Читать книгу The Corvette Hunter - Tyler Greenblatt - Страница 11
ОглавлениеThe #57 Rebel Corvette is one of the most recognizable race cars of all time thanks to its unique Stars & Bars paint scheme. Oh, and the fact that it was the only C3 to score back-to-back wins at Sebring and Daytona in the same year while achieving the highest finish for Corvette, fourth overall, at Sebring.
The 1969 Rebel #57 beautifully brought back to its Sebring livery by Corvette Repair. The high-mount mirror, auxiliary driving lights, aluminum diffuser, and covered headlights meant that this car was destined for greatness on the racetrack.
The Rebel was originally ordered from Ferman Chevrolet in Tampa, Florida, as a 1969 Daytona Yellow convertible. Corvette racer Or Costanzo ordered the car with a complete L88 racing package, one of four lightweights built under the supervision of Zora Arkus-Duntov. Unlike the other three, this one was equipped with a dual disc clutch, making it the only known example. These particular L88s were also built with aluminum open-chamber heads six months before that option became available to L88 buyers and racers. Other special racing equipment included an M22 heavy-duty 4-speed, J56 heavy-duty disc brakes (with J50 power brake option), and F41 heavy-duty suspension. A black vinyl interior came with the car, although it didn’t remain in it for very long, and a bolt-on auxiliary hardtop was tacked on.
Like most racers, much of the car’s factory options included equipment that was purposefully left off as part of the lightweight package. The heater, convertible top, sound-deadening material, and carpeting were all removed before shipping from St. Louis, Missouri, to Florida. The car that became the famous Rebel was stripped even further upon delivery, fitted with fender flares to cover wider wheels and tires, and received a header and sidepipe system to achieve maximum horsepower. This special race equipment was placed into the car at GM Engineering to be installed by the buyer. Engineers called it the “trunk option.” They also put an oil cooler in a box inside the car. Other special racing cars besides the lightweight Corvettes were given the “trunk option” as well.
Racing History
The car was driven by Costanzo and Dave Heinz in the 1969 Sebring 12-hour against the best American and European teams of the day. In its first Sebring appearance, Costanzo and Heinz achieved a surprising second-place qualifying run and a third-place finish in the GT class, major accomplishments for a team with no major sponsorship or professional drivers. The team saw continued success throughout that year’s Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) season, where it competed against purebred race cars instead of factory-built tourers. In 1970, a mechanical failure forced a dropout at Sebring after a fifth-place GT class finish at its first Daytona 24-hour.
Corvette magazines played a key role in helping Kevin find and confirm the Rebel Corvette. The first time he saw the car was on the cover of the March 1977 issue of Corvette Corner, which he purchased at a swap meet.
Corvette News next helped him to identify the car with the June/July 1972 issue that clearly shows the Le Mans sticker on the bottom left of the rear window.
It wasn’t until 1971, however, that the one-off L88 actually became The Rebel. The car was completely rebuilt with its now-famous #57 Stars & Bars treatment, which was done as a response to Greenwood Racing’s American flag paint scheme. All Dave Heinz’s previous race cars carried the number 57 (I’ll let you guess why) and Bob Johnson replaced Or Costanzo as co-driver. Although it won four of the five International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) events in 1971, and took the first-ever GTO championship, the Rebel still only finished second in the GT class at both Daytona and Sebring, although it had led Daytona for a while until an electrical fire forced a pit road repair. After the 1971 season, Dana and Toye English (son and father) purchased the car, and the team continued to make improvements in terms of lightening and performance.
The year 1972 brought the Rebel Corvette to the forefront of the racing world, even with its drivers and lack of a major sponsor. The Rebel was driven to first place in the GT class and eighth overall at the 1972 24 Hours of Daytona. Then, just a few weeks later, the Rebel took the GT class checkered flag again at Sebring and an astounding fourth-place overall finish. The only cars to finish ahead of the three-year-old Corvette at Sebring were prototype Ferraris. Not only did the 1972 season earn the Rebel the title of the only C3 Corvette with back-to-back Sebring and Daytona wins, it still holds the record for the highest finishing factory-built Corvette ever at the 12 Hours of Sebring. It had held the record for highest-placing Corvette at Daytona for 29 years until the C5-R factory team took first-place overall in 2001. It also holds the record of the most-raced Corvette at Sebring, with five total runs (it ran again in 1973).
The Rebel Corvette also served as the test bed for Goodyear’s radial tire development program. Goodyear approached the Rebel team with a deal right before Daytona. They said, “If you crash the car in the race, you don’t know us, but if you win, we’ll put you on the cover of the Wall Street Journal.” Of course, they won, and Goodyear came out with a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal championing its new radial tires.
