Michael H

Does anyone on the forum know the history of the other 62 Sebring Race Cars? Where are they at??

This car was at Bloomington in 2005, used to be in the family. Where are the other three??? - Michael

62Jeff

I'm afraid I can't offer any new info for you, but in the 80s we had a guy named Mike DuPree in our corvette club in Houston that had one of the Sebring 62s. It was maroon, I believe, but still had the quick-fill gas lid with the matching hole in the hardtop rear window. I know it got sold, restored, but don't know which one of the Sebring cars that one was.

Michael H

The car in this picture was Mike DuPree's car. I have a call into him to discuss it and see if he has any old pictures. My father had bought this car in 1973 and sold it in 1974 to a buyer in Houston. It probably changed hands a couple of times before Mike bought it. I saw him in the February Houston Show in 1981 or 82 and offered to buy it from him for my Signet Red 58 and some cash. Mike had the car for sale at the time, having bought it off of a car lot with the FI unit and a bunch of "extra" parts in boxes. He ended up selling to Rich Mason, who put it back in racing trim, kept on the Vintage racing circuit for the past 25 years. I have a 1983 Corvette Calendar with this car on it restored to racing trim, so it was a short time before it was back on the track..

I saw this car offered by Russo and Steele a few years back, and then in Bloomington in 2006 up for auction (not 2005 as my original post). It went to $900K and had not met reserve....

Thanks for the info in Mike, its neat catching up with those tied in to this car after all these years.

My guess is that this may be the only one left. I am interested in knowing the history of the other cars.

- Michael

here is the car in 1974

62Jeff

Mike did a lot of the art work for the club posters and event t-shirts. I remember him being a real nice guy, but in a different age group and out of my circle of friends, as I was in my late teens.

Somewhere, I have an old Vette Vues with a picture of Mike in that car at Texas World Speedway at a vette event.

Michael H

Thanks Jeff, I'll have to pour thru my Vette Views Magazines to see if I can find what you are talking about. More pics would be cool to have.

I am guessing 1980-81 issues...

62fever

This thread got me thinking about a conversation I had with one of my corvette club friends. I e-mailed him and got a little more info. He had looked at the car before Dupree purchased it, but at the time he knew it had been raced but was not sure about the Sebring connection. He thinks Mike paid about $2500 for the car. Outrageous at the time, but he kicked himself when they found out it was a Sebring car. He said he thought the seller was Lloyd Ruby from Fort Worth, but after having no luck selling it there, had a friend from Houston sell it for him. My friend also said the serial number on Mike's car was close to his '62, making it a late January car.
Doesn't help find the car now but thought the information was interesting.

62fever

I taked to the friend some more and he wrote me "I think that the Vette Vues issue with the Sebring racer that whomever mentioned going to look for would be a 1978 issue. The picture would have been taken at either San Jac's May or October NCCC event. I'm thinking October. The picture came out within a couple of months of the event." Hope this helps.

62fever

62Jeff PM sent

ps374

One of the Gulf oil cars is here on long Island New York. Saw it at a car show and spend about a half hour with the owner. He found the car by its serial number which was down in SC as a regular driver. The car had been put back into stock condition (a poorly done job at that ) through the years. The current owner rebuilt it to its stock racing condition using computers and old photos. It was a work of art and the story was fasinating. $50,000 was invested in parts as the owner did all the work himself. I think the guy was telling the truth and the car looked like the 61 I had seen in photos. This was about 5 years ago.

62Jeff

That sounds about right. I remember it being a color picture, probably in the center of the book, as part of the coverage of our event there.

Michael H

Yup, you are right! 1978 Sept issue.

That bridges the pictures I have from 1974 to 1982.
here are the pictures from Vette Views in 1978 and the 1982 photo taken for the Corvette Specialty Products 1983 Calendar..

This investigative work is fun....

In poking around, I also found this site -
http://registryofcorvetteracecars.com/
looks like there might be 2 Sebring cars out there, three with the 37 gal tanks

Michael



From Sept Vette Views (Thanks Jeff for the tip)


From Calendar

62Jeff

Yep, that's the one I remember. Good grief, that was almost 30 years ago, how the hell did I get this old?

I'm glad you found that, I checked my stash of Vette Vues tonight and only found 1980 and newer.

Neat site. Sometime in the mid 80s, KD James had CERV I and CERV II on his showroom floor in his shop here in Houston. Stopped by to see them, right out there in the open for anyone to touch.

joe58

The Yenko/Gulf Corvette Team had two new Corvettes in 1961, 1962, and 1963 (Z06)

Don mainly ran in SCCA B/P (FI 283) (1957-1965)
The 62 and 63 FI 327 had to run in A/P (1962-1965)

Don ran his 1961 B/P car at Daytona in 1962. You can see it with the cut off windshield at Daytona 62 with two 1962 Yenko/Gulf Corvettes.

I believe the picture is the two 1961s at VIR
1961 they removed the windshields on both cars after Sebring.

I know one of the 1962's had the windshield removed but not sure if both did.