A Naked Corvette? – Driveable Chassis ’67 Big-Block Corvette

Let’s Play, “Corvette Oddball!”
Quirky Vette Factoids

by K. Scott Teeters

Question:
Do you really need a body for your Corvette?

Answer: Not really, but it’s nice to have one.

A Naked Corvette…

This car has been seen at many Corvette shows. over the last few years. It’s just too quirky to not share. The car is a fully functional ’67 big-block Corvette… with no body – just the fully running chassis. It must be a BLAST to drive!

The Driveable Chassis ’67 big-block Corvette is the work of Corvette Repair in Valley Stream, New York. Owner Kevin Mackay and his crew specialize in body-off Corvette restorations and have done restoration work on Chip Miller’s 1960 Le Mans and Purple People Eater racer, the first L-88 ’66 Sting Ray (the Roger Penske Chevrolet car), the ’69 Rebel #57 L-88 racer, and many others.

Kevin has built four driveable chassis/cut-away cars. The drivable chassis 67 big-block (shown above) ‘was built in ’90 and is the first of first of Kevin’s unique Corvette collection.

The crowd response from car shows was so overwhelming that in ’92 Kevin built his suspended body 66 big-block Coupe. This is a beautiful demonstration piece that shows the inner working of a body-off restoration.

On somewhat of a roll, Kevin then built the cut-away Sunray DX Racer. No, he didn’t actually cut up the original Sunray DX car, the body is a donor, but the engine is a for-real L-88 and everything else is race track ready.

Ten years went by before Kevin unveiled his latest creation, the fully-functional and New York street legal, see-thru ’69 L-88 Corvette. Everything works on this car and it passes inspection. I would have LOVED being at the inspection station the day Kevin took the see-through L-88 for inspection!

All of the Corvette Repair, Inc. cars are beautifully detailed and have won many awards. I consider these cars as educational, functional display pieces of automotive history.

Kevin Mackay's 67 Big Block Chassis Corvette

Only a few people have actually experienced the sound of fury from behind the steering wheel of a big-block Corvette with side-mounted exhaust and no body to buffer the noise. WOW!

You might have to think about that for a while.

Take notice that the driveable ’67 Chassis car has no passenger seat. That’s so that no one dies from fright!

You can see more of Kevin Mackay’s work at… http://corvetterepair.com/index.htm

Kevin, if you sold rides at the car shows, the lines would be HUGE!

______________________________________________________________

For Illustrated Corvette Series Artwork by K. Scott Teeters go to http://www.illustratedCorvetteSeries.com

Got a “Corvette Oddball” factoid that you’d like to share? Zip me off an e-mail at, lightoak@comcast.net and I’ll include it in the next post here at www.CorvetteReport.com.