Part of the Rebel’s lore lies in its chief competitors, the stars-and-stripes BFG Greenwood Corvettes. “When those two cars would race together,” Kevin Mackay says, “they’d say the Civil War had started again because you’ve got the American flag car and the Confederate flag car. But the Rebel car won more races not because it was the most powerful, fastest car on the track, but because it was the most durable car. You can have the fastest car on the track, but if you blow engines and rear ends and transmissions, you’re not going to win races. Even though it wasn’t as fast, it was so much more durable than the BFG Greenwood cars.”
The #49 happened to be the promotional car for BFGoodrich’s radial tire program in addition to #48 and #50. So we now know who won that top-secret matchup as well.
Lost and Found
The Rebel Corvette continued to race for some time with various owners and different paint schemes and modifications until eventually, like many glorious race cars, it was forgotten and lost to time. Then, as though fate stepped in, Kevin Mackay was at a swap meet in Mahwah, New Jersey, in the summer of 1990, looking through some old magazines for sale. The vendor had crates upon crates of Corvette magazines piled up and was selling them for $1 each. One such publication was Corvette Corner, which featured the Confederate flag race car on the cover. Kevin forked over a dollar to read the whole article once he got home. The article went in-depth about the Rebel car being one of four special lightweight L88s, this particular one having been ordered by Or Costanzo as a yellow car. Following his successes with the car, he sold it to Dana and Toye English.
After finishing the article, Kevin picked up the phone and dialed information in search of Or Costanzo in Tampa, Florida. Within 30 seconds he had the phone number for the original owner and driver and wasted no time in dialing it. Or Costanzo was pleasant over the phone, a true Corvette enthusiast; however, Kevin was hardly the first Corvette hunter who had reached out to him.
“That’s a very famous car, Kevin,” Or told him. “Nobody knows where the car is. I get calls all the time from people asking where it is.”
In addition to confirming the sale to his good friends Dana and Toye English, Costanzo had the good heart to relay the car’s VIN over the phone. He also mentioned that he still had the original documentation and some parts for the car if anyone were to ever find it.
Kevin’s next move was to talk with Dana English. The conversation took an interesting turn when Dana revealed that although he couldn’t remember who he sold the car to, he knew that he was a New Yorker who was in the dry-cleaning business but then became an attorney. Kevin’s proximity to New York allowed him and his hired sleuth, David Reisner, to come up with a name that fit the somewhat strange set of information: Alex Davidson.
Davidson was perplexed as to how he was tracked down given the number of years that had passed. Kevin wasted no time in getting a confirmation that he did indeed buy a Corvette race car in Tampa, Florida, from Toye English. However, he had sold it many years before and couldn’t remember anything about the buyer.
Kevin let him sit for a month before calling back and asking if he could recall anything else. Davidson said that the gentleman was from either North or South Carolina, but he couldn’t remember anything else. Kevin gave him another month before calling again; this time Davidson became aggravated.
“Listen, Kevin,” he said, “all I can tell you is that it was a doctor named Charlie. I don’t remember his last name, and now you’re being a pest.”
“So now I got either North Carolina or South Carolina and Dr. Charles something,” Kevin says. But it was something, and Kevin had a source that had proved to be helpful in finding the John Paul car with little and poor information. He called Harry Hanley, who had records of every car and driver who ever competed in SCCA racing and gave him what little information he had. Just a few weeks later, Hanley called Kevin with a hit. A Dr. Charles West from Greenwood, South Carolina, had raced a 1969 Corvette.
“Don’t forget, this is September 1991,” Kevin says, “so we’re only going back about 15 years to the 1970s. There’s a chance this guy’s still alive and there’s a chance he’s still practicing.”
Kevin called information looking for Dr. Charles West, who he discovered was a dentist and was still practicing. He called the office number asking for Dr. Charles West to which the response on the other end came back, “Oh, would you like to make an appointment?”
“No,” Kevin said. “Just tell him I want to talk about Corvettes.”
The receptionist knew that Dr. West was a big car guy and immediately retrieved him.
“Hello, sir, my name’s Kevin Mackay and I understand you used to race Corvettes?”
“Yeah,” replied Dr. West. “I haven’t done it in a while, but yeah.”
“Do you have a ’69 Corvette?”
Once again, Kevin was cautiously asked how he had gotten his information. He said he got his name from Alex Davidson.
“Oh yeah, I bought the car from Alex. I still have the car, but I kinda junked it.”
“What do you mean you kinda junked it?” Kevin asked, perplexed.
