Gulf Oil sale

[Loren L.]

RM's website is reporting that the '62 Gulf Oil AP Corvette sold for $1.65M. Can anyone who was there confirm that this was
1.5M at the Gavel plus 10% commission? Does anyone know who the buyer is/was?

[Mike M.]

Re: Gulf Oil sale

loren: after grady got rid of the 62 pro vet, is it the one that was bought by dr don blatchley of greensburg, pa.? don had a 62 RPO vet(he gave me the differential years ago and it was stamped as an RPO code. don bought the 63 ZO6 after gulf got done with it and it eventually ended up with rich mason. how many 62 pro vets did gulf have in the day? regards and stay outa trouble. mike

[Loren L.]

Re: Gulf Oil sale

Mike, this auction car was the one that Mike E. uncovered - off the top of my head, I can't remember if Doc Batchley was in the chain of owners on it or not.

[Mike E.]

Re: Gulf Oil sale

He was not.

[Mike M.]

Re: Gulf Oil sale

mike: is the fate of doc blatchleys old c-1 RPO known? mike

[Loren L.]

Re: Gulf Oil sale

Mike, in going through the '62 race reports, the most frequent occurrence is Dr Dick in the AP '62 and Don Yenko in the BP '61. On 5 or so occasions, Grady Davis is also reported as a finisher/DNF but in those instances he is reported in BP seeming to indicate that he would have been in the Other '61. Is it possible that the other '62 owned by the team was perhaps a "rolling parts counter" for the Thompson AP car?

[Mike E.]

Re: Gulf Oil sale

Mike,
To my knowledge it is not. Somewhere I have some vhs footage (converted from an old home movie) of Doc Blatchley driving.

[Mike E.]

Re: Gulf Oil sale

Mike, in going through the '62 race reports, the most frequent occurrence is Dr Dick in the AP '62 and Don Yenko in the BP '61. On 5 or so occasions, Grady Davis is also reported as a finisher/DNF but in those instances he is reported in BP seeming to indicate that he would have been in the Other '61. Is it possible that the other '62 owned by the team was perhaps a "rolling parts counter" for the Thompson AP car?

Loren,
I don't think so. They entered two 62s at both Sebring and Daytona, so they were pretty serious. They had sold one of the 61s at the end of the 61 race season, but kept the other do they could assault both A production and B production in 1962. I do recall a conversation with Joe LaRoche, who was involved with Gulf's airplane maintenance as well as the Corvettes. This would have been in the late 1980s. He looked at my 62 and said "this looks a lot nicer than it ever did when we raced it. When we would bang it up, we would take a mold off the other 62, glue the new piece on, blow some white paint on it, and go racing." He could have easily misspoken and meant the remaining 61, but he did say 62, FWIW. How long did they keep the second 62? I don't know. Could that have been the car doc Blatchley then campaigned? It is curious that the Gulf #1 and #10 car (as opposed to #2 and #11) seems to have disappeared after Sebring, and that Blatchleys is also unknown. The Blatchley car had a different paint scheme and didn't have the body mods that Gulf made, however.
there is an individual who made contact with Grady Davis' family after his death, and he got the vins of all the Gulf cars. It's obvious that the missing 62 has not been located, in spite of the vin being known by that individual. That also precludes anyone else "suddenly" finding the missing 62 with an aberrant vin.