1965 Corvette Coupe NCRS 5 Star Bowtie Award
 

Here is the 65 Corvette I purchased a couple of months ago. The car is an original paint, original interior, original drivetrain, injected coupe. Purchased new at Felix Chevrolet (Los Angeles) on December 15, 1964 by Mr. Alan "Peter" Tork. "Pete" as he preferred to be called, was an aircraft mechanic by trade. Pete was a resident of Huntington Beach, CA

The window sticker shows the car being built and sold to Paramount Chevrolet in Downey, CA. One can only assume the car was the subject of a dealer trade.

Options of the car as detailed by the window sticker are.....
-L84 327-375hp fuel injection
-M20 close ratio 4 speed
-G80 positraction 4.11 differential
-N36 telescopic steering column
-A31 power windows
-A01 tinted glass
-U69 am fm radio
-K66 transistorized ignition
-P92 WSW 7.75-15 tires

As one can imagine, Pete had a very sharp eye for detail and maintenance given his occupation. Pete kept detailed records of all maintenance, repairs, parts purchases, fuel usage, etc., etc. Pete also retained every document that came with the car.

Documentation includes.......
-Original window sticker (validated by NCRS)
-Warranty book and plate (validated by Al Grenning CCAS)
-Original purchase contract
-Original Corvette Owners Card
-Letter from Bunkie Knudsen (Chevrolet General Manager)
-Letter from Larry Averill (Chevrolet Sales Manager)
-All registration slips since new
-Photocopies of time slips @ Lions Dragstrip (ran mid to high 13's)
-All receipts for warranty work and parts purchases
-Original California black plates
-Original Felix Chevrolet license plate frames
-CCAS (Al Grenning) validation of both the cylinder case and trim tag

Pete maintained ownership until 2005, when he sold the car to then NCRS Judging Chairman Roy Sinor. Roy purchased the car for his own collection. In 2008, Roy reluctantly sold the car (along with a few others) to help care for his father, whose health was failing. Roy maintains yet today, he'd still own the car if it were not for that circumstance. Roy sold the car to SYC member Kevin Dewitte. Under Kevin's ownership, the car achieved multiple NCRS Top Flights, and later the NCRS 5 Star Bowtie Award. The impressive part of this, an 89k mile car achieved these awards.. The condition of the car certainly speaks to Pete's particular nature. Another neat factoid, is Kevin became friends with Pete. As a result, Pete was present for some of the judging and awards the car received. Kevin owned the car until 2016. It was at that point, Frank Rodrigues purchased the car (whom I bought it from this year).

The car has been a static piece of sort in recent years. It really has not been driven much at all. Since my purchase,I have sent out the fuel injection unit to be rebuilt, had the harmonic balancer rebuilt (it was scuffing the timing cover) tuned on the car, changed all of the fluids, added a fresh set of tires, and performed some very restrained cleaning. Given the time of the year, I have only been able to drive the car once. The car is remarkably smooth and tight. I like to have my cars well sorted and operating as they should. I'm looking forward to spending some time behind the wheel of this car. Furthemore, it is my plan to campaign the car this year through NCRS (once again), Bloomington Gold, and MCACN.

Here are a few overall pics of the car. I'll be posting up some detailed stuff as time allows.

Happy New Year everyone!

Here is a pic of Pete racing the car at Lions

Wait...what...Tim, you now own not one..but TWO Five Star Bowtie '65 Fuelie coupes??? :eek2: THAT"S NOT FAIR!!!

Or am I color blind, I'd swear yours was silver :confused2:

Great acquisition, Tim. Being a 65 fuelie, they don't get much sweeter than this!

That is a beautiful car, Tim. I've owned my share of Corvettes, but never a fuel injected one.

Wow, that's a knockout.

Uh, oh..... and it's Blue, Tim....https://www.yenko.net/forum/cache.ph...y-emoticon.gif

That is a beautiful 65. I hope your campaign goes well. Amazing how much the floor mats have discoloured over the years.

I don't even want to think of that fuelie in my garage......well not now anyway :-)

Here is the other one I had. This was back in 2008-2009.

Great talking to you Tim, it's all understood now! :beers:

Wow, absolutely beautiful. Congrats!!

My dream car, a 65 fuelie coupe.

Beautiful, to me, 1965 hipo 365&375 hp small blocks are the ultimate
Stingrays, and this car is like the cream of the crop!

Beautiful Fuelie Tim!!

It is unusual that in 1965 you could get red exterior with red/white or black/white interior.

That is unusual. All I've ever seen Chev use with white interior is black. I've always felt it would have been better for the rest of the interior to be body color with white upholstery.

----Love the red/white-on-black colorm combo. Red dash and carpets would be too much red for me. Sending you a PM, Tim!....Bill S

Tim,
Congratulations and HNY. Nice gift for the New Year.

Silly question, but I’m assuming this switch is for an alarm?

