Corvette Resurrection

By Christopher A. Sawyer

The folks at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca have commissioned a series of five limited-edition t-shirts commemorating the 60^th anniversary of the Chevrolet Corvette. This is appropriate as the ‘Vette is the feature marque at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion this August 16-18.

The first design to go on sale is the split-window 1963 Corvette, though most non-marque experts will miss the fact as the image used is a side-on shot of the car. Nevertheless, the souvenir t-shirt, available for $25 plus shipping at the race track’s online store, will be joined at the end of January by the second in the series. That shirt will show the silhouette of the 1953 Corvette. The 1964 Corvette Grand Sport is next with two more designs to follow.

Photo courtesy of Mecum Auctions, all rights reserved.If you’re looking for the perfect compliment to the t-shirt, might I suggest getting yourself to Mecum’s Kissimmee, FL auction January 18-27. There you will find a 1954 Corvette that spent most of its life in a brick vault inside a Brunswick, Maine grocery store once owned by Richard Sampson. He bough the car new in 1954 and drove it until 1959, when he had workmen enclose it in a brick-and-mortar vault inside a new store he was having built in Brunswick. Though he left orders that the car remain there until 2000, the store was sold in 1982 to a local car dealer who wanted the car removed once the then-current lease expired in 1986.

Sampson’s daughter Cynthia had the car moved to her home in Dayton Beach, FL where it stayed in her living room for a further 10 years. Purchased in 1996 by a Corvette collector who promised to preserve the car rather than restore it, the car is probably the lowest mileage unrestored Corvette in the world with just 2,331 miles on the odometer. It is estimated to sell for $175,000-$225,000 when it goes up for auction on January 26^th around 4:00 pm.