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Corvette Summer

Whether you like it or not, the 1973 corvette from the movie Corvette Summer is a big screen icon. Everyone should be young once and experience a corvette summer. Like Buzz and Todd driving their 62 convertible on Route 66 a Corvette spells freedom in the 1978 MGM movie Corvette summer. The message is the same but the car is a decade and one year newer and most importantly highly modified. As we stood viewing the real and virtually unaltered Corvette summer coupe in Mike Yager's MY museum at Mid America designs in Effingham, Illinois the candy coated corvette with the humorous hood scoop looked like a caricature of a stock American Corvette. The boat tail front end with dual quad headlights is minus the front rubber bumper and longer than stock. The rear end also lengthened, spells out “Stingray” in polished aluminum script across a red, gold, and white taillight board made of plexi-glass and resembling a piece of jewelry. Sidepipes and flames and wild Superior Industries’ wheels light up the sides. Even more wild for the 1970s is the clam-shell hood (six years before the first C4), in the style of the exotic XKE Jaguars.

The best way to describe this Corvette is a teenage dream unfettered by the realities and constraints of real life. Producer Matthew Robbins and Director Hal Barwood, the pair who wrote the script for the movie, searched extensively for a wrecked Corvette and found this ‘73, serial number 1237J3S415437, in a junkyard as it was about to be crushed. Hit from behind and totaled out by the insurance company, the T-top coupe was perfect for the ground-up 
rebuild Robbins and Barwood envisioned for the story line.

In Corvette Summer, promoted as a “romantic comedy adventure,” a loner named Kenneth W. Dantley, Jr., played by Mark Hamill (who’s definitely more famous for his role as Luke Skywalker in Star Wars), customizes this wrecked Corvette in his high school auto shop class. Later, someone steals his dream Corvette. We won’t give away the ending for those of you who haven’t seen the movie, but will tell you that Dantley dedicates his summer to finding his pride and joy. Annie Potts plays Vanessa, a girl Dantley meets in Las Vegas and who helps him emerge from ugly duckling hood.

Although neither the movie nor the car has reached cult status, perhaps their time will come. Dennis Gunning, Mid America Design’s museum curator, says a large percentage of the people who view the car recall the film after  they see the Corvette. They either hate it or love it. Either way, they are in awe. Also, hardly a week goes by that  Dennis doesn’t get a letter or an e-mail from a fan wanting to purchase a body kit or a mold of the car so they can make a replica.Dennis is still gathering information on the history. Mid America bought the car last summer from the now-defunct Corvette America Museum, which located and eventually purchased the car when a young man came into the museum with some pictures of a middle-aged couple and the Corvette Summer car in front of their home in Southern California. The couple apparently bought the ‘73 from a young lady who had been driving the movie Corvette on the streets.

Driving the Corvette is a chore. The Grant GT steering wheel does not tilt and provides little room for entry or comfortable cruising. Making driving even more difficult is the steering wheel placement, on the right-hand side. In the movie, Dantley converts to right-hand drive to be closer to the girls as he cruises the streets, especially on Van Nuys Boulevard Gunning was flabbergasted when he inspected the conversion. The stock steering box remains on the left side, with the steering action transmitted to the right side via a Harley-Davidson motorcycle chain and two sprockets bolted under the dash. Obviously, this film car wasn’t meant to be driven hard. 

In the movie, the Corvette is powered by a 350 with an Edelbrock intake and a single four-barrel carb. Sometime after the movie filming, the induction was changed to a tunnel-ram intake with dual-quad Holleys. The paint appears to be Candy Apple and applied the old fashioned way in six to eight different layers. 
The base coat, Gunning says, is gold metallic, then came the candy clears. When the painter removed the tape for the striping, the gold showed through. The technique is simplistic, but has dazzling results, as you can see. The Corvette remains pretty much as-is from the movie, although the moonroof T-tops, popular from 1978-82, are gone. They had a border of about three inches painted to match the body. The interior upholstery was originally saddle and has been dyed black. The car retains the original paint, mirrors, wheels, tires, exhausts, and just about everything else as far as Dennis can determine.

You can see the Corvette Summer ’73 Corvette at Mid-America Designs in Effingham, Illinois. Admission is free.Next september, Mid-America’s annual Corvette show will feature “Corvette Summer” as their theme. Actor Mark Hamill has agreed to attend the show to sign autographs. Everybody needs a Corvette Summer and Mike Yager and his staff has decreed youth for everyone who shows up.

This article came from this source
http://www.corvettemagazine.com/2000/october/summer/summerp1.asp

Wanna see some fan look a-like Corvetes - Very similiar.

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Check out some Fan Links:
http://www.mamotorworks.com/mygarage/cars/corvettesummer2.html
http://www.defpony.com/corvette/