1957 Corvette Super Sport

[Leif A.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Great stuff Rich. I'm sure you had the time of your life!! Congratulations on the award!!

[Tim G.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Congratulations on your award. I hope to see this beautiful car someday.

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Thanks Guys, but John and his car is the award winner, I'm just the helper!

What a great time we had. John came over yesterday to help me on my next project, a '61. But we were both still exhausted from the weekend so we ended up sitting on the patio and talked all day and reminisced the weekend. He said he had the time of his life. He never brought a car to a car show of any kind. This was his first time he actually showed a car. Years ago, 2003 IIRC, he brought the Sebring #1 car to Amelia, but it rained so hard he never took it out of the trailer. So this marks his first "Showing". It exceeded expectations.

So now that we're back, we have a few things to sort out on the car. As a recap, here's what happened Thursday. We were fixing up a brake problem and that charging system problem. We figured we would be okay, and even had a extra day, Friday, to do last minute tasks before transport day Saturday morning to be there for the Sunday scheduled Concours.

Then we got a call. John's wife was at work and got a email on her smartphone from Amelia that the Concours was getting bumped back a day to Saturday because of bad forecast for Sunday. John and I looked at each other, sat down, and wondered if we could get it done. We went this far, so what the heck. Go for it.

First up was the brakes. When we first ran the car, it had none. The Master Cylinder was bad. He worked on that while I was doing the electrical work on the failed generator. The MC was plugged up from sitting 20 years with DOT 3 fluid. He took it out and had a rebuilt identical MC and put that in. We then tried a bleed. Right front was fine, left front locked off. No left brake.


Note the original type shoe hold downs.




We pulled the riveted drum(had to remove the hub nut/bearing)and pulled the wheel cylinder. It was seized. We had no spare handy. I thought I had some so my wife checked at my shop for me over the phone. I had kits and new cylinders, but they were all for the rears, 1 inch. We needed 1 3/16" fronts. So we had to get them locally. After 2 or 3 stops to various Auto Parts stores, he found kits. He honed the cylinder and rebuilt it. We then did a flush bleed of the system and while the wheels were off the ground we did the "spin the wheels and hit the pedal test". All good.

Okay, now the the regulator generator problem. After some tests on my growler, it appeared the armature was bad. I swapped in a used armature from my spare 1102043 generator. I did a quick "motor" test and it spun, but seemed slow. We put it back on the car, and with a known good spare VR I had, we ran it up.

Not good. I could see voltage climb past 15 volts and rising at higher RPM. tried another VR......same result. Had to yank it out again. This time, I did more tests on the Field coils and compared to my known good. I saw a subtle 3 ohm difference(lower) than my known good and decided the Field coil was also bad from the first failure mode.

I ended up using the good case and rebuilt that with parts from the original. We put it back on the engine and it was now fine. But I had to take it off again as the forward end frame from mine had stripped threads and I had no Helicoil kit. So I had to take it all apart again to swap in the original frame with the Helicoil repair from before. We put it back in, tested it with a 001 regulator with chrome cover, and all good. Charging max 14 volts at RPM above 900+. We took it for one last spin to test brakes and charging system. Good.We will replace the Field coil on the original generator later. We needed a confidence factor.




Then we had to replace the smoked lamps that failed when the overcharge first happened. After puttzing around replacing courtesy lamps, tail lamps, headlamps, and fixing a bad ground on the license lamps, we were done. And a good thing we did get the lamps fixed as we drove the car at night both to and from the show field. Thinking about it now, it may be ironic and I'll have to ask Dave Benjamin who was there on Eubank Blvd 59 years ago. The last time it was on public roads then....it may have been night time too. Hmmmm, spooky stuff again.

It was ready. I went home, packed my bags and spares for the ride up to Fernandina Beach Friday morning. We got there around 4 PM. John picked up his registration packet at the hotel lobby. Just for the heck of it I asked if any rooms were available for Friday night at the Ritz Front Desk. 2 very nice young ladies were there. John, Gina, and my wife Cathie thought I was nuts to even ask. I walked up and asked anyway..... One left, but for Saturday night. I asked if they could bump it back to Friday night for us since the Concours was bumped back 24 hours too.....with a smirkface. They laughed at me and told me I should be on the Comedy Channel. THey said I could check back after 10 PM for space. I said I'd be asleep in the car by then so not to worry. BTW, it was $600 a night with a 3 night minimum. I don't understand how that place makes any money.

