----Steve,,,You bring up something close to my heart. While I worked at Classic Motors in Hinsdale, my boss found out a GS roadster in Texas. A friend of his that worked at the GM Tech Center had tracked it down and it turned out to be NO.1. The story is long but Classic bought the car with no engine and no nose and in generally bad condition. The GM friend rebuilt the complete chassis and brought it back to us to reinstall the body and build the nose. He also brought a 377cube aluminum headed small block with a set of cross ram 54cc side draft Webers among other special stuff.
----The car was restored back close to original with one major difference. The boss really only had one customer for it and he wanted it red. The car was finished in June of 1979 and went directly to Bloomington Gold. Made quite a splash, I can tell you. In the meantime I had met Bob Patterson who owned NO.3 and was campaigning it at vintage races. Bob was the only guy that ever spent enough time setting up the chassis of a Grand Sport to actually realize it's full potential. NO.1 went to another well known owner a while later and was redone back to its original beauty. If anyone has a collection of Corvette News, NO.1 was on the cover of the Feb/March issue.
----Years later after I had returned to live in Massachusetts. A friend asked if I could find him a nice 67 435 Corvette. Shortly after I found him a beautiful coupe in Maine. When I went to pick it up I discovered that this 67 had been bought new by none other than Bob Patterson. Small world!
----Every one of the GS's is a treasure, and I think at least two of them still hit the track. Long before all this I saw NO.1 race at Sebring at the age of 15-16. You just can't imagine the sight of it running down the back straight into the tight curve just before the pits. Ill never forget it......Bill S
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12-30-2020, 08:09 PM
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