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| URL:
http://riceornot.ricecop.com/?auto=63807 |
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| Comments: 29 (Read/Post) Favorites: 1 (View) |
Submitted
on: 05-25-2007
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Category:
Vehicle Group |
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Description:
1969 Corvette ZL1s. These have long been assumed to be the two original ZL1 Corvettes sold to the public....but are they really? Controversy and conspiracy to follow. |
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| #1 |
5-25-2007 @ 09:17:13 PM |
| Posted By : Skid |
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The 550+ horse ZL1 was the top 427 for 1969. An alluminum race engine, the cars they were ordered in were not even available with heaters. Although seven Corvettes were built with these engines for testing, five were converted by the factory into L88 cars before shipping. To quote Zora Duntov on the ZL1s, "two escaped."
Since the late 1980s, both of these cars have claimed to be the original ZL1 Corvettes. The Danbury mint even made replicas of both vehicles. But are they?
Numerous plant employees where the Vettes were built and tested have claimed that the two escaping Corvettes were 1 yellow and 1 BLUE one. If this were one person, the discrepancy would be easy to overlook, but numerous people have claimed this.
The yellow car, first of all, is undoubtedly real. This car has a documented history from the time it originally left the factory, and has never gone lost. The car was supposedly so tempermental and difficult to drive that the plant manager used a drill to (cont.)
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| #2 |
5-25-2007 @ 09:22:47 PM |
| Posted By : Skid |
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(cont.) run up the odometer to the necessary 3000 miles before GM brass would let them release it from testing. The back of the car's gauge cluster even still bears marks from the drill.
The white car is where it gets interesting. In the late 1980s, Vette Vues magazine published an article by Dick Fernando (owner of the famed restoration shop D&A Corvettes) where he interviewed the "alleged" original owner of the other ZL1, which was claimed to be white. Mere months later D&A Corvettes suddenly "finds" and "restores" the other ZL1. No pictures or story of the car in its "found" condition or documenting its restoration are ever produced. D&A Corvettes is also famous for producing "top-flight tributes," that is, Corvette clones that can't be told from the real thing. They specialize in big block C3s.
Several plant employees have come forward, claiming that not only do they not remember this car, but that they would have never put a stripe so elaborate on a ZL1 (cont.)
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| #3 |
5-25-2007 @ 09:27:45 PM |
| Posted By : Skid |
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(cont.), nor would they have built one without sidepipes (the stripe on the white car is an elaborate, over-the-roof affair that tapers out and makes the entire rear of the car black, as opposed to a simple nose stripe on the yellow one). One final (and most telling) bit of evidence: The yellow car is alleged to be the first ZL1 Corvette, and is a late 1969 model (VIN 29xxx). The white car, however, is an earlier car with VIN 7xxx.
While the white car undoubtedly has an original ZL1 engine in it, many of these engines were sold as crates during the time period, and 69 COPO Camaros were also built with them. GM during this time period didn't put engine information in the car's VIN (only the number of cylinders), and body tags and the like can be faked by expert cloners.
Sorry for the length, but it's not a short story to tell.
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| #4 |
5-25-2007 @ 09:35:23 PM |
| Posted By : Subourbon187 |
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Sounds like D&A are trying to pull the wool over people's eyes, it's a little to convienient how Dick Fernando interviewed the original "owner" of the first ZL1 and suddenly found another ZL1. Their story is waaay too spotty to convice me and there's way to much evidence to the contrary. On top of the fact that a ZL1 would be easy to clone espescially by a body shop famous for Corvette work. My guess is the second ZL1 is owned by the Sultan of Brunei and he just forgot about it.
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| #6 |
5-25-2007 @ 09:49:55 PM |
| Posted By : Subourbon187 |
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I swear, between these and the Blue Devil the Vette has got to be the most argued and theorized vehicle ever.
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| #9 |
5-25-2007 @ 10:05:25 PM |
| Posted By : Tastycakemix |
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Was it the 1979 or 1978 that Vette owners consider it the worst Vette in terms of quality?
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| #10 |
5-25-2007 @ 10:10:09 PM |
| Posted By : Skid |
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Dunno. I do know, though, that 1984 is the one I'd least like to own. Crossfire injection AND teething problems on the new C4 platform....Ick.
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| #12 |
5-25-2007 @ 10:23:28 PM |
| Posted By : Skid |
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#11, Isn't there only one in existence, and it's basically a 1982 from the outside?
Unrelated, but I like this quote from Car & Driver's Patrick Bedard on the 1980 Corvette: ""Ten years ago the typical Corvette spent Saturday morning with its hood up, the engine getting a fine-tune for the street racing that would inevitably follow. Now the typical Corvette rolls up at the country club on Saturday morning, driven by a guy with white shoes and a white belt."
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| #15 |
5-25-2007 @ 10:33:07 PM |
| Posted By : Adambomb |
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#12, Hence the the :P
And it's identical to the 1984 outside. Probably a 1982 chassis tho.
[Edited by Adambomb on 5-25-2007 @ 10:33:52 PM]
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| #16 |
5-26-2007 @ 12:18:26 AM |
| Posted By : Subourbon187 |
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While we're out looking for the Blue Devil and the lost ZL1 and the 1983 Corvette why don't we find the first two ever made as well? There were no official witnesses to their supposed destruction.
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