We then stopped by to see the #003 '53 Corvette cutaway car and meet with the owner. Very nice gentleman and he gave me a copy of his nice info packet and photos. I'll display that in my shop. Quite a car. I recall Mike, the fabricator/restorer, showed me pictures last year in Lakeland on his Smartphone. Seeing the completed project was a treat. Jim Gessner sent me these pics, but I think John Neas took them so I cannot take credit for the nice quality photos.

I asked Kevin why he didn't do half of a hood and he laughed. I suggested the broomstick option. He laughed harder.





We then tried finding a hotel with some rooms still left for Friday night. We got lucky as there were 2 room cancellations at one about 15 minutes away on the beach.....cool, at a unbeatable price of just about half of the Ritz nightly rate, but our rooms with a nice view of the parking lot. We then went out and had a nice dinner at a place right on the water in downtown. We got back to the hotel and met some other Corvette acquaintances staying there too. After a while we all crashed for the night. This was about 9 PM.

At 2 AM I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. I was too hyped up for the upcoming day. I decided to take off and try to find a 24 HR gas station for some coffee. Thankfully I did. Across the street was a all night car wash, so after a few coffees I gave the SUV bus we went up in a well needed self service bath as I had no time to clean it up for the trip. Got back to the hotel at 4:30, met John at 5 AM. The rest is history.

Rich

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

I just got a email from Dale, who got one from Ron Davlos. Ron is Bob's younger brother. Bob is the guy who lent the Helmet to Larry Poole when he drove it from Illinois home to Albuquerque. I sent Dale a bunch of photos and links and he passed them on to the locals who remember the car. Dale and I spoke for quite a while yesterday and we're both having much fun.
Rich

here's what Ron told Dale.....

[Bruce B.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Rich,
Congratulations to you and the owner of the SS.
I find it great that Dale Schaffer and others from Albuquerque provided so much real old first hand info on the car.
To me this was a fantastic along with the great work you did.
Bruce B.

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

History Update.....

Over the last week I've had the pleasure of speaking to someone new from Albuquerque. Since the car has been seen now at Amelia and the word is out, I've been self-inundated with research activity.

The other night I got a call from a very nice gentleman by the name of Kenny Campbell from Albuquerque. Kenny was there on the Sunday afternoon at Eubank Blvd. He witnessed the scene. He and I were trying to put a timeline on when this happened. He said he didn't go to the "racetrack" on Eubank very often because he was younger than all those other kids and never could get a ride over there when things were happening.

He told me before he got his license he had a car sitting there. He patiently waited to reach driving age so he could drive it, a self built hot rod that he worked on for quite a while as a young teenager. He said he was so anxious to drive it but never did until he got his license. He would ride his bicycle everywhere until age 16. This must have been a hard thing to do with a cool hotrod sitting at Mom and Dad's house.

When he finally got his license he would drive over in his hotrod to watch the action on Eubank. He recalled he got his license in late 1959 or early 1960, and mentioned that today he is 73 years old and got his license at age 16. Doing some math, he was born in 1944, so at age 16 the year would be 1960. He said this is around the time he remembers that Sunday afternoon.

He said he was standing around with everyone, when all of a sudden off in the distance was a big cloud of dust. Right as it happened he well remembers a strange sound. All along Eubank were telephone poles. Eubank was a dead end, and ended at gates to a Army Base. He vividly remembered the sound of all of the wires along the poles bouncing up and down with a loud "twinging" sound echoing throughout the vicinity. After the cloud of dust and the weird twinging sounds everyone ran down the track to see what happened.

There it was, the Super Sport, all smashed up into a telephone pole. He said when he got there no one was in the car. He is unsure who was driving it. He said the car hit head on, hard into the pole, between the driver side headlight and the center blue stripe. This public photo of the car shows the result and confirmation of what Kenny remembers.


So jump ahead to present, and here are more photos taken by various folks sprinkled around the internet.