Thanks for sharing yet another beautiful mid-year Corvette.

Chris.

Love the Black & Yellows.

That's a great recap of California black plates. There is a definite order to how they were issued.

You are correct. There is the switch in the hood jamb, as well as the fender that Pete installed.

Here a couple of neat detail items. After 89k miles, the crayon marking of the engine suffix survives.

........and a little paperwork too!

Beautiful engine pad!!

Alarms were somewhat common back then as the Original owner of my ‘65 GTO added an alarm with a couple switches after she bought the car.
Nice that the switch on the fender is close to the FI emblem and not very noticeable.

This Nassau Blue ‘65 is gorgeous!

Thanks

Morning Tim,

How does that troublesome LH exhaust vent behind the drivers head work in this car.
I always thought those were a cool feature on the 64-65 coupes.

Back in the mid 70’s I was a smoker and that exhaust fan did a nice job sucking the smoke out of my ‘65 coupe.

It's working Chris. I had to clean the contacts on the blower resistor to get it going. No biggie:wink: It seems like on many a 64-65 thatI have had the blower is removed.

I was not terribly impressed with the clutch / transmission in the car after driving it some more. At speed, it would upshift and downshift just like it should. In the driveway at temp......not so much. I had a similar experience with my Dad's 67 442. That car only had 27k miles on it.

So, I pulled the transmission to have a little lookie. First of all, the original clutch had lived a full life. Furthermore, a tang was broke off the clutch fork allowing the TO bearing to wander around (and it was a bit noisy).

What I was surprised to find, was when I pulled the side cover off of the trans. If you look at a previous post, you'd see in the notes Pete (original owner) had a leaking transmission on his punch list for the dealer. Pete had gotten so irritated with Felix Chevrolet, he never took the car back in. When I got the car, it had the same trans leak. It seemed as though the leak was from the side cover. But, the shift shaft seals were not the culprit. When I got the trans out, the top of the trans was CAKED in heavy baked on grease. I didn't think a ton of it, so I went about cleaning the transmission today, before I install some new gaskets.

I pulled the side cover to reveal what must be some of the UAW's handywork:shocked:That added to the fact the front bearing retainer was NOT torqued properly. I think I found my leaks

On a side note, the suffix is still visible on the back of the right side cylinder head.

The new pressure plate and flywheel are at the machine shop getting resurfaced and balanced. The trans gaskets should be here Monday and the flywheel should be ready Tuesday.

The ultimate mid year. Only the L-88 exceeds in my opinion.

1965 fuelie==the most sophisticated midyear

---- Had a 65 Nassau Blue 65 fuelie convert quite a while back and the alarm that probably was in it most of its life was up high in one of the side scoop holes. Made it easy to repair and bad guys didn't know where to cut the wires. Being a convert it was more easily opened up without disturbing the doors.....Bill S

Summer of 1967...One of my high school buddies had a '66 L72 convert, Mossport Green. Attending a Beach Boys concert in town, thieves cut the top and stole the carb.
Concert over, he came out, didn't notice the cut top. When it cranked it caught fire. Fire trucks couldn't get to it because of the glut of cars trying to exit the lot, watched it burn. - Bill W

Damn! What’s the chances.

Just posting a quick update of the 65. Last weekend, I took the 65 to Bloomington Gold. I have been wanting to freshen up the awards on the car, as the car really has not been seen in 12 years. That effort resulted in a Bloomington Gold / Gold Certification, Survivor Gold, and thus a Bloomington Gold Benchmark award.

Once again, I had the opportunity to spend some more quality time with my Dad. Certainly our shenanigans are much more contained than years ago, but still special nonetheless. As for the next event with the 65, Tracey and I will be off to MCACN in November for Gold Concours / Triple Diamond Judging and Vintage Certification.

Awesome Tim! Congratulations!

The awards don't get more impressive than these. It was good to see your car there and to meet your dad.

It's hard to imagine a 4.11 geared fuelie surviving in this condition. What a great car.

----Tim,,,Along with the blue convert I mentioned earlier, I had a white southern Cali fuelie coupe with Black interior. Very similar condition to your beauty. Even the same yellowed floor mats and 4.11. It had just over 100,000 on the odo and the only real mentionable work was a valve job. At BG one year Chip Miller and Bob Gold took it for a spin, and didn't come back for a half hour, with huge grins on thier faces. They said the N-11 exhaust at around 5,000 RPM was absolutely cool! Since both of these two icons and good friends of mine are no longer with us (RIP) I treasure the memory!....Bill S

Awesome - congrats.

----Forgot to mention that this 65 was actually stolen and recovered. Fuel unit was gone, but a 63 unit was on it. Sold it stripped of paint (never hit) with a lot of parts and it was beautifully restored by a great guy out of Texas. Can't remember his name at the moment....Bill S

Great pic of you and your Pops Tim!! Looks like double trouble to me :naughty: :naughty:
Wish I'd been there to meet him!