It turns out that Dr. West also owned a local junkyard and had dropped the car there in the 1970s. Kevin asked to see it and was invited down, although simultaneously informed that the car wasn’t for sale. He was given the doctor’s home number to set up a meeting time.
Kevin planned to be in Atlanta, Georgia, a couple of weeks later so he called Dr. West and gave him the only date that he could feasibly drive up to South Carolina and see the car. The date didn’t work, as Dr. and Mrs. West had a wedding that day. Kevin said that he would be driving three hours to see the car and didn’t know when he’d be able to make it back.
With a paint scheme like this, it’s no wonder that the team put a special license plate on the car. The plate was the final piece of the puzzle that Kevin spent years searching for after the car was completed. Also note the little round sticker in the lower left-hand corner of the rear window. That’s the Le Mans team sticker that helped Kevin identify the car in that South Carolina junkyard in the middle of the night.
“Kevin, if you’re coming out here from New York, and you can meet me at the wedding place at midnight, I’ll make an effort to show you the car.”
As soon as he could leave the show he was attending, Kevin got in his rental car and drove the three hours to Greenwood, South Carolina, timed to arrive at the wedding reception hall at midnight. Dr. West came out in a tux and his wife was wearing an evening gown. He commented that it was no problem at all and he was happy to show Kevin the car.
At the junkyard, Dr. West put a set of overalls over his tuxedo at his wife’s request, grabbed a flashlight, unlocked the fence gate, and took Kevin on foot into the junkyard. It was one in the morning. West pointed to a big blue boat tarp and said, “There it is.”
Kevin walked up and began rolling back the tarp, the faded, deteriorated cover shattering in his hands. He saw Alex Davidson’s name on the door immediately. The VIN matched the one that Or Costanzo had given him. Yellow paint peeked out from behind the white that it had been painted since its Rebel days. But it wasn’t until he looked at the little sticker on the back window that Kevin began “shaking like a leaf.” The sticker was the one only given to race teams that competed in the 1972 Le Mans.
This little sticker helped Kevin immediately nail the identification of the Rebel Corvette. Its teammate, the #4 Corvette raced by NART, competed at Le Mans and both cars were given these commemorative stickers.
“I have a picture of the car on the cover of Corvette News and it’s got the sticker,” Kevin says. “Bingo! Son of a gun!”
Unfortunately, the Rebel Corvette was such a highly modified race car that it didn’t qualify for entry into the GT class. Team owner Toye English put together another Corvette to race in France, known as the #4 Rebel Le Mans car. Because both cars were owned by Toye English, he received a commemorative 1972 Le Mans sticker to put on each car. Even though #57 didn’t go to Le Mans, it still got a sticker. After the two cars raced together back in the States, the Le Mans car was later sold to Alex Davidson as well, and was later discovered by Jack Boxstrom and restored by Corvette Repair.
Kevin turned to Dr. West and said, “Doc, I’ve gotta buy this car.”
But the good doctor wasn’t interested in selling. After Kevin asked repeatedly Dr. West asked, “What do you want to do with this car, Kevin?”
Kevin told Dr. West how he wanted to restore it back to its heyday. Dr. West knew the car was special but didn’t otherwise know a whole lot about it. What he did know was that he liked the idea of seeing the car restored, and what he really wanted was to once again own a Porsche that he used to race and had been thinking about buying back. The Porsche would cost him $7,000.
He offered Kevin a deal. “If you give me enough money to buy my old race Porsche back, I’ll give you this car. It’ll cost you seven grand.”
“Deal.” Kevin handed him $1,000 in cash as a deposit and said he’d be back in the next couple of days with the rest of the money and to pick up the car.
“He said, ‘You really want this car?’” Kevin remembers.
“I said, ‘Yeah, I know it’s a wreck, but it’s real and I’d love to have it.’ I remember that I was so numb I couldn’t believe I found this damn thing. So I went back to the show the next day and then got home quickly.”
Once back at Corvette Repair on Long Island, Kevin hired his friend Billy, who operated a flatbed truck, to bring back the remains of the Rebel race car.
“I’ll tell ya, that was one of the happiest days of my life, finding that car, because that car is probably the most significant C3 on the planet. They put a 1973 nose on it, but the car was intact. Was it rough? Absolutely, but it was real.”
Kevin’s trophy, as it sits securely in the Corvette Repair lot after being secured. The high-mount mirror is long gone and the front end was replaced with a later-model bumper. The headlights were also covered up, meaning that this car was used exclusively for short, daytime races.
