Tony Batterson’s Family of C2 Corvette Sting Rays
Tony Batterson’s Corvette obsession began with a Belt Buckle
Mom didn’t like Tony’s new belt buckle
Note: This story was first published in the August 2023 issue of Vette Vues Magazine.
When Tony Batterson was just seven years old he was at an auction when a “Wrap Your Ass In Fiberglass” belt buckle (remember those? – Scott) caught his eye. He didn’t know what a Corvette was but thought the buckle was cool, so he bid on the buckle and won it.
In the 1970s, the expression was printed on t-shirts, posters, decals, and belt buckles advertised in popular car magazines. However, Tony’s Mom was not impressed. She told Tony it was vulgar, took it away from him, and he never saw his Corvette belt buckle again.
A few years later, Tony’s uncle had a really cool Mercury Cougar. One day, Tony saw the street sweeper a few blocks away, and his uncle’s cool Cougar was parked on the street. These machines always kicked up a lot of dirt, so Tony alerted his uncle to move the car. His uncle flew down five flights, jumped into his Cougar muscle car, and burned rubber all the way down the block! “Burning rubber”, that was the coolest thing young Tony ever saw!
The die was cast for the rest of Tony’s life!
The die was cast for Tony’s life when he got his first ride in a ’65 small-block Corvette convertible. Tony recalls, “Man, that was IT for me! From there forward I was totally into cars”. Four years later, Tony saw a late ’50s Corvette while walking home from school, which really sparked his interest in Chevy’s plastic-fantastic.
Batterson was off to a good start at the age of sixteen when he bought a 1967 389 Tri-Power GTO, then moved on to a 1965 Chevelle, a 1969 Chevelle, and a 1969 Camaro. Drag racing is also in Tony’s blood, so he modified and drag-raced all of his cars. One of his modified Camaros ran low 11s, very stout for a street car back then. Of course, when we’re young, we learn by trial and lots of errors.
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Young car guys need a mentor
Tony befriended an older guy who always seemed to know how to set up performance cars. He told Tony, ‘Kid, when you’ve done this as often as I have, it’s second nature.”
Then, Tony met a sharp tuner named Sonny. One of Tony’s cars wasn’t running right, so he took it to Sonny to look at it. Sonny told Tony, “Leave the car here, come back after your lunch, and you can drive the car.”
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Batterson said, “I couldn’t believe the difference. I asked Sonny how he did it”. Sonny explained, “I could hear the setup isn’t right. I adjusted the points dwell, distributor curve, timing, and carb float bowl settings.”
Sonny gave Tony his tuner advice: “When tuning, make one adjustment and try it; if the response is good, move on to another adjustment; but don’t make numerous adjustments at once because you won’t know which one worked or didn’t.”
Tony’s First Corvette
Tony was driving a modified 1969 Chevelle with a 454 LS6 engine, but the Corvette seed inside him finally took root. At the age of twenty-four, Tony’s first Corvette was a 1980 automatic model with air conditioning. Now, before you say, “That seems a little tame”, the car had a 383 stroker engine with a shift kit. Sounds more interesting, right?
But the car wasn’t delivering as much grunt as Tony knew it should, so he took the car to his friend Sonny for a super tune. After a while, Tony moved on to another car and sold the ’80 Corvette to a friend who still owns the car.
Finding the Right Career
While in high school, Tony was a partner in a towing business. But after several years of pulling cars out of the snow, freezing rain, and summer heat, something had to change. Tony entered an apprentice program with the Carpenters Union.
After becoming a journeyman carpenter, Tony had a long career in construction, eventually launching his company, “Another Alternative”, specializing in cabinetry with twenty-five employees, working in the tri-state, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey areas.
Once a car guy, always a car guy, right? Tony’s work truck was a 1978 Chevy Blazer with 39-inch tires and a small-block with a polished tunnel ram. His fun cars included a supercharged ’65 Chevelle and a ’69 Camaro.
Search for the right Sting Ray
At the age of thirty-one, another Corvette found its way into Tony’s garage, but this one was a basket case. A friend had a wrecked Trans-Am with a Chevy small-block that was in good shape. Tony bought the engine, installed it into the 1964 Corvette, and Sonny went over the engine and four-speed trans. Tony did all the bodywork, and when the car was up and running, he left the body in primer.
Between the stout engine and big tires, Tony learned that the Vette’s independent rear suspension, while great for road racing when connected to the powerful engine, constantly broke u-joints and half-shafts when doing 7,000-rpm launches.
