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(More photos at the link above)
(More photos at the link above)
The ongoing trend was overdone restorations. In the world of early-model collector Corvettes it’s only been in the last few years that discovering an unmolested example became the holy grail. Looking back the year 1967 meant wild times in America, and modifying a brand-new Corvette Sting Ray was an irresistible urge, so it’s impossible to imagine there was a soul alive capable of resisting, and yet here it is an unmolested example of a 1967 427 Corvette Sting Ray convertible.
It wasn’t exactly the warmest of days on November 4, 1966, in Davenport, Iowa, when Bob Olderog decided to buy a new Corvette. The mean temperature was 38 degrees. But nevertheless Bob had his mind set on buying a 427 Corvette convertible, so he and his girlfriend Connie made the trek to Bob Erikson Chevrolet in Milan, Illinois, and ordered the beast from Bob Erikson himself.
Olderog checked all the right boxes. An RPO C07 auxiliary hardtop for $23.75, RPO A01 tinted glass $15.80, RPO M21 close ratio 4-speed transmission $184.35, RPO U69 AM-FM radio $172,75, RPO N36 telescopic steering wheel $42.15, RPO F41 special suspension $42.15, RPO N11 off-road exhaust $36.90, $42.15 RPO G81 positraction with 4.11 gears, RPO K66 transistor ignition $73.75, and the icing on the cake an RPO L71 435hp Turbojet for $437.10.
Right from day one, Bob Olderog’s 1967 427 Corvette could have been the rarest of the rare had the Corvette plant in St. Louis been able to follow a simple request to delete accenting the Stinger on his hood, but that was not to be. At Erikson’s dealership it would have been an easy matter of breaking out a quart of DuPont Tuxedo Black acrylic lacquer and spraying over the red, but thankfully that never happened.
Who knows why the Stinger showed up in Rally Red. Since Bob ordered black vinyl upholstery, the Stinger could have been painted in any one of nine colors from the ’67 color chart. And as soon as he got it back to Iowa there was just one little thing that Bob wanted to do to make the Corvette his, install a set of Cragar SS wheels and wide tires from the Olderog’s family owned tire shop.
It didn’t take long … only two years before the curse of matrimony; stinky bathrooms, screaming kids, and station wagons, overcame Bob and his ’67 Corvette was history. In 1969, Bob married Connie and sold the bone stock (except for wheels and tires) ’67 Vette to his friend Dan Hummel. Dan made absolutely no changes to the ’67 and then sold it to a fellow named Terry Brotman in 1973 after he’d bought a brand-new ’73 Corvette.
According to what Mecum Auctions wrote in its Indy 2017 catalog, the 427-powered Vette proved to be too much for Brotman to handle. Soon after buying it, Brotman sold it to Dave Schultz. Unfortunately for Schultz, October 1973 brought on OPEC’s Great Oil Embargo and Schultz choked on the increased price of gasoline. Schultz advertised the ’67 in January 1974 and David Kovolat of San Francisco, bought the black Corvette with only 15,600 miles on it. Dave kept the ’67 until 1987 and then sold it to his younger brother Tom, and the ’67 Vette was moved to Tom’s home in Colorado.
In 2002, Chris Piscitello bought the ’67 Corvette, now with 23,800 miles on the odometer, and started to share the near totally unmolested car with fellow Corvette enthusiasts at events. All it took to restore to original was to replace the Cragars with Corvette Rally wheels shod with OE type tires and the show was on. And it was show-after-show where the stunningly unmolested ’67 Corvette made appearances.
From Mecum’s catalog description; “At Bloomington Gold 2003, Chris Piscitello reunited the Corvette with original owners Bob and Connie Olderog for the first time in 30 years. David Kovolat was also on hand to meet the Olderogs and thank Bob personally for originally ordering this marvelous piece of Corvette history. The gathering was also treated to watching the car receive Best Photo Album, Survivor and Gold Awards, culminating in Benchmark Certification—America’s most prestigious Corvette award—making it the only black-on-black 435 HP convertible to win all four. The car achieved yet another milestone in 2009 when it was invited to Bloomington Gold Special Collection XXII.”
