It’s July 20, 1969, and astronaut Neil Armstrong takes mankind’s first steps on the moon.
Meanwhile, in his garage in Florida sits his 1967 Corvette…the kind of car you might expect to be driven by a cool, living-on-the-edge astronaut. The car was among the most sought-after of C2 Corvettes, with a 390-HP, 427-cu.-in. V8 mated to a four-speed transmission.
Now, after all these years, the car remains essentially intact; the only bit of bad news is that the second owner had added flared fenders to the car during his four-plus decades of ownership.
Hemmings Motor News reports that its current owner, Corvette restorer Joe Crosby of Florida, has decided against a restoration of the car given its historical significance. In his own words, “Once you restore a car, you can’t ever go back to the way it was.”
Instead, a “reactive preservation” is planned by Crosby, together with preservationist Eric Gill, to bring the car back to “as traded-in by Neil Armstrong” condition. As part of the project, Crosby spent six weeks tracking down replacement GM fenders, since reproduction fenders seemed inappropriate on a car with this kind of pedigree.
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