Interest in pristine, unrestored vintage Corvettes has grown exponentially over the past decade or so. The number of high-quality, unmolested original cars is holding steady at best, while demand for such machines is ever increasing. In obedience to the law of supply and demand, prices for prime unrestored specimens have continuously spiraled upward without concern for the wild fluctuations seen in the collector car market and the economy as a whole.
Whether or not a beautifully preserved collectible Corvette should be restored or left alone is clearly a no brainer. Likewise, whether a severely deteriorated old Corvette should be rehabilitated is normally just as clear-cut. If the car can't be driven and enjoyed and has little or nothing to offer the hobby as an educational tool, there is no point in letting it fall further apart.
But what about the vast majority of cars that fall somewhere in between the two extremes? These are cars that are still quite functional but definitely show their age in places. They typically still have a lot of original features, but also have a lot that has been changed. Whether to restore such a car to perfection or leave it in mostly original but deteriorated condition is a dilemma faced by many of us. There is no beating the lovely appearance and reliability inherent in a properly restored vehicle. On the other hand, an unrestored car is unrestored only once, and after an original car is completely restored there can be no going back.
The quandary of whether or not to restore was faced by long-time collector Jim Jaeger a few years ago when he purchased Corvette Grand Sport #002. One of only five special lightweight competition Corvettes manufactured by Chevrolet to compete in international road racing, it is a truly priceless piece of automotive history. Adding to the car's rarity was the fact that it was the only one of the five Grand Sports with an essentially unrestored body.
Grand Sports #001 and #002 were both converted by Chevrolet from their original coupe configurations to roadsters. They were then both sold to Roger Penske in late 1965. Penske kept #001 for himself and immediately sold #002 to fellow racer George Wintersteen. Wintersteen campaigned the car at Sebring in 1966 but did little else with it thereafter. It changed hands several times over the ensuing years, but none of the owners did much of anything with the car. Thus when Jaeger bought it in 1990 it looked exactly as it did in March of 1966 when Wintersteen drove it in Sebring's famous 12-hour race.
Cognizant of its incredible historic value as the only Grand Sport in existence still retaining its original body in unrestored condition, Jaeger was understandably hesitant to touch the car. At the same time, however, he was very interested in getting the car out on the race track where it really belonged and where as many people as possible could enjoy it. The original, unrestored body was simply too valuable to put at risk on the vintage race circuit, yet Jaeger was adamant that the car should not be forever imprisoned in a museum somewhere.
Working with a very talented restorer, Jaeger devised a plan that would allow him to reconcile the two seemingly irreconcilable notions of restoring the car while leaving it unrestored. Through painstaking attention to detail, the special Corvette's entire body was exactly duplicated.
Using a newly devised plaster molding technique, the restorer took molds off every section of the original body without so much as even scratching its 35-year-old paint. Every inch of the body's substructure was then carefully studied and the restorer fabricated the necessary tooling to duplicate every component in the Grand Sport's lightweight aluminum "birdcage."