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Yep, there it is
folks, a Red 1965 Corvette Convertible. The car was
purchased in the summer of 1975 from Jack Cooper of Chautauqua New
York. It was advertised in the paper for a price of
$2,200.00 and was purchased for $1,800.00. What had happened
is that The Raptor's original car, a 1971 Ford Pinto had been
wrecked. Armed with an insurance settlement and working
against the wishes of my parents, I drove to New York and
purchased what was probably the most beat up and useless auto ever
sold in the continental United States!
This picture is
deceiving because the car looks pretty good. However, this
picture was probably taken in the summer of 1976 after some costly
upgrades. Consider some of the projects:
The black convertible
top is new as are the tire's and trim rings and center
cones. The front bumper is new as are the ultra cool side
exhausts. The other front bumper was installed shortly after
this. I believe that the bracket I purchased had to be
altered. The interior had been reworked because the flooring
was non-existent. Apparently, some of the previous drivers
of the car thought that driving the car through rocky fields was
acceptable.
The whole mechanical drive train
was changed several times while The Raptor owned the car.
New brakes, new shocks, new ball joints, new radiator, new carburetor,
new intake manifold, new windshield wiper motor and new shifter.
The paint was terrible
and the car had been painted several times in 10 years. At
one point it was even painted white. I considered getting
the car painted but chickened out.
The clutch was
replaced at least 6 times while I owned the car. This was
primarily because I used to beat that car like there was no
tomorrow. The engine had been determined to not be the
original engine of the car. Based on some research performed
by some of my motor head buddies, it was determined that the engine
came from a 1969 Camaro. Therefore, we tore the engine apart
in the winter of 1976 and put all kinds of high performance parts
in it.
Included in this
rebuild were a new cam shaft, new crank shaft, new 12.5 to 1
compression high domed pistons, new timing chain, new distributor,
new cast iron cylinder heads with 2.02 intake ports. The
rebuilt engine developed about 375 horsepower with this
configuration and coupled with the side exhausts which were
basically straight pipes with some baffling, the car could be
heard from two blocks away.
For excitement, The
Raptor used to drive up Sassafras Street to the overpass at
16th. Stopping the car briefly, I would begin pumping the
gas pedal bumping the tach up to about 5,000 rpm and when the
timing was right, The Raptor would side step the clutch and create
a huge burn out as the posi-traction rear end dug the tires into
the asphalt. This was the coolest thing going since the
sound reverb within the overpass created an intense ear crunching
roar.
It was in the summer
of 1977 that The Raptor was given a replacement hood that was
supposedly hand built by local Vette body man Lenny Albert.
It really was somewhat ugly but I decided to put it on the car
anyhow.
During the winter of
1977, we rebuilt the engine again and unfortunately, there were
some problems with the rebuild which cost some major $$$$ to
fix. I recall that the car eventually was towed to Hallman
Chevrolet and the engine had to be taken apart again in order to
get it running. During this time, and because of all of the
money spent on the car, I elected to sell the car and it was sold
to a local lad, Chuck Iverson who probably had it about 3 or 4
years but never seemed to get it going right. I think I sold it
for $3,500.00
Ironically, it was
about 10 years later when news of the Raptor's Vette surfaced
again. It seems that Chuck sold the Vette to local Body Man,
Jeff Howell who fixed it up and sold it to someone in New Jersey
for $13,000.00.
I really miss that car
and this explained my intent to buy another Vette in 1995.
This story will be covered in another chapter.
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