Corvette has a long history with racing and race events. Anyone with a passing familiarity with Corvette knows of the long association with the Indianapolis 500, as Corvette has paced the Memorial Day weekend event nine times, including the streak of four years from 2004 to 2007. But Corvettes have long been associated with other races, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans, arguably the most storied, important, and indeed, sexiest race in the world. The 24 Heures du Mans is not, nor has it ever been, a race where the fastest car finishes first; instead it is about endurance as well as performance. All cars are required to conform to rules set forth by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, the race’s sanctioning body. Although the rules change from year to year, the race has been held annually (with a ten-year break surrounding WWII) since 1923 on public roads near the town of Sarthe, France. While Corvettes, both close to stock and highly modified, have run the Le Mans circuit for years with various class wins and occasionally mixed results, the only domestic brand to have won overall at Le Mans is Ford with its GT40s. A Safety Car serves many of the same functions in both Formula One and at Le Mans as a Pace Car does in domestic races. Similar to the F1 setup, the Corvette Safety Car has both yellow and green lights attached to the bar behind the T-tops. The green light allows the driver behind the Safety Car to pass. When the lead car is positioned behind the safety car, the yellow light is deployed and no passing is allowed. Le Mans also uses a Pace Car, but once the race is started, the Safety Cars are the ones to watch.
Sell-off of GM surplus vehicles
This was part of a rather large sell-off of surplus cars from the GM Heritage Center, facilitated through B-J West Palm Beach. Some were styling exercises, some were one-offs, and others like this Corvette appear to have been cars that just didn’t make the grade as a museum piece for the General. Castoffs, yes, and most of them were being sold as museum pieces only, on a bill of sale with no title and no permission or rights to use them on U.S. roadways. In other words, they were being sold as not conforming to either EPA or DOT specs, and possibly both. I did not come prepared to bid, and when the car sold at a price much less than retail for a standard Anniversary coupe, I have to admit that my heart sank at least to the bottom of my wallet. I saw this as a tremendous investment opportunity for a long-term holder, even if its street use was at least a bit of a question mark. The collective bidding crowd had spoken, but not loudly. Why did this car bring such a bargain price at auction? The obvious reason—limited use—has been covered. Perhaps more to the point, this car, only a few years from production, was hard for many to view as a future classic. In a Corvette auction scene filled with 25th Anniversary, 35th Anniversary, 50th Anniversary, and Pace Cars from your choice of years, owning a “few-of-a-kind” Le Mans Safety Car certainly beats owning one of the many of those others.