GDaina

That is all well and good Rob, and I commend you on that, but I think somehow, somewhere along the way, you forgot your teachings, as your post above is just the opposite of good, but rather negative in nature.

Anyway, I hope we understand each other and dispense with further negative thoughts.

SHOWME

I don't take offense to this as it is you opinion,but it pretty much slams most of the custom/semi stocks on this site,Sayin what YOU REALLY hate,(fender flares aftermarket valve covers,weird colors??? then sayin (in a roundabout way)that we should keep it basicly to ourselves???Sorry but you threw me a little there!I agree that some can be overly harsh in their words and could give their oppinion without being degrading but every one is different.If you prefer undercoating over paint and polish it's cool,blue or orange valve covers over billet is ok too!Sometimes an oppinion is an opinion and you give it or you don't.It's the same as saying that the cars that have these things done to them looks bad to you.?????
Not to rehash,I was just thrown a little. No dig or beefs.

pbcanney

I enjoy customs. The ones that were customized (either partially or fully) for the better, and not just changed.. "because".

I've learned not to comment on yours (language interpretation I imagine)

But if I had one exactly like yours, I'd get a few gallons of deep cherry red metallic

FINWOLF

I look at this way it takes a lot of work either way you do it stock or custom. I like custom yes some are over the top but the work that goes in to it is what I look at. I don't think stock and custom guys will ever see eye to eye. Think about this when the car was made it was all figured out for you the custom guy have to do all that work for them selfs. but there is no right or wrong here it is just what you like. In my case what I like is all that matters to me.

GDaina

Unless the Corvette is a Bloomington Certified, or NCRS Award winner, or or a nice looking vette that is bone stock, the rest are in some shape, way or form custom....mine certainly is.

2000FRCZ19

this thread has been hijacked so many times its hard to tell. wasnt it about the corvette summer parts supplier?

SHOWME

I totally agree with you!IT NEEDS PAINT!!I'm so tired of the primer too!LOL!Someday,,,,,,,It could happen.


To be honest with everyone.I love the stockers as much as the customs.I just like to tinker too much!My skin has got alot thicker along the way too.LOL!I've learned how to co-exist for the most part and I still welcome the positive and negative.(Sometimes it challenges me!)
I have learned alot about most of you here from the miles of posts and I have gained a silent respect for alot of you here,purist or otherwise.
I hope that I have not driven any spikes with anyone.
OK,How far off track are we now!

The13Bats

LOL,
Now I get to place my 2 cents on this subject,
Lets see if I can say this so it doesn't get lost, I am saying all this smiling, I don't mean it in a pissy way but if you know the comedy of Dennis Leary that is how I mean it, just blatant and honest.

Why make a post to vaguely scold people for trashing the Corvette Summer car ( or other customs ) which was what my thread was originally about and take that scolding as far as to get in a few jabs and pokes on all custom including what I call simple or "car wash" customs, in the ruse that you are supporting custom.

Damning thru faint praise, when I see a line like "but who am I to tell them their cars look terrible? why would I waste my breath?" I ask why did you waste your time typing it out in a rather long post acting like you are trying to defend a persons right to customize or in your opinion make the car look terrible,

That is what I consider a senseless unnecessary post in a thread that is about custom stuff,

Early on, When I called stock boring I get threatened with shutting down my thread which I don't want to happen, ( thanks for not doing that! )

Lets be fair, you don't see me posting on a thread about how to get that factory frame mark just right how boring restoration is to me so why come to my thread and wrap up more trashing customs in some way of basically saying if we want to make out cars look terrible that's our business, yes, it's everyone right to make their car look the way they so desire,

I know from owning and modding on other forums some people just have to be heard, but I would like everyone to keep in mind that this thread was about a custom car and custom parts, if you don't like that sort of thing why even read the post I never open threads that have a subject that doesnt interest me, and if you don't like custom why spew negative about it to those of us who do like custom.

When I put "Corvette summer car" it would seem some people couldn't click this thread fast enough to come trash it and then all customs,

Please drop the negative trash talk and lets get back to custom talk, not if you like custom or not and not if you feel its our right to customize no matter how bad it looks to you,

I am in a jazzed up happy mood, I bought a really nice 76 for 2500.00 and talked with World famous Fiberglass Mike today , he has all the old molds and does all kinds of one offs, so I have my gears tuning.

He has the old Daytona Greenwood kit for the c3 No, I am not going that way but Mike is going to build a Widebody Daytona on a 79 he picked up, anyone else into the widebodies and Daytona race trim c3's?

Hey Defazio,
Small world I saw your car, pictures years ago, loved it then still love it,
When I was growing up my best friend was a DeFazio...

PS, I don't care if its highjacked to talk about other custom stuff,
Let get back to the fun,

aussiejohn

G'day,
I had to chime in, as I have an old copy of Street and Strip magazine, Issue #7 of 1987, with a feature article on the "Corvette Summer" car. The article states that a Sydney businessman, John Dee, saw the car on a used car lot in Parramatta Road in western Sydney, and bought it.

