Corvette Documentation Obtained!

[MosportGreen66]

Hi Guys,

I wanted to share another chapter in the story of our 1966 Corvette Coupe. Since purchasing the car in 1998, we have performed a frame off restoration of this beautiful original born with motor, trans, rear, fiberglass and interior Corvette. The car has been awarded with 2 Regional Level NCRS Top Flight Awards, 2 National Level NCRS Top Flight Awards, an NCRS Performance Verification, NCRS Duntov Award, Bloomington Gold, MCACN Triple Diamond Award, and it even won the Greenwich Concourse in Connecticut. We have the NCRS Shipper data stating the car was originally delivered to Beach City Chevrolet in Beach City, California, but other than that and a dry title search to Pennsylvania, we had no other documentation.

Fast forward to first quarter 2011. In speaking with a friend at an NCRS event, he mentions that Bill Gould of Auto Ancestry [http://www.autoancestry.com] was able to locate and purchase all of the original paperwork from his '66 427/390 Corvette and he suggest we reach out to him. We send Bill all of his requested material and we wait. 2-3 months later Bill reports back that he located one of the prior owners and this owner believes he has the original Protect-o-Plate but currently cannot find it. Correspondence droughts until one weekend Bill emails with excitement stating the previous owner has located the Protect-o-Plate! I spend the next several weeks emailing back and forth with the owner and we agreed upon a price for the Protect-o-Plate and some other items he has.

Sunday the previous owner comes to the house and we spend a little less than an hour discussing the car, how it was found, what was original, what was changed, his experience in ownership, etc, etc. Not only did the owner bring with the original Protect-o-Plate, but also he provided the original owner's manual, original radio tuning guide, a complete list of owners from 1966-1998 (when he sold it), every service receipt from 1968-1988 (when he bought it), photos of the car from the 1980s, and he even provided a news paper clipping showing the car was for sale. All in all there are 50+ documents.

We always knew the car was in an original state of its own but to finally marry and reunite the paperwork with such a magnificent car is truly special. Not only is the car fully original, but now it is fully documented! This act speaks volumes to real car guys helping other real car guys. Moral of the story here gents - patients prevails and PLEASE go after your previous owners for all documentation!

A special thank you to my friends Steve Barmati, Adam Tuckman, Bill Gould, and Larry Sachs for the advise.

Regards,
Dan











And the group shot...