1961 Mga Original Paint Colors
The angelic beaker for any old car aficionado, whether they be a Studebaker fan or into adorned Cadillacs, is to acquisition an unmolested, low-mileage blooming that still has its banker installed bright artificial bench covers, etc. One ability say these grails can be begin from the accepted old ladies from Pasadena that alone drive to abbey on Sundays. But sometimes award an old car with low afar ability accept a aphotic secret, abnormally back it’s a high-performance vehicle.
Take, for example, Jack Sheppard and the atramentous 1961 Corvette featured here. Sheppard’s ’61 showed 37,000 aboriginal afar on the clock, and aggregate about it adumbrated those were absolutely low miles, but one has to bethink best old Corvettes were apprenticed adamantine and put abroad cracked.
Sheppard has consistently admired hot rods and archetypal cars but it wasn’t until a decade or so afterwards he started his business, Overhead Door Company of Augusta, Georgia, that he was able to absolutely accompany his passion. And again the floodgates opened with Sheppard architecture one iconic car a year, assuming it and again affairs it to move on to the abutting project. Sheppard brand Corvettes. This ’61 was preceded by a ’62 and he’d like to anatomy accession Corvette as anon as this one changes hands.
The administration influences of Sheppard’s longtime acquaintance Bobby Alloway of Alloway’s Hot Rod Boutique are acutely axiomatic in the contour of this ’61. The car’s characteristic attitude is acknowledgment to Alloway agreement the anatomy adjustment anon to Art Morrison Enterprises (AME). Afterwards which Sheppard deals anon with AME on the anatomy order. There were 10,939 Corvettes produced in 1961 and this accurate Corvette came able with a abject 230hp 283 and abject three-speed chiral transmission. The exoteric blush was one of 3,178 corrective Ermine White, 954 with Roman Red coves and 3,487 with a black-vinyl interior.
The advanced framerails of an Alloway spec’d AME Corvette anatomy are bankrupt to ensure a tighter axis ambit with a radically airtight stance. The council is a Detroit Speed Inc., acquainted rack-and-pinion in ascendancy of pointing a brace of Wilwood 12.88-inch rotors clamped by six-piston calipers tucked central 18x7 Billet Specialties Bonneville auto shod with 245/45R18 Goodyear Eagle tires. Damping the adenoids is handled with JRi Shocks coilovers.
The alive arbor rear abeyance is based about a Currie 9-inch apartment with a Truetrac limited-slip cogwheel with JRi Shocks coilovers. Strange Engineering axles are blind a brace of 20x11 Billet Specialties Bonneville auto shod with 265/50R20 Goodyear Eagle tires. The anchor adept butt is an abandoned Wilwood, and the emergency anchor is affianced with an E-Stopp pushbutton controller.
Under the hood, the abject 283 was dumped in favor of a Carolina Machine Engines’ Dart-blocked 427 with a Callies 4.000-inch crank blame 4.125-inch Mahle 10.5:1 pistons on Callies rods. The top end is a brace of Dart aluminum active with 2.08-inch assimilation and 1.60-inch bankrupt valves. A Comp hydraulic roller cam with 287/306-degree continuance handles the valvetrain. The 427-inch agent dynoed with 538.1 hp at 6,100 rpm, and 539.4 lb-ft of torque at 4,500 rpm.
Exhaust exits through a brace of ceramic-coated Sanderson long-tube headers. Sheppard is thoroughly hands-on back it comes to architecture his cars, including angle the bankrupt arrangement and installing it. Sheppard askance up 2 1/2-inch pipes anchored to a brace of Borla stainless animate mufflers to complete the bankrupt system. Fed by a Rock Valley gas catchbasin and a Corvette attitude back 1957, ammunition bang is in the anatomy of an MSD Atomic EFI arrangement with a Billet Specialties air cleaner. Ignition comes from an MSD Pro-Billet benefactor and MSD Blaster braid with Taylor bung wires. The cooling arrangement is comprised of a Stewart baptize pump, SPAL 16-inch electric fan and DeWitts radiator.
The TREMEC TKO five-speed manual came from American Powertrain of Cookeville, Tennessee. A acceptable way to allegorize the bulk of intricate capacity Sheppard congenital into his ’61 Corvette that aren’t arresting unless one absolutely starts analytical the car carefully is the absolutely smoothed Dart agent block and absolutely able aluminum bellhousing done by Dan’s Polishing Boutique of Adamsville, Tennessee. In addition, Dan’s did all of the chrome plating. J&M Stainless adequate and able all of the ’61’s stainless trim.
Climate ascendancy is complements of a Vintage Air Advanced Runner convolute arrangement with a 170-amp Proline alternator active Vintage Air air-conditioning. In advanced of the disciplinarian rests a Billet Specialties council caster on an ididit council cavalcade with bespoke gauges by Archetypal Instruments antic a Jack Sheppard logo. To apple-pie up the firewall, a accord of Lokar pedals works in accord with Kugel Komponents about-face underdash anchor and clamp adept cylinders. The complete arrangement is by Alpine, complete with a rearview camera. A aftereffect of not absent a Technicolor affectation of atramentous base beneath the dash, the alone abundance bought allotment is a Ron Francis agglutinate panel. Sheppard and Steve Wiley active the ’61 absolutely from blemish application atramentous wire only.
For the interior, Steve Holcomb’s Pro Auto Custom Interiors of Knoxville, Tennessee, stitched charcoal-colored covering upholstery and custom-built the centermost console. Dynamat was acclimated throughout, including the trunk. As a allotment of adventure abundant fiberglass work, tubs and a new block floor, Sheppard deleted the additional annoy able-bodied and again Holcomb akin the block to bout the autogenous appointments.
Sheppard’s backyard home boutique is a gearhead’s dream in anyone’s book. The architecture stands 100x75 anxiety and has every affectionate of automotive apparatus imaginable, including a Pullmax and a acrylic booth. These days, Sheppard works at his Overhead Door business until backward apex and again active home to assignment on his latest build. Toward aboriginal evening, Jack’s acquaintance Charles Goen shows up and lends a hand. Stripping the ’61 bottomward to bald fiberglass appear the 37,000 aboriginal mile car had been hit adamantine and repaired poorly. Bad abundant that the two had to cut the adenoids off from the firewall advanced and affix on a new advanced blow from Corvette Image. Once all of the above glasswork was done it was time to coffin the anatomy in Clausen aerosol polyester primer/surfacer and block it out for Sheppard to aerosol it in Chrysler DX8 Atramentous ChromaBase and again coffin it beneath seven coats of ChromaBase clear. The coves are done in DuPont Chroma Premier Charcoal. Currently Jack is alive on a 1954 Chevy Bel Air two-door auto and is accessible to offers on his ’61 Corvette … because that’s how Jack’s build-one-car-a-year plan works. Vette
Photos by Stephen Kim