Batterson drives all of his performance cars HARD, and he isn’t afraid to kiss the redline. “That’s what they’re designed to do!” Tony says, but he doesn’t “flog the pants off of them”. The car was a lot of fun until it met up with a tree while negotiating a curve at speed.
Tony found a numbers-matching 1964 Corvette Convertible
Unfortunately, it was stolen and stripped. Then another ’64 Corvette found its way into Tony’s garage. A friend’s grandfather wanted to sell his tired Corvette that needed work for only $4,000.
The lacquer paint was totally cracked, but after the paint was stripped, Tony discovered that the car had never been hit and was originally a Fuelie. The ’64 Sting Ray got a trusty 377 stroker and cryogenic-hardened U-joints for his 7,000 rpm launches. U-joint problems solved! Tony had a lot of fun driving the car hard and drag racing, blew a few clutches, but eventually wanted something faster.
Tony’s Mongoose Grand Sport
On eBay, Tony found a lightweight Mongoose Grand Sport, but it was in rough condition. Also listed was a clean-looking ’65 Convertible Pro Street Corvette with a 502 cubic-inch big-block for $35,000! It was a better car.
So Tony stayed up late, trying not to fall asleep, waiting to swoop in at the last minute of the auction. In the last minute before closing, Tony came in with a $40,000 bid… and fell asleep. When he woke up, his screen said, “You’ve Won!” At the age of forty, Tony had a Grand Sport. The sale also included an enclosed trailer.
The car was gorgeous, loud, and totally clean, so Tony decided to drive the ’64 Pro Street Corvette home. On the way home, one of the tires blew out, so he had to get a regular car tire to make it home. With a lightweight, high-powered car with an automatic transmission with a transbrake system, Tony got back into drag racing.
The ’64 Pro Street Corvette Convertible ran high 9’s in the quarter-mile. Tony eventually stopped drag and street racing and moved to the Fort Lauderdale, Florida area.
Tony’s other street performance machines
While Corvettes are at the top of Tony’s hot car food chain, he likes other performance cars as well. He had a beefed-up GMC Yukon truck with 46-inch tires, a ’23 Ford T-Bucket with two blowers, and many other cool rides. By 2019 he owned thirty-three cars that included seven Sting Rays that included one-of-every mid-year Corvette.
Since then, he has scaled his stable down to twenty-two cars. Fort Lauderdale is beautiful but congested. In 2022, Tony and his wife Laurie moved to semi-rural Avon Park, Florida, located north of Sebring, Florida in the center of the state.
Tony’s Silver 1964 Corvette Convertible
There are three aspects of Tony’s cars: first, he personalizes all of them; second, he gives them regular workouts; and third, he racks up the miles. He says, “I drive my cars a lot; they’re cars, they’re meant to be driven. They’re clean, but not ‘show car’ clean, and they have a few paint chips. They’re drivers with some special features.”
The first thing you notice about Tony’s Cortez Silver 1964 Corvette is the unique stinger hood. Tony explains, “I like the stinger hood, and I like the unique ’64 hood indentation, so I graphed a Stinger scoop to the ’64 hood and made the forward scoop opening line up with the inner edges of the hood indentations. Then I cut a hole in the hood so the air intake could flow into the air filter.”
The side rocker panels and fiberglass side-pipe covers are painted mat-black. Under the covers are 2-1/2-inch strait pipes, each with a small resonator “muffler”. The 16-inch snowflake wheels are from a Pontiac GTA Trans-Am with the center section painted matte black and custom spinners with Corvette cross-flag emblems. The seats are original, but the center sections have been reupholstered. The door panels and dash pad are original.
Under the hood is a small-block 377 stroker engine with a .530-lift solid-lifter cam, a Performance aluminum intake manifold, and a Holley carb, topped with a K&N Dual-Intake air filter. Ignition is handled by an MSD distributor, and the tube headers take care of the exhaust.
Batterson also added power steering and power brakes with a dual master cylinder. The stock Muncie transmission has a Hurst T-Shifter. And lastly, the Posi differential has 3.40 gears for reasonable RPM levels on the open road.
Tony’s Red 1964 Corvette Coupe
One day in 2019, Tony went with a friend to look at a Pontiac. The seller also had a clean and complete red ’64 Coupe with a 502 cubic-inch big-block, rear wheel flares, steel rims, and a front chin spoiler. The features and price were right, so Tony bought the car.
