Charlie007
New member
In 1953 I worked at a Chevy Dealer in Alton, Il. One of our customers was a big time car collector and he ordered a Corvette as soon as they were anounced. The story at the time was that we delivered the first dealer car ( not sure of the fact) Every one at the dealer ship drove it. It had a 6 cyl. with triple carbs. The mechs thought the carbs were off and tried to adust them but only made it worst since we didn't have a vacum guage. Finnaly got a hot rod guy to tune it. The next year I worked as an adjuster for GM Car Insurance Co. and I had to handle the first wreck of a Corvette in our area. None of the body shops had worked with fiberglass so I had to go to a GM Training school for one day and learn how to mix it. So unstable, two drops too much hardener and it flashed hard, and two or three drops too little and it wouldn't harden. In 1957 I was managing a Fire Stone Store and a young race car driver from Mexico was going to a Military Acad. in our town and his dad gave him one of the first 4 speed Corvettes ( Chev. Trucks were beating Corvettes at the drag strip so they put truck trannys in the Corvettes) At that time all Chevys came with US Royal Tires and he brought his new Vet in to have FireStones put on. His name was Pedro Rodgridous (?) He died in a fire from a race car crash a couple years later.