bill connell

After all the hype, what happened to MECUM'S auction lot 132 at Kissimmee ?

54-4-9

Bill, I was wondering the same thing. Been watching all week on my computer and from this couch potatoes perspective it sure doesn't seem like the money is in the room for the corvettes this year. Maybe Dana Mecum and the current owner feel the same way and decided to pull it at the last minute ?

Bill Lacy

Car sold for 2.???? Million. Maybe the buyer is have a problem with his funds.
I know that a buyer one time bounced a check off of Dana, on a high dollar car, and Dana still made good on the sale and kept the car. Dana then sold the car at a later date.

54-4-9

Bill, I guess it did cross the auction block then, I missed it, Mecum site does not show the car as sold or otherwise just "no information available". You may very we'll be correct in that maybe there is a problem with funds.

62Jeff

What car is this?

Capt Van

http://www.mecum.com/auctions/lot_de...=&startRow=141



HIGHLIGHTS

- 1956 Corvette SR Sebring Racer #1194, The Real McCoy
- 1st in Class and 9th Overall at Sebring in 1956
- Driven by John Fitch and Walt Hansgen
- 2012 Bloomington Gold Great Hall Inductee
- Driven by Zora Duntov to a new two-way Flying Mile Speed Record at Daytona Speed Week
- Touted in Chevrolet's advertising campaign after Sebring as The Real McCoy
- Known as the car that saved the Corvette brand
- Dual Quad 307 CI engine developed by Duntov for racing
- One of the first Corvettes with a 4-speed transmission
- Very rare Halibrand magnesium knock-off wheels
- Special heavy duty brakes with cooling scoops
- Heavy duty shocks and sway bars
- Upgraded high capacity fuel tank
- A pioneer in Corvette's racing history
- Spirit of Detroit award at the Concours of America in 2011
- Sold on a bill of sale
- Serial No. VE55S001194
DESCRIPTION

ESTIMATE: Available Upon Request
Forever known as “The Real McCoy”, this 1956 Chevrolet Corvette prototype delivered a historic one-two punch against the competition that literally saved the Corvette, the result of a gargantuan effort to rescue the ailing brand whose sales were flagging under competition from Ford’s Thunderbird. It began life at Chevrolet as Engineering Project Tracking Number 6901, assembled under the supervision of Corvette Chief Engineer Zora Arkus Duntov with a special bored-out 307 CI engine using dual Carter 4-barrel carbs and the now-legendary “Duntov cam.”

With an estimated 255 horsepower on tap, the car powered Duntov to a new two-way Flying Mile speed record during NASCAR’s Daytona Speed Week, a high-profile event that drove hot competition between the factories and attracted widespread press coverage. Just two months later in March 1956 against the world’s best, it was driven by American racers John Fitch and Walt Hansgen to a historic class win at the 12 Hours of Sebring, firmly establishing the Corvette as a force in both American and international sports car racing and setting its course to becoming America’s Sports Car.

The path to that success presented daunting challenges from the start. Conceived in secrecy and brought to life in a small building in Flint, MI, the 1953 Corvette was judged a success by its two GM creators and mentors, head of GM Styling Harley Earl and Chevrolet Division Chief Engineer Ed Cole (who in 1956 became Chevrolet’s General Manager overseeing Duntov). 1954 opened with promise as a new plant was readied in St. Louis with the capacity to sell 10,000 cars per year. But just as production reached its peak, it was cut back; new Corvettes languished in showrooms, potential buyers put off by the car’s uninspiring driveline and the absence of such basic amenities as roll-up windows.

Then lightning struck: Ford announced that it would build a two-seat sports car to compete with Corvette. The first 1955 Thunderbirds were built in September, 1954 and, in contrast to Corvette, were offered with a full range of colors and options, a choice of transmissions and such conveniences as roll-up or power side windows, a power seat and a fiberglass hard top, with a steel body whose styling borrowed heavily from the popular full-size Fords. A new 265 CI V-8 was introduced to Corvette for 1955, but it was still mated to the cast iron cased 2-speed Powerglide automatic transmission. Sales slumped badly from 3,640 in 1954 to just 700 in 1955, while Thunderbird sales zoomed past 16,000.