Restoration Begins
Once the junkyard find arrived safely back at Corvette Repair, Kevin grabbed his dossier and began comparing the notes, photographs, and documents that he had amassed on the car to what was actually sitting in front of him. He then began the arduous process of compiling the complete history of the car, starting once again at the beginning with Or Costanzo. Costanzo this time suggested that Kevin contact Walt Thurn, the original public relations manager and photographer for the Rebel team.
Kevin called him and told him that he had found and currently had in his possession the Rebel Corvette. Thurn more or less laughed him off. “Yeah, you and everybody else thinks they have that car,” Thurn arrogantly stated over the phone. “Mr. Mackay, if you’ve got that car I’ll know you have it because there are some very unique things on that car that only I know about and I’ve got the photographs to prove it.”
Although confident that he had the car, Kevin relished the opportunity to prove it and leave no doubt. He welcomed the expert critical evaluation that Thurn could provide. He suggested that he would shoot a 36-frame roll of film (before the time of digital photography) of the car and its details and overnight it to Thurn.
When Kevin sent a roll of film to original team photographer Walt Thurn, it was this image that sealed the deal. Thurn immediately recognized the steering wheel and switch console as having been removed from Dave Heinz’s boat. In addition, all the gauges were original to the #57 car.
“You son of a gun!” came Walt Thurn’s voice over the phone just a day later. He was out of breath. “You got the car! I can’t believe you got the car! I developed your 36 prints, Mr. Mackay, and let me tell you, that car is so significant and I can’t believe it survived.
“The interior of that car is exactly the way it raced at Sebring. That steering wheel came out of Dave Heinz’s boat. That control panel is from Dave Heinz’s boat. The shifter and all the gauges are there and the original roll bar. The car is unbelievable. That’s the car! I can help you because I have all the photographs of the car in its period.”
With a bevy of original photos by Walt Thurn, as well as his enthusiastic approval that this was indeed the real #57 Rebel Corvette, the Corvette Repair team got down to the restoration. All the original wiring was still in place, although the engine and transmission had long since been removed. The steering wheel and control panel from Dave Heinz’s boat were refurbished, with every toggle switch still being in serviceable condition.
The final piece of the restoration proved to be one of the most difficult to find, but the car would remain just shy of ultimate perfection until it was attained. When the car raced at Sebring in 1972, the year it made the cover of Corvette News, it ran with a novelty plate that featured an image of a Confederate soldier holding a Rebel flag and stated, “Save Yo’ Confederate Money Boys—The South Gonna Rise Again!”
Before the Internet and online auction and sales websites, the only way to find something that specific was to stumble upon it at a swap meet. Kevin took the time to poke through license plates at every swap meet he went to and always asked the vendors about this specific one. He finally found it at the Belmont racetrack swap meet and nearly fainted. The restoration of arguably the greatest C3 Corvette was complete.
The Most Valuable
The restored Rebel in its 1972 Sebring livery was finished just in time to debut at the 1994 Malcolm Konner Chevrolet Show, the same one where Kevin debuted his first restoration a decade prior. Zora Arkus-Duntov, father of the Corvette, made an appearance to sit in and sign the car.
It was next invited to appear in the newly opened National Corvette Museum among the best 50 Corvettes in existence. “100,000 people were at the museum for the opening and my car was there,” Kevin says. “I was like a proud father. That’s why I did that car before the John Paul car. I wanted to do the most significant cars first, not even knowing that I would find this car!
“I found it in September 1991 and I found the Sunray DX #3 racer in August 1991. Back to back. Within eight weeks I had two of the most significant cars. I had the best ’68 on the planet and the best ’69 on the planet just by dumb luck.”
The Rebel sat at the museum entertaining, educating, and inspiring Corvette enthusiasts for a year and a half before returning to Kevin’s garage to join the Sunray DX #3 Corvette and the VV Cooke Corvette. After years of continuing to show the car, and displaying at Bloomington Gold Special Collection, the Rebel received an NCRS American Heritage Award in 2000. Numerous production models, posters, and other promotional material were sold commemorating the Rebel Corvette. It would have been tough to be a Corvette enthusiast in the 1990s without hearing about or seeing the Rebel and its magnificent story and restoration.
Selling a high-profile race car such as the Rebel Corvette comes with its fair share of publicity. Here, Kevin is being interviewed for a television show. He dressed up for the occasion and matches the car perfectly!
In 2014, what had become known as the most iconic L88 Corvette to ever race hit the auction block at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale. Even with a reserve, the Rebel hammered at a record $2.86 million, making it the most valuable C3 Corvette race car ever sold at auction.
Zora Arkus-Duntov sitting in the Rebel Corvette that was part of the elite lightweight L88 program. He was personally involved with each one, with the Rebel being the most successful on the racetrack. (Photo Courtesy Bill Erdman)