The article goes on......."It is a s##tbox. A tacky, whacky, fibreglass, wood and waterpipe piece of movieola windowdressing. It is the embodiement of every glossed-over awful act ever performed and hidden under a gallon of bog (Aussie for body filler) and a coat of paint to create an image of something that isn't."

"When he took it to the Department of Motor Transport, the defectives covered a 30 page report. When he took it to repairers he noticed their hair stand on end and dollar signs light up in their eyes."

"Three years and $160,000 later, John has done something previously unknown in Australia, and unlikely in the rest of the world. He has made a dream product real. It lacks none of the originality and superficial, spectacular custom touches of the Corvette created for Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer's 1978 cult movie "Corvette Summer." But beneath it all is a rock-solid, registered and driving 1973 radical custom Corvette Stingray sport coupe."

The article goes on to state the VIN, 1Z37J3S415437, built October '73 in St. Louis and delivered to a SoCal dealership. After two years of "street life" the car was "totalled" in a wet weather crash and although an insurance write off, it was sufficiently intact to rebuild as a radical custom and went to the Van Nuys headquarters of Korky's Kustom Studios, one of two cars to be built as "star cars" by Dick Korkes and Jim Shoppe.

There's a lot more on the custom build in the US and the modest show car scene after the movie, then the export to Australia. There it had a proper RHD conversion in place of the chain and went on the Australian show car scene before landing in a creek when the tow truck ran off the road.

There was an insurance settlement before the relatively undamaged car went on to the used car lot. That's where Mr. Dee bought it and began the painstaking process to "restore" it to the look of the movie in which it had starred. There are pages on what it took to bring the car back to a real show car, but I'll just give you the main points.

A 454 fitted with four downdraft twin-throat Weber carbs, Turbo 400, and the centre scoops were raised to clear the Webers. The article states........"The only part that hasn't been altered was the doors and the roof, ...it was a completely new car recreated to the closest possible detail to the car in the movie."

There are eleven colour photos in the article, but nine of them have a young lady draped across them wearing nothing above her waist, so I don't think they're suitable for this Forum. After all, the mag is called "Street and STRIP!!!" GDaina tell me otherwise????

Now, Bats, as for the photo in item#47 a few pages back, that is not the car at all. I've not seen it before, but I have seen a few cars like it (but without the hood). Notice the window behind the door, and the position of the rear wheel. This car looks like a Perentti, a very limited production Australian kit car. It used fibreglass body panels "inspired" by the C3, but fitted to a full perimeter box chassis from an Australian Holden one ton utility truck. These are an "El Camino-ish" light truck based on a passenger four door Holden car.

The wheelbase is 114", so to pass a roadworthy check easily, the makers of the body kept the complete chassis intact, rather than cutting it down to the Corvette's wheelbase, which would have looked better. They added a flip top front clip which looked like a Corvette, but had fixed headlights.

This is where the owner of that red car made his front clip either from a mould of the CS car, or fabbed one up himself to look like it. Of course, being a Holden, it had RHD, so the "Corvette Summer" look might appear authentic to some.

You might ask why I have a 21 year copy of a custom car magazine, but it's a Corvette and I just couldn't throw it out. If you want any more info on the magazine, e-mail me. jc.smith@optusnet.com.au I know nothing on the car itself, but believe that it is still in Sydney, Australia, and is indeed one of the two original and only Corvette Summer cars.

Regards from Down Under

aussiejohn
5 months to go

GDaina

Don't even think about showing the photo here...

The13Bats

AussieJohn,
Thanks for the long reply I love it! and allow me to chime back in as it were,
This is the type thing I wanted to talk about in this thread,

Let me start by saying pretty please with sugar on it scan and send the pictures of the Aussie car to me in private, The13bats@aol.com it will be the one and only time pictures of what is know to be the fall back car have been available to me,

I have old issues of "Street and strip", and "Cars" the problem with those rags and the time they came out is they print what the person tells them, they don't care and don't have to prove it's fact, like a tabloid printing something like Rosie O'Donnell is actually a shaved down Sasquatch, sounds like that could be fact perhaps it is part fact, who knows?

I have seen Street and Strip print for example Motion performance was the best shop ever then post a story trashing them, you get the drift?

From all the other info I have encountered over a 30 year study on the Corvette Summer Movie cars all that sounds basically correct but as I did in an earlier post I want to clear something up,

Dee or whoever talks about the Aussie car always calls it the Movie car, "Movie" car meaning the car we see in the film, then they go on to talk about it being a pile of poorly built junk because of wood and water pipes, that is was a destruction car I would assume that is like the Aussie version of a car with a totaled title here in the USA
Anyone into custom especially old school custom will tell you that all kinds of things are used to make the base of a one off custom and a car and a totaled title could be used especially for a car being made for a film where the builder doesn't care a hill of beans if the car will ever have a legal title for street use,

The Aussie car is NOT the car we see in the film, the car in the film is the Yager car,
What I believe to be the case and what my research points to, the fact is Korky built the first CSC with whatever he had laying around and under the body it was a mess big time, that car was the second or "fall back" car, Korky pulled molds off that first car, people who worked with him will go with that, the second car was build from those molds, and that is the car we see in the film, they hung on to the "fall back" car until filming was done, then the fall back car was sent to Australia where Dees found it on a car lot,
One difference was the movie car says "Stingray" across the back the fall back didnt,
Dee Spent way too much for it, then way too much to have it restored,
It is known when it was being delivered to Dees it was badly damaged, when Dees went to have it restored it was said to be safe molds were pulled, now ask yourself, how do you pull molds off badly damaged wrecked parts...you don't! you have to fix the parts first then they are not original,

I have heard that smoke and mirrors stories taken to the degree of saying that when the body shop that did Dee's restoration went defunct that a neighborhood boy asked for and was given the original hood scoop off the fall back car...sounds cool if it happened.

