All Five Grand Sports Together for the First Time

[VRM]

Originally Posted by *13*

I saw what was either a Replica or a Restored Grandsport driving up Pacific Coast Highway a few weeks back. Hard to say cause I was going the other way on my Bicycle & it does 35mph at best on flat land. It was a fine example from what I could tell.

Can you tell us what colour it was?

GS#003 lives in CA - it is still dark blue metallic with a white stripe. I just talked to the owners collection manager this afternoon - the car is at the shop. Two other cars live in Florida and the two roadsters live in Ohio.

There is a really nice white coupe replica that lives out that way as well. A friend of mine saw it on a flatbed a week or two ago.

JDean, as far as values go - try a Ferrari 250GTO. Probably hitting $6M-$10M for the right car. If you can even find one for sale. I heard recently that one of them is being sold privately. At one point somebody paid $16M for one.
If I had the money I would want Ralph Laurens SN3987 GT, and I would restore it to its blue and white '63 Sebirng trim.

Oh, and there are nearly 40 of the 250GTOs.

Maybe I should start playing the lottery...

Steve

[*13*]

Twas definately Blue & White. I wouldn't believe it was real except for the fact that I have seen other cars valued over $1M on the same stretch of road so I figured it at least had a chance. Wish I could have had a better look at it.

[VRM]

Originally Posted by *13*

Twas definately Blue & White. I wouldn't believe it was real except for the fact that I have seen other cars valued over $1M on the same stretch of road so I figured it at least had a chance. Wish I could have had a better look at it.

Did it have a number 2 on it?

Steve

[*13*]

Couldn't tell you. It was a split second type thing

[Power Surge]

Interesting to see a 5 year old thread brought back to life .

Didn't the small block Cobras crush the Grand Sports in the few encounters of both on the track before the GS's were pulled by GM?

[VRM]

Sal,
Not really - the SB Cobras were chewing up the regular Vettes pretty good. The GS came out and chewed up the Cobras at Nassau. Shelby and Miles then developed the 'Turd' - CSX2196 with a 427. Faster than a Grand Sport, but blew its engine at Sebring whilst leading everything.

The GS would beat SB Cobra roadsters on shorter races, but needed more sorting for endurance events. They were much faster than the Cobras, but reliability was a factor.

Cobra Daytonas had a better shape, as well as being better developed.

Steve

[Power Surge]

Originally Posted by VRM

Sal,
Not really - the SB Cobras were chewing up the regular Vettes pretty good. The GS came out and chewed up the Cobras at Nassau. Shelby and Miles then developed the 'Turd' - CSX2196 with a 427. Faster than a Grand Sport, but blew its engine at Sebring whilst leading everything.

The GS would beat SB Cobra roadsters on shorter races, but needed more sorting for endurance events. They were much faster than the Cobras, but reliability was a factor.

Cobra Daytonas had a better shape, as well as being better developed.

Steve

How do you think the Grand Sports would have compared to the Comp 427 cars?

[VRM]

Originally Posted by Power Surge

How do you think the Grand Sports would have compared to the Comp 427 cars?

Well, a preproduction Corvette L88 beat all the 427s at Sebring in 1966. The GS had problems though. The GS had a 427 motor as well, and on paper is probably the faster car.
The SB Cobra Daytonas beat 2 GSs as well.

The 427s also beat the Vettes for USRRC for '65, '66' and
67. The Vettes got back in the saddle again in '68, but the Vettes were still being developed and the Cobras were just about done at that point (except maybe Sam Feinstein and CSX3009). The L88 Corvettes were just awesome monsters, and once they no longer had front end lift problems of the C2 Corvettes...

Overall, I think that the GS could have been a world beater, but I think Shelby would have been a half step ahead with the better aerodynamics on the coupes (and Brock would have finished development on the 427 Super Coupe). Ferrari and Porsche would have been lost in Duntovs and Shelbys dust.
The GT40s (and Lola) ended it for Shelby, and GM ended it for GM (what else should we expect??? )

Just some speculation based on some history.

Steve

[SFM5S159]

As mentioned prior in the thread, there are two GS roadsters here in Southwest Ohio. They are about 20 minutes from where I am sitting....kinda neat. What is even more striking is that CSX3002 is sitting right across from GS#1 in a collection and a 250 GTO sits next to the other GS. Some really neat stuff here in town.
I would think that maybe a coupe would bring a little more $$ right now, but who really knows? I think that the $4 million number may be a little light for certain GS cars.
MC

[VRM]

MC,
I agree with your estimation of $4M being a bit light. It all depends on what someone would pay though. If I had the loot I would pony up a bunch for either GS#003 in 00 Nassau trim, or GS#004 in Sebring trim. I'd also pay big bucks for Gurneys '64 LeMans Daytona.

That's cool about the GTO and CSX3002! I had no idea! Do you know what chassis the GTO is?
Do you have access to either of those collections?

Steve

[Cobra2]

Why are they numbered in such a way since the three coupes were delivered before the two roadsters? Were the roadsters built first?

[VRM]

Originally Posted by Cobra2

Why are they numbered in such a way since the three coupes were delivered before the two roadsters? Were the roadsters built first?

The roadsters were originally built as coupes, and they were built first. A number of people (including myself) think that there were a total of 6 Grand Sports built. John Mecom told me that he had all 6 at one point.
The first GSs raced looked a lot like a standard Corvette. They all started off as coupes, and did not have flairs on the wheels, cooling slots in the hood, rear deck, or external diff coolers. They also originally used the stock '63 fuelie unit before going to a dual fuel meter system, and finally to the crossover Webers (and an L88 prototype for GS001).

The first coupes were taken back by Duntov after a few races and were converted to roadsters to reduce frontal area (and thus increase BHP), and to make them lighter. They were later sold to Penske and Wintersteen.

There is also a great book by Lowell Paddock abot the Grand Sports. Lots of good pics and text. It's a few years old, and could use some updating, but it is still very good.

Hope this helps,
Steve

[Excaliber]

One of the advantages of the GS was the light weight body shell. I've heard it was about half the thickness of the standard issue Vette of the time. The Chettah took the light weight body shell to the extreme with a really thin glass body.

It's rumored one of the Cobra Couples is now worth about 16 million dollars.