These were likely taken just after sunrise while waiting for the go ahead to enter the fields. Notice the "No Parking" sign. It was dark when we came in, and that was on my side but I never saw it. Of course, that was there to keep non-entry cars away, not us.




Here are a few more for the archives.

This was a nice sequence someone took while Parading up for the Significant Car Recognition. Severral cars are pre-selected for this special treat. John got the letter in the mail a week after he registered for the event, back in February.


This one is special too. Ed Welburn, Retired GM VP of Styling, spent quite a while with John and his car. Write-up Here.


This one is when it got the HVA National Heritage Award. That is HVA President Mark Gessler(left) and Bill Warner(Amelia Concours Founder) making the presentation. I had a nice conversation with Mark when he and his Associate Historian(IIRC Casey Maxon) came to the car earlier in the day. We didn't realize at the time it was being considered for the Award. There is a unique Judging exercise using HVA Judging Sheets as part of their process. More info HERE.


This is the Award Trophy. I took this photo the other day as I never got a close up on Saturday or Sunday.


Rich

[Michael J.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Great stories all around, and great recognition for a great car. Did anyone ask Al Unser if he remembers the car in Albuquerque?

[Bruce B.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Rich,
Again, GREAT STUFF.
Time to compile it into a book when you have a minute.
Bruce B

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Great stories all around, and great recognition for a great car. Did anyone ask Al Unser if he remembers the car in Albuquerque?

Michael, We never were able to connect with Al and not sure if he was there at some time during the day. I think he was busy with his own cars.
Maybe we can talk to him in the future.

Rich,
Again, GREAT STUFF.
Time to compile it into a book when you have a minute.
Bruce B

Bruce, I think I already did.

And Dave Zuberer has taken this entire thread and created a PDF. He updates it whenever new posts are added. I need to send it to the Albuquerque folks as they are not on here.

I also did a reply to the Hemmings blog last night. Ron Hovey, Bill Hovey's(prior owner) son, chimed in with a nice paragraph.

Rich

[Joe M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Motor life June 1957 ran an article on the SS.

[Patrick H.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Motor life June 1957 ran an article on the SS.

Wrong SS, though.

[Richard M.]

Re: 1957 Corvette Super Sport

Joe, Yes, however the "SS" in that article was the Duntov race car, the XP-64. SS was a acronym for several names, which I think no one at GM ever properly defined. I've seen Super Spyder. Spyder Sport , Sebring SS, Super Sport, etc, etc.

Both were two very different cars done at the same time in two different Facilities. Duntov's SS is the XP-64 Experimental done in Engineering. The Super Sport was done in the Styling Department, often called the SS for short. The two often get confused. In fact, going all the way back to 1957 they were confused with each other then too.

Both Speed Age and Road & Track did articles in 1957. Both confused the two cars. I posted the Speed Age issue (at the end of) a previous Post HERE.

The April 1957 Road & Track issue below in jpg and pdf at the end of this post. Note the "SS"(Super Sport) description and specifications. The very first line is in error. It states: "Announced at the annual meeting of the SCCA in Detroit......(wrong, that was XP-64 Duntov SS).

Other errors, describing the Super Sport, but actually describing the XP-64 Duntov SS:
......."long awaited 4 Speed transmission"(wrong, that was XP-64 Duntov SS),
......."finned brake drums"...(wrong, that was XP-64 Duntov SS),
......."special (heavy duty) springs".....(wrong, that was XP-64 Duntov SS),
...and more.



Now, while I'm at it, I had this magazine with me at Amelia. We were walking around and there were a large group of Jaguar C and D Types present in a special display, along with 2 XK-SS Jaguars. THe XK-SS was a attempt to make a street-able version of the D-Type race car. I remembered my magazine, went back to get it, and took a few comparison shots. The owners of the XK-SS cars were not there. I attempted to have the Jaguar and the Corvette try to get side by side for a comparison timeline(60 years apart) shot, but I couldn't get it to happen. That'd have been fun. BTW, only 16 XK-SS Jaguars were ever built.

I took the mag and camera and did a few fun shots but only got one as the sun washed out the others. I felt that this was just another coincidence that the Super Sport was destined to encounter again. What would be the odds of one of those 2 XK-SS's was the one in the magazine. I know for sure the Corvette on the lawn was the one in the magazine.




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