Fearing that GM was ready to abandon the Corvette, Chief Engineer Zora Arkus Duntov wrote a letter to management, warning that such a move would surrender precious territory to Ford in the years ahead and advising Chevrolet to accelerate Corvette development with the goal of turning it into a world class sports car. The challenge was accepted, and in 1956 Corvette was given a chance to realize its potential, but only after a twist that saw Duntov’s influence seem to wane for a brief period.

As one automotive writer had put it, Corvette’s main problem going into 1956 was that it was “without credentials”, a charge with which Duntov had agreed. Indeed, it was poring over the records set at the 1955 Daytona Speed Week that prompted Duntov to target the Flying Mile, which then stood at a two-way average of just over 127 MPH. He had already fitted 6901 with the 307 CI engine running the first “Duntov cam”, a radical grind that was central to the car’s record-setting average of 150.583 MPH, which Duntov accomplished just days before the 1956 GM Motorama opened at New York City’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel. The 150 MPH run generated massive publicity and new respect for Corvette, but the biggest challenge was yet to come.

Buoyed by the Daytona success, Ed Cole announced that a factory-backed Corvette team would be entered at the Sebring Sports Car 12 Hours of Endurance in March. Duntov’s presence at Cole’s announcement seemingly signaled the Chief Engineer’s approval, but in fact he was alarmed; just six months previously he had witnessed Mercedes-Benz driver Pierre Levegh’s devastating crash at Le Mans in which 83 people were killed and another 63 seriously injured. As a veteran driver and frequent winner in European racing, Duntov was fearful of Chevrolet’s lack of real-world racing experience. Having driven 6901 at Sebring while waiting for the weather to clear at Daytona, he knew that its brakes were unsuited to the rigors of a 12-hour race. He was also concerned for Sebring’s inherent dangers: numerous hidden concrete hazards, closely situated buildings and almost no protection for spectators.

Duntov presented his concerns to Chevrolet management in the hope that they would at least reconsider the Sebring plan; instead he was promptly reassigned by Ed Cole to managing the spare parts and vehicle testing programs. In Duntov’s place, Cole hired American driver John Fitch, who also had experience in Europe, most importantly as a Mercedes-Benz factory team driver with Stirling Moss and the great Juan Manuel Fangio, and under the tutelage of racing manager Alfred Neubauer. On the surface it looked like a blow to Duntov, but it would prove to serve both Ed Cole’s single-minded ambition and Duntov’s vision for Corvette’s future.

Fitch faced the monumental task of preparing an admittedly very good production grand touring car for one of the world’s most punishing sports car endurance races, within a period of just five weeks. Cole had already laid the groundwork late in 1955 by sending three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Maury Rose to Daytona Beach in search of skilled mechanical talent, which he found in one Henry “Smokey” Yunick, owner of “Smokey’s Best Damned Garage in Town” and a legend in the making as a mechanic, builder and crew chief. Four Corvettes - 6901 and three stock production models - were sent to Yunick for initial preparation before delivery to Sebring, where Fitch was already busy testing a single cobbled-together mule built up around a 1956 chassis and a 1955 body.

Fitch’s early runs in the mule quickly revealed a host of problems. In his 1959 book “Adventure on Wheels: The Autobiography of a Road Racing Champion”, Fitch recounted his initial experience with the mule: “As the early days went by, and as we pounded our test car through exercises that simulated the wrenching strains of the road race, the expected troubles began – also some unexpected ones. We developed oil leaks, we loosened engine mounts, we threw fan belts, we struggled with handling problems. We had the wrong oil in the rear end, but we had to burn out several of them before we found the solution. March 24 seemed just around the corner, yet we had only begun to learn how to turn Corvettes into the taut, tough competition machines that they would have to be.”