Chris Piscitello owned the black-on-black ’67 427 Corvette convertible for 15 years. The black 427 Vette sold at Mecum’s 2017 Indy auction on Friday, May 19, for $310,000, not a bad profit for Bob Olderog’s initial investment of $4,681.85.
It wasn’t exactly the warmest of days on November 4, 1966, in Davenport, Iowa, when Bob Olderog decided to buy a new Corvette. The mean temperature was 38 degrees. But nevertheless Bob had his mind set on buying a 427 Corvette convertible, so he and his girlfriend Connie made the trek to Bob Erikson Chevrolet in Milan, Illinois, and ordered the beast from Bob Erikson himself.
Olderog checked all the right boxes. An RPO C07 auxiliary hardtop for $23.75, RPO A01 tinted glass $15.80, RPO M21 close ratio 4-speed transmission $184.35, RPO U69 AM-FM radio $172,75, RPO N36 telescopic steering wheel $42.15, RPO F41 special suspension $42.15, RPO N11 off-road exhaust $36.90, $42.15 RPO G81 positraction with 4.11 gears, RPO K66 transistor ignition $73.75, and the icing on the cake an RPO L71 435hp Turbojet for $437.10.
Right from day one, Bob Olderog’s 1967 427 Corvette could have been the rarest of the rare had the Corvette plant in St. Louis been able to follow a simple request to delete accenting the Stinger on his hood, but that was not to be. At Erikson’s dealership it would have been an easy matter of breaking out a quart of DuPont Tuxedo Black acrylic lacquer and spraying over the red, but thankfully that never happened.
Who knows why the Stinger showed up in Rally Red. Since Bob ordered black vinyl upholstery, the Stinger could have been painted in any one of nine colors from the ’67 color chart. And as soon as he got it back to Iowa there was just one little thing that Bob wanted to do to make the Corvette his, install a set of Cragar SS wheels and wide tires from the Olderog’s family owned tire shop.
It didn’t take long … only two years before the curse of matrimony; stinky bathrooms, screaming kids, and station wagons, overcame Bob and his ’67 Corvette was history. In 1969, Bob married Connie and sold the bone stock (except for wheels and tires) ’67 Vette to his friend Dan Hummel. Dan made absolutely no changes to the ’67 and then sold it to a fellow named Terry Brotman in 1973 after he’d bought a brand-new ’73 Corvette.
According to what Mecum Auctions wrote in its Indy 2017 catalog, the 427-powered Vette proved to be too much for Brotman to handle. Soon after buying it, Brotman sold it to Dave Schultz. Unfortunately for Schultz, October 1973 brought on OPEC’s Great Oil Embargo and Schultz choked on the increased price of gasoline. Schultz advertised the ’67 in January 1974 and David Kovolat of San Francisco, bought the black Corvette with only 15,600 miles on it. Dave kept the ’67 until 1987 and then sold it to his younger brother Tom, and the ’67 Vette was moved to Tom’s home in Colorado.
In 2002, Chris Piscitello bought the ’67 Corvette, now with 23,800 miles on the odometer, and started to share the near totally unmolested car with fellow Corvette enthusiasts at events. All it took to restore to original was to replace the Cragars with Corvette Rally wheels shod with OE type tires and the show was on. And it was show-after-show where the stunningly unmolested ’67 Corvette made appearances.
From Mecum’s catalog description; “At Bloomington Gold 2003, Chris Piscitello reunited the Corvette with original owners Bob and Connie Olderog for the first time in 30 years. David Kovolat was also on hand to meet the Olderogs and thank Bob personally for originally ordering this marvelous piece of Corvette history. The gathering was also treated to watching the car receive Best Photo Album, Survivor and Gold Awards, culminating in Benchmark Certification—America’s most prestigious Corvette award—making it the only black-on-black 435 HP convertible to win all four. The car achieved yet another milestone in 2009 when it was invited to Bloomington Gold Special Collection XXII.”
Chris Piscitello owned the black-on-black ’67 427 Corvette convertible for 15 years. The black 427 Vette sold at Mecum’s 2017 Indy auction on Friday, May 19, for $310,000, not a bad profit for Bob Olderog’s initial investment of $4,681.85.
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