One of the Corvette hobby's most noteworthy finds this year has been the discovery of a '65 Coupe known as the Suisse Racer. The car is wrapped in the aura of a mysterious past, one linked to Chevrolet's backdoor support of high-performance and racing activities of the early-to-mid 1960s.
Let's begin with some history most Vette devotees can agree on. General Motors placed a ban on factory-sponsored racing in March of 1963. This ban forced Corvette Engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov and his performance-minded colleagues to devise programs that would make Corvettes and related speed parts available to qualified race teams on an unofficial basis.
It is well documented that a number of backdoor racers-most notably the '63 Grand Sport cars-found their way into racing teams' hands before GM could recall and destroy them. Less well known is the story behind the Suisse Racer, a '65 Corvette that traveled down a regular production line in the U.S. and was outfitted with the best performance options available at the time. It was then exported to Switzerland and sold privately to a GM salesman and racer.
Juerg Koch, president of delivering dealer GM Auto Koch AG Luzern, has been invaluable in documenting this unusual Vette's history. "I remember this car very well," Koch tells us. "My company was the delivering dealership and, within that function, also the car's owner for a short time. Auto Koch ordered this car from General Motors Suisse SA Bienne, who also delivered it."
Koch was also instrumental in identifying the Vette's first private owner. "We sold this car to a Mr. Guido Wermelinger, who passed away in 1985. His widow is now over 80 years old and still lives in Luzern."
According to Koch, Wermelinger drove the largely unmodified Vette in several Swiss Championship races over the course of the following year. "There were no race modifications done to the car at that time. These races were organized by the Automobile Club of Switzerland and overseen and regulated by the FIA. [Wermelinger] won most of the races in his category or placed very well against his main competitor, Porsche." Koch further recalls that the Suisse Racer was delivered with two different rearends-a 4.11 Posi for mountain races and a taller, 3.08 unit for round tracks.
Wermelinger continued to campaign the car throughout Switzerland before retiring it at some point in the mid-1960s. Subsequent owners included Didier Burgisser, of Burgol Automobile SA Geneva, and noted German Corvette collector Rolf Gersch.
Fast forward to the spring of 2007, when Terry Michaelis, President of Pro Team Corvette Sales, announced he had unearthed the one-of-a-kind export racer. Michaelis knew he had found something extremely special when he spied an unusual export tag on the car's passenger-side inner fender. Affixed by General Motors Suisse SA Bienne, the tag listed the car's make, model, engine, and chassis numbers.
Locating such a unique piece of Corvette history might seem like a once-in-a-lifetime coup, but Michaelis is known for finding ultra-rare Corvettes-and selling them. Last year, he restored the last C2 Corvette ever produced, then sold it at Barrett-Jackson for a record $660,000. Michaelis expects the Suisse Racer to net him another sales record some day.
But regardless of what sum the Suisse Racer eventually brings, Chevrolet originally built the car to be raced, not as a historical oddity or an entry in an auction registry. Its L75 Mark IV big-block, available only by special order, used canted-valve "porcupine" heads and a heady 11:1 compression ratio to pump out 425 (gross) horsepower. Only 2,157 Corvettes were built with the one-year-only Rat motor. Other high-performance options installed on the Suisse Racer included a close-ratio trans-mission, four-wheel disc brakes, a Posi unit, and a transistor ignition system.