The car had a lot of minor issues that he was able to correct. As purchased, the car had no power steering or air conditioning, so Tony corrected those as well. A big-block Corvette with no power steering and A/C wasn’t going to make it for a Florida car.
The car’s attitude has a distinctive, drag racing style. Tony added the Gasser-type spoked front wheels, shod with skinny front radial tires, and ”60s-style mags shod with fat meats. Under the hood, the 502-block has ’70s-style Mickey Thompson valve covers, an aluminum manifold.
Tony added a new carburetor and a K&N dual-Intake air filter, the correct Mallory distributor and an MSD ignition coil. Like his Cortez Silver ’64 Convertible, Tony added air conditioning and an oversized aluminum radiator. The interior is all stock.
But the most noticeable feature on the car is the ’63 Grand Sport-like hood scoop, which is also custom. Notice how the outer edges of the scoop line up with the unique indentations of the stock ’64 hood.
Tony explains, “I had a ’67 Stinger hood that I was going to use to make a wide stinger scoop. But it turned out the scoop was sagging in the middle at speed, so I had to make the break in the middle. It came out looking like the Grand Sport scoop. The scoop had to be cut to size to fit where I wanted it, and a hole cut under the scoop for air intake. The hardest part was matching the paint. It’s not a perfect color match, but it’s close enough such that I’m the only one that notices.”
Tony’s ’84 Cadillac “Chocolate Metallic” 1967 Corvette Coupe
This is the Corvette that rumbled into one of our Highlands County Corvettes car shows that we have at our Lake Placid, Florida American Legion. I heard the car before I saw it, and when the car pulled into a parking spot, I said to organizer John Meyerhoff, “Whoa! Look at that beast!”. We mentioned that Tony likes to “drive” his cars; well, he and Laurie drove 125 miles from Fort Lauderdale to come to our show!
Tony chased this car for thirty years! The 1967 small-block, 4-speed, with factory A/C Coupe was owned by a guy that called himself “Corvette Bob”. Round flare kits were very popular in the ’70s, so Corvette Bob added them to the front and rear so he could put wider tires on the car. He also added then-popular diamond-button seats and a roll bar.
Batterson discovered the car in 1998, but the buyer wasn’t interested in selling. Tony told Corvette Bob, “Let me know if you ever want to sell because I’m looking for a 1967 Coupe.” By 2016, Tony learned that Corvette Bob was ready to sell, but he’d forgotten that he wanted the car. Bob already had a buyer, so Tony told him, “If the deal falls through, let me know”.
Call it “Fate”, but Corvette Bob called Tony back to let him know the deal indeed fell through, so it was Tony’s if he was still interested. “Does a bear poo in the woods?” Corvette Bob originally wanted $38,000, then $40,000. By the time the haggling was done, the final sale price was $42,000. What Bob didn’t mention was that the deaxl included thirty boxes of spare parts.
As purchased, the ’67 Coupe was the way it looks today, except it had under-the-car exhausts. Tony wanted side-pipes, a friend had a set, and the deal was done. The ’70s-style American Daisy Spoke mags are shod with period-correct Goodyear Eagle GT II tires. The Saddle Brown seats were part of the spare parts and matched the interior perfectly.
Under the hood, the 327 small-block came with Brodex aluminum heads and a solid lifter cam. Look closely, you’ll notice that the 327 has rams horn-style cast iron exhaust manifolds. You might ask, “Why would an engine with a cam and aluminum heads not have headers?”.
The answer is that the manifolds have been ported and polished. And to totally sweeten the package, the stock 4-speed was replaced with a Tremec TKX 5-speed gearbox.
For Tony, the older Corvettes are more fun to drive!
Tony reports that overall, he didn’t have to do much to the car. He also said, “A few years ago, I had a supercharged 1999 Coupe. It was a nice car and really quick and fast. But you know, my 1967 Corvette Coupe is more fun; it’s all mechanical and nice to drive.”
We mentioned that Tony slimmed down his collection of cars from 33 to 22. His black, nitrous-juiced Pro Street 1965 Convertible with ghosted flames and wheelie bars that he bought on eBay is tucked away in one of his garages. The car is complete and running. But what he’s really looking for is a 1963 Split-Window Coupe. When he finds one and works his magic, we’ll have to visit Tony and Laurie’s house again. – Scott
PS: This story was first published in the August 2023 issue of Vette Vues Magazine.
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