For those of you who either know about or have attended the variety of car shows and swap meets in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, you likely know that there’s a community of weird and wonderful vehicles that reside in the nearby communities. Call it an energy that attracts the oddballs, but whatever it is, I blame it for this creation here on craigslist – a 1959 Corvette with a snout that gives it the appearance of a frightened anteater.
Really, I can’t imagine someone thinking this would look good. I’m a kit car fan and have seen plenty I’d like to call my own, but not this. The family that just sold it off has owned it for 40 years, so clearly it meant something to them – were they also the original creators of this custom ‘Vette? Who knows, but at least it’s a manual with an engine that’s believed to be original. It doesn’t look terribly rusty, either.
There’s where it was drug out of (couldn’t the seller have thought to take a photo before it saw daylight for the first time?) As mentioned earlier, Carlisle is car show heaven with events all throughout the year (except winter) and the seller will be bringing this car to the upcoming Corvette show, Corvettes at Carlisle, happening the 25th through the 28th. Today is the first day of the show and it sounds like the seller is bringing the car out this weekend.
Does anyone remember this nose conversion being a popular enhancement back in the day? I can see the slight emulation of a Formula 1 car, or possibly a hammerhead shark. It may just be my eyes, but it appears the fenders were cut out, too, in the front. This Corvette has lots of stories to tell and significant work to be done to bring it back to stock, but it sure is a conversation piece! Would you chop the nose off?
uglier than the ugliest butt, I mean butt ugly! yuck!
And people will always remember your car, maybe not you, but they will remember.
Perfect! Put a turbine in it & paint it green & give it 2 the Riddler so Batman an chase him around Gothem city
There was a Corvette show car produced by GM Design somewhere in the 1959-’61 period that had a similar — but much more graceful — nose. Can’t find any images of it right now, but remember it pretty clearly. I’d guess someone was trying to copy it, minus the design and fabrication resources of The General.
That’s one of the bad things about fiberglass. The basics of working with it encourage people to try their hand at “personalized” cars. I suspect it wouldn’t be difficult to track down a replacement front end, which is what I’d do if I glommed onto it. But considering the price and condition — and the three-speed transmission, which suggests a low-spec engine — I’d give this one a pass.
Is this what you were looking for?
There was a Corvette museum outside of Daytona about 20 years ago that had a similar Corvette on display.
I’d love to have a ’59 Vette again. Sold mine in ’85 for 10k, hard top and all. I think this one is hard to look at and would cost too much to make beautiful again. Good luck to the seller & the buyer.
Looks like an xp700 kit on a 58 vette
I owned on like it ( a 1960) in 1973
It was bad enough when we had to look at the burned up “accident” remains of that ’61 Vette. But to realize that someone intentionally .ruined. this car is wrong. They should be drawn and quartered. Nuff said.
The inspiation for the nose can be found here:
http://wikicars.org/en/Corvette_XP-700_concept
modeled after Corvette XP700 concept car, you guys should know this, somewhat common mod back in the day, I’d buy those rims, hell, i’d buy that whole car (but I’d put the nose back to stock)
Aardvark
Put a Hoover bag in it.
It does look like the builder was trying to copy the nose of the xp700. We should be grateful he wasn’t a plastic surgeon.
whats so special about that? I prefer the stock lines all day long!
If he was a plastic surgeon, I imagine he would resemble the plastic surgeon played by Bruce Campbell in Escape from L.A. with Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken.
Im working on this actual car at work. We were told it is a barris car but never confirmed it.
Nice. Please keep us updated on your progress!
Any updates?
Youse guyse are all too young. This is a famous cover car from Hot Rod magazine back in the early /mid 60s. Restore it and display it proudly and then when tired of it sell it for a nice profit. You cannot FIX famous art
Looks like the nose off of Speed Racer
the Mach five however looks bad ass!
No title either.
I know where there is a 61 Vette nose like that, it was off off a 58 or 59 body. The owner claims it is a kit to clone a popular Bonneville car of the era. I don’t know how true that is, I just know when painted correctly, it looks really good. Polish that t**d and see what you get! :)
I’ve seen that face before…
you beat me to it!!!
The XP700 was Bill Mitchell’s experimental design. He was GM’s Corvette guy who sometimes went overboard just a little.
Fortunately Mitchell got Larry Shinoda, a terrific designer, to do the Mako Shark, above, reportedly on the very same chassis as the XP700, and the rest is history.
the Mako Shark was a great looking concept!
Definitely an XP700 kit. Even the front of the side coves has been filled.
It’s quite lovely actually. Nicely proportioned and anyone can have a stock 59.
I’d much rather have an oddball like this.
If this car was possibly part of a GM project , it could be worth some money.
A virtual ringer for this car appeared in Montery last week claiming to be a George Barris creation.
My thoughts when I first saw it a Barris or Ed Roth. Remember this was built at a time everyone was into rockets and jets. “Goggles down helmets buckled stand clear of the intakes!”
It does look like something that might have been done for Bonnieville racing and is a period appropriate kind of mod for speed record kind of racing.
If a Formula 1 car and Corvette had sex…this would be the result.
There are many of these. I suspect some fiberglass repair parts company made them. The main thing was, you crashed your Vette, and you could graft this nose on for half the price.
That’s what happened with a local one.
Wow the Mako Shark was a near prototype to the 63 Corvette!
Al
I think Mitchell and Larry Shinoda saw the Mako Shark as a ‘study’ (as it’s called in the business) for the new Corvette.
IMHