Corvette Grand Sport Custom Roadsters

Because the “regular” Grand Sport wasn’t customized enough???

As with a real racing track back in the diz-zay-and still commonly seen at vintage racing events in the US today-there are more C2 Corvettes in the numbered sports car fleet than any other make and model of car. In particular, there are more Corvette Grand Sports in my fleet than were ever actually built, as I have explained in the “Meet the Fleet” posts for some of my examples. I have a white one, a blue one, a yellow one, a red one, and a black one, all with names, numbers, and backstories!

The real Grand Sport was a very special car and its one that I’m fascinated with, as many vintage racing fanatics are, but only 5 of the real thing were built by GM: 3 closed coupes and 2 roadsters, although I understand that at least one of the roadsters-and possibly both-were originally coupes, and were “converted” at some point in their lives. Several clones and copies have been made since then, some bearing a closer resemblance to the originals than others, although the original’s extremely special all-aluminum small block V8 is all but impossible to obtain without being custom-built.

Well, its interesting that 2 of the original 5 cars were decapitated to be turned into roadsters, because it just so happens that the same fate befell the two cars you see here: these are both originally Johnny Lighting Grand Sport coupes that got “modified” to become roadsters…and how this was done is mystery to me, for your humble blogger did not, I fear, build these cars: I bought them this way.

These cars were allegedly built by a man named Ken Noah, who I never met, but about whom I have heard quite a bit, as he was quite well known among the “slotterati” here in the Rocky Mountain region. Mr. Noah passed away some years ago, and his impressive collection became the property of Doug & Cindy @ PSH, whom you’ve heard me speak of often. I’ve managed to obtain several of his cars, although I’ve since learned that many of them were built by another CO slottist named Joe Feruli. Not these, however; I can say that with authority since I met Mr. Feruli fairly recently and had the pleasure of having him over to do some business with just a few days ago (more details on that transaction coming soon, trust me!) and I showed him these cars in the toy room, to have him verify they are not his! Thus, Mr. Noah must have made these himself, and to scrutinize them under magnification and lamps, it appears he put the same care into their construction that he did with everything else he made!

I bought both these cars from Doug & Cindy @ PSH at different times. The white one was purchased on my very first stop at the place I’ve called “Aladdin’s Cave” back in August of 2021! That first haul was one of the most exciting events of the last several years for me, and its the moment I credit with “seeing the light” and becoming interested in the original Aurora T-jets after initially being only into the newer JL/AW Ultra G platform! The dark blue car was purchased on my last visit there, the haul from which I mentioned here and here.

Taking a careful look at each of these cars shows what a labor of love they were: each has a different driver, and I have no idea how he fabricated the back pieces that would have been the back windows on the coupes; they must have been cut from another car, but I have no idea which one. Regardless, his work is seamless: how ever he “soldered” the plastic together and filled it, he did an incredible job, because you cannot see any seams or marks through the paint work! The white car is painted like an original 1969 Pontiac Trans-Am, striped in a stunning shade of metallic blue (Pontiac called it “Tyrol Blue”) which is absolutely gorgeous against the white paint, and both cars are so expertly done that its hard to believe they are not factory made. The side exhausts are also a custom touch: the original coupes did not come with these!

When I bought them, both cars were on original Aurora T-Jet chassis, but in both cases I remounted them on Auto World Ultra G’s because they are now members of my racing fleet. Now, I will admit that, being an original Johnny Lightning design from the period before the slot division of the company become “Playing Mantis” and began making their own chassis, these were designed to fit the wheelbase of the Aurora originals, and thus the slightly longer Ultra G is a very tight fit. You can see this in the slightly “off” wheelbase, where the rear wheels do not line up exactly with the fender wells, requiring a little light “trickery” to get them to fit. Both cars came with the style of wheels called “TA” from Road Race Replicas, which for years were unobtainable to me, one set in the original chrome and the other painted yellow to match the body stripes. Each was fitted with older tires that didn’t have good enough traction for my taste, so I replaced with modern RRR full-sized silicone tires.

Fortunately none of that said “trickery” resulted in any material being removed from the bodies, but they are still very “uncomfortable,” like a man wearing shoes half-a-size too small: they will have to be carefully treated and maintained to keep them running properly.

But then, that’s only right: who wants to thrash such beautiful and unique creations? There’s no telling what they’re worth because its impossible to put a price on custom-made stuff like this: there’s no market precedent for it, after all. But I’d venture to say they’re worth quite a bit due to the quality of the workmanship alone, so although they are going to race at Drag City with the sports car fleet, I’m going to take it easy on them and make sure they stay upright and on the track as much as possible!

As it happens, both cars bear nicknames that start with “O.” The #10 car is called “Osiris” after the Egyptian god of the dead, and is raced by Maine native turned California transplant Flint “Flat-line” Farrell. The #25 car is named “Odin” after the mighty Nordic god, and is raced by Swedish-derived California native Rufus “Ravenheart” Magnusson. Both cars are fairly recent additions to the contender list at Drag City, but are both crowd-pleasers! Neither is an original, “real” Grand Sport, of course, but they are faithful recreations made with parts as faithful as possible: in a world of vintage Corvettes, both these open-top competitors are standouts!