Go
Back
By 1962, success was expected. So when Grady Davis,
executive vice-president of
Gulf Oil, brought out two Corvettes for the ’62 season, it was business
as usual. First race: the Daytona Continental in february. The result was
a First-in-Class and seventh overall. Then came the big one, the 12 Hours
of Sebring. With M.J.R. Wylie and Duncan Black at the wheel, the blue-and-white
Gulf Oil car finished second in the Production class and 18th overall,
the highest placed Corvette. With the hardtop, windshield, and night lighting
removed, the brilliant Dr. Dick Thompson began his campaign in quest of another
SCCA championship. With its new 327-cubic inch engine, the Corvette now raced
in A-Production. With "Hi Grade" Grady Davis’s immaculately
prepared Corvette at his disposal, Thompson was ready. Eight victories later,
the "Flying Dentist" had another SCCA National Championship trophy
to add to his collection (he won the C-Production championship in
1956
as well as B-production
in 1957 and 1961).
What became of Thompson’s
1962 championship winner? It
was originally purchased by
Grady Davis through Don
Yenko’s Chevrolet dealership in
Pennsylvania. It was then sold at the end of the 1962 season through
Yenko to Ohio racer Tony Denman. After Denman raced the car in 1963, it was
sold, put back on the street and disappeared. One day back in 1980, Mike Ernst,
a Lutheran minister and acknowledged expert on 1962 Corvettes, spotted a well-worn
’62 roadster on a used-car lot in his former hometown of San Francisco.
It was a rare RPO 687 big-brake heavy-duty suspension fuel-injected car, so
it really caught his interest. Once he bought the car and began disassembling
it, he noticed many unusual modifications that had been removed and covered-over
to return the car