We know that Korky did pull molds off the car he built for the film and we know that Yagers car was the car in the film and is not the mess under the body the Aussie/Dees car was then it is no reach to believe in fact Dee's car IS the fall back car,

I did post What I will call the "Kent" car and I did wonder from time to time if parts of the/molded from the Fall back car ended up in that build, I knew the car was longer and wasn't a real "Corvette"
I don't really see that car as a clone or even a tribute perhaps inspired by the CSC car,
If you read what is written on cardomain about it
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2285008
They claim it was made from hood molds taken from the "movie car" well the truth is that was the "fall back" car, but look at the hood scoop and nose very different from the the movie car so is the Kent car modified front end parts the way the mold produced them or modded after the fact or ???

In the vein of tribute cars to the CSC there is the one at volocars which has the wrong rear end but a closer nose than the "Kent" car

http://www.volocars.com/1972-chevrol....com-c-377.htm

Then there is another Corvette summer inspired car one I will call a clone that is very close up in the New York area, I can't find the link, but as far as a copy goes it is right on,

Here are some things to ponder,
Here is some trivia, recall Silverauto auto body in the film it was the chop shop that kenny tracks the vette to, well that was Korkys shop...
Since Korky made the molds what became of his molds?
I have had many different people thru the years tell me they have seen the scoop for sale,
I wonder is it movie car correct or like the thing Vancors sells that isnt even close?
I know in the early 80's I saw at least 2 Camaros with that scoop, was it a one off copy?
As you see I am obsessed with details and what I saw was either the real deal or 95% there.

Lastly I was disappointed to learn that the fellow building the parts I started this thread for is a bigger dreamer than myself,
He wants 9000.00 for the front and rear raw body shells, too high for me when Motion still sells the Maco stuff way cheaper.

Ok I admit it, I didnt want to build a clone What I wanted was to find the front clip, I never really liked the overbite look of the real CSC but the Kent car fixes that to a degree, I didnt want to try to live with that scoop for a street driver, so I wanted to do my own lower scoop, for the tail I just wanted to do different tail lights,
I then was going to paint mine back,

aussiejohn

Bats,
Glad you liked the details I provided. You said that you have some "Street and Strip" mags. Do you have the one I have? Issue 7, 1987. If you have it, you don't need my photos, but if you don't have it, I'll be happy to take photos of my copy and e-mail them to you. I have a 10 megapixel digital camera, so that should do the trick. Only problem is I've never sent photos by e-mail before, but have a friend who has. Give me a few days.

BTW, my copy is in mint condition and the photos look great. I hope they come through that way.

Regards from Down Under

aussiejohn
5 months to go

aussiejohn

Bats,
Photos sent. As to your last letter, I accept and agree that the Dee car is not the movie car, but in fact the "mule" from which the moulds were pulled. I agree that the "Kent" car is a poor tribute to the movie car, and in fact has nothing "Corvette" on it at all. IMHO not even a tribute car.

As to the volo car, it is still LHD and has a nearly stock rear end, so cannot even remotely be called a tribute car.

The guy who calls himself "CS fan" on another Forum seems to be a real CS addict and appears to have most of the facts about the cars, both the real two movie cars (alright, the one movie car and the "back-up") as well as some of the "imposters". I did not read anywhere that he had the VIN of the two real cars, perhaps if he's reading this, he might now have another piece of the jigsaw puzzle.

Finally, thanks for raising this thread, I've sure learned from it, and I hope that others have too.

Regards from Down Under

aussiejohn
5 months to go

The13Bats

Many thanks for the pics, they came thru great!

No, I didn't have the mag, a few years back I was having really bad health issues and when I cleared out the room that I had "car" junk in I gave almost all my old rare mags away, 1000's of rags,
I never had that issue of S&S I would have kept it,
while the girl is ok I would have rather had pictures of the car alone for my interests,

We know that car was damaged and rebuilt and I have never seen it before now,
It is wonderful, no, not exactly like the "in movie car" but to me better,
I never liked the overbite look the film car had, this one fixes that, yes, the Kent car tried to fix that but it doesn't flow at all, the really nice very close car I said was around New York looks 99% movie car nose.

I had to laugh that to make it legal in Australia he had to make the scoop removable for street driving, Mad Max better hide his blower...lol

The CSC must look silly driving along with a huge hole in the hood,

Yes, puzzle pieces do come around but I fear with Korky no longer being around that some holes will never be filled, or filled with guesses and myth