance for vento
8:03
with the scarabs so Lloyd kind of fell into that mold except again he didn't
8:08
have the great wealth to funded himself he managed to talk others into doing it and one of his many employes for doing
8:16
that was forming a race team that just had the sound of aristocracy of old European involvement Camara stood for
8:23
kasma motor racing the sound of an old Italian Enterprise and he presumed that
8:29
would help him sell it yeah and his goal was really to race in Europe and more specifically Lamont wasn't that right
8:36
yes at a an Seca event in March of 1959 that was held on a temporary circuit at
8:42
alaka Naval Airbase in Miami he grabbed the announc his microphone announced the formation of camarad and invited those
8:50
present to become quote members of his team and what he was asking for was
8:55
people to join the team and pay the team membership fee which he would use to go
9:00
Big Time Racing in Europe the humorous part of that is he was speaking to a population of racers it was an Seca
9:08
National and he was speaking to people who would have loved to go racing in Europe if they could afford it right and
9:14
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
9:20
made this announcement but there was one person in the audience who thought this
9:25
was a fantastic idea he saw it as an epic adventure and he approached lucky
9:30
after lucky made that announcement and made a proposal to him that man was Fred Gamble and Fred proposed that he would
9:37
volunteer to help this program help get it off the ground and he would travel at his own expense he offered travel with
9:44
the team throughout Europe and as a journalist which is what Fred was at the time he would raise a little bit of
9:51
money to help fund his way by writing a series of articles for car magazines about the team's efforts yeah and with
9:58
Fred on board he was able to secure good your as a sponsor which opened the door to other sponsors like Chevrolet yes
10:05
lucky saw something magical and Fred and he on the spot said I have a better idea
10:11
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
10:18
racing Enthusiast a recent college grad with a journalism degree he was the
10:23
perfect balance to Lucky kasner who was really a wild man he was out there and
10:28
Fred Gamble was highly intelligent and very measured and it was just a perfect
10:33
marriage the two of them working together Fred over the next several weeks wrote a very comprehensive
10:39
proposal that lucky could then take to potential sponsors goodye was as you said the first to sign on with that and
10:47
once Lucky had good year that became a selling point for additional corporate sponsors it created certainly the
10:54
illusion that this was a well-established program and was on its way when a big glob company like goodye
11:00
tire and rubber was involved with it yeah buddy let's take our first break when we come back we're going to talk
11:05
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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
14:26
is my buddy and the official photographer ACC Corvette racing Richard Prince we're talking about the camarate
14:32
Corvette that raced at Lama in 1960 Richard castner got Corvette to sign up
14:38
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
14:46
talk about those two Corvettes that were given to camarad racing sure uh yes in the summer of 1959 lucky casner met with
14:54
Ed Cole and Zur DAV and at the time zor's title was Chevrolet director of high performance he was not yet called
15:00
the chief engineer but he obviously was the point person for all things Corvette Chevrolet agreed to provide lucky kasner
15:08
and Kamara with two brand new completely competition ready Corvettes so they had
15:13
the high compression solid lifter fuel injection engines four-speed Transmissions posy rear heavy duty brake
15:20
and suspension and they were equipped initially with the regular production option 24 gallon fuel tanks because
15:27
Chevrolet was still committed to the June 1957 AMA ban on all forms of
15:33
Motorsport they had to phase the relationship in a different way as was
15:38
often the case back then Chevrolet was providing those cars through a Miami dealership called Don Allen chevrol to
15:45
camarad racing and with the cars came a contract through Don Allen Chevrolet for
15:51
heavy duty field test and development so Camara was not quote racing the cars
15:56
they were running the cars through the ringer and providing feedback to Chevrolet on what parts needed to be
16:03
strengthened what could be done to improve the cars so that's how that all got going those cars were delivered at
16:10
the very beginning of 1960 the first outing was at Daytona International
16:15
Speedway where the cars would just run through a Shakedown I believe that was an Seca event at Daytona and then in
16:22
February of 1960 both cars were loaded on a ship and sent to Havana Cuba for
16:28
for what was then called the glan Primo de la Havana which was a race that attracted top competitors from America
16:36
South America Central America and even Europe it was the final race in Havana