Soon the four Yunick-prepared Corvettes arrived at Sebring to begin testing. Three were equipped with stock 265 CI engines and three-speed transmissions for C Production; the fourth, 6901, had the 307 CI engine now mated to a ZF 4-speed and would run in class B with Fitch and the talented Hansgen sharing the driving. Testing proceeded on the four race cars as well as the mule. As Fitch later pointed out, without a racing history upon which to draw conclusions, every problem represented unknown territory. “When we had a breakdown…we didn’t know what to blame: design fault, parts failure, wrong lubrication or possible misuse. Our Corvettes were in deep water and learning to swim at the last minute.”

With each new lesson came the need for new equipment to apply to the Sebring cars. Back in Detroit, Duntov kept the process going, designing new pieces, assigning part numbers and cataloguing them as factory options to qualify them for homologation. Ongoing improvements allowed testing to continue with increasing rigor, exposing ever more gremlins and hastening the demand for more heavy duty parts. It was a seemingly never-ending spiral that had Duntov and the factory scrambling to keep up.

Finally, time simply ran out. After attending to a flurry of last minute details, Fitch and his team had nothing left but to line up the four Corvettes at the front of the starting grid. Their respective positions were dictated simply by engine displacement, putting the Fitch/Hansgen Corvette (wearing Number 1 by virtue of its first place on the starting grid) at the front and the other three team cars behind a 5.0 liter Ferrari in second place.

Fitch started the race with his typical studied care, watching in his mirrors to make sure the other three cars also got off to a good start. Nursing the car through the first lap, Fitch was passed by two D-Type Jaguars and Stirling Moss’ Aston Martin while holding to his planned pace, but on the second lap the engine’s rising exhaust note betrayed a slipping clutch. Using a trick he had employed at Le Mans in 1953 to curb the same problem, Fitch deliberately slipped the clutch in high gear until the cockpit filled with smoke, then again nursed it for a lap to allow the clutch to cool and then stabilize.

The maneuver allowed the car to continue, albeit with its maximum revs reduced by 400 at the top of the torque range; this limitation proved to be what kept it going through the day. By the end of that third lap, Fitch saw the Number 5 Corvette resting askew off the U-turn minus a wheel. An hour later on the twenty-second lap, the Number 7 car’s engine expired in spectacular fashion, enveloping the airport straight in a cloud of oil smoke and reducing the team to two cars; one with a shaky clutch, the other with only high gear left in the transmission. Fortunately, as always happens in big-league endurance racing, other top teams were fighting their own battles for survival, including the Aston Martins of Moss and Collins, the Hill/Gregory Ferrari and the Team Cunningham D-Type Jaguars, all non-finishers.

With less than an hour to go, Walt Hansgen took the wheel, maintaining solid lap times to bring home a first in class victory and a ninth overall; only twenty four of the sixty starters completed the race. It was a truly remarkable finish to what had seemed an impossible task, from which Corvette emerged an undeniable winner, additionally scoring both production team and production sports car honors. The Fitch/Hansgen Corvette had literally saved the Corvette brand.

Chevrolet immediately trumpeted the accomplishment in dramatic print ads heralding Corvette as “a tough, road-gripping torpedo on wheels” and “the most remarkable car made in America today.” The message between the lines was the most important one of all: Corvette had finally arrived as a force in international sports car racing, a feat symbolized in the simple headline: “The Real McCoy.”

While initially prepared for the 12 Hours by Smokey Yunick in Daytona Beach, the car’s final configuration was the result of five weeks of torrid development work that emphasized handling, brakes and reliability, the three major contributors to endurance racing success. Testing generated numerous specialized parts, including magnesium Halibrand knock-off wheels, special heavy duty brakes with cooling scoops, heavy duty springs, shocks and sway bars, a shorter steering column, quick-ratio steering and a larger fuel tank. Each new piece was made available in the factory Corvette parts catalog for homologation, making it available to other Corvette owners and racers, another factor that contributed to rebranding the Corvette with a true sports car pedigree. Nothing, however, was more crucial to Corvette’s successful turnaround than the class win at America’s premier sports car endurance race, a fact that makes “The Real McCoy” a pioneer in Corvette’s glorious racing history.

62Jeff

Thank you.

groovyjay