16:41
because of the Revolution that had just taken place so there was one more race February of 1960 and kamarad brought his
16:49
top drivers and the whole team there Jim Jeffers drove one of those cars to the
16:55
win in the all GT race which was as the name implied a race for glan teres Mo
17:01
production sports cars Jeff drove the same car to eth overall in the main
17:06
event a first in GT class but eighth overall against purpose built sports racing cars more like prototypes as we
17:13
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
17:20
spares and all the equipment came back to the US and preparations were made for the next outing which took place in
17:26
March in the central Florida of Sebring so they were going to Sebring for the
17:31
12-hour race in 1960 that was the second outing for the cars and Jeffers had some
17:37
really good teammates like Dan gurnie Carol Shelby Sterling Moss well that's
17:42
another another kind of interesting in humorous part of the lucky kasner story as part of his fantastic salesmanship he
17:51
at the beginning when the team was being created he represented that his team
17:56
included some of the top driving Talent of the era and he had a long list that included as she said besides Jim Jeffs
18:03
Dan gurnie Carol Shelby Sterling Moss Manon Gregory Jim wrathman who had just
18:09
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
18:20
certainly lent a certain air of credibility to the team so lucky kasma
18:26
could go into a meeting with Ed Cole general manager Chet and zor dunov and say this is what we intend to do and
18:32
this is who we are we have this incredible roster of drivers goodye tire and rubers our primary sponsor Etc and
18:39
there was no question about it you can have two Corvettes and lucky kasner more or less did the same thing with Maserati
18:46
and became the deao representative Maserati Racing Maserati bird cage
18:51
prototypes alongside the Corvettes both in America and in Europe so yes the list
18:56
of drivers was an important part of the story and then came Lamar let's talk about that race and how camarad racing
19:03
did at lar with that Corvette well let me just explain how they ended up at Lal with one Corvette they intended to race
19:10
two Corvettes at lar throughout the entire season in Europe unfortunately Sebring was an interesting outing for
19:17
them the two cars were entered and one car had the lead drivers that included Jim Jeffords again the other car was
19:24
more or less a backup car at the very beginning of the race the Jeff's car was
19:29
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
19:37
the other car was being driven by Fred gamble the same Fred gamble who helped launch the program and he was the team
19:44
manager at that point he told me last year when I spoke with him that he never
19:49
intended that he would actually drive at Sebring he would have loved to drive but he was the team manager not really one
19:55
of its drivers but he put himself down as a Reser driver on the entry forms he
20:00
really did it just for a laugh just so that he would see his own name in the program well one of the contracted
20:08
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
20:15
when the Jim Jeffers car got damaged when the engine got damaged and wouldn't rev above 5,000 Fred was called in and
20:22
directed to turn his healthy car over to Jim Jeffords and the star driver lineup
20:27
initially Fred thought but well that stinks this is the end of my Sebring Drive which he was enjoying very much
20:34
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
20:40
it and trudge around nowhere of it over 5,000 RPM and might hold up a little
20:45
while and you can drive a little bit until the engine blows up huh Fred gamble got in the other car drove very
20:52
conservatively that car never missed the beat and driving solo finished the entire 12-hour race to my knowledge I
20:59
believe he's the only the second person in history to drive the entire 12 hours of Sebring by himself wow nowadays and
21:07
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
21:21
the race but had some mechanical problems the car that Fred drove suffered a fuel line failure one of the
21:28
lines broke huh they sourced a replacement fuel line out of a production car that was in the parking
21:35
area they borrowed a fuel line put it in the car Fred finished that evening after
21:40
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
21:47
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
22:00
burned to the ground it was destroyed by fire wow so only one car survived Sebring that's how they ended up with
22:07
one car at Lama in June how did that car do at Lama then well that car is one of only two cars to
22:15
finish the race at Lama it ran a conservative Pace Fred gamble drove the
22:20
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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too so visit wheelcraft decom today or give them a call 833 639- 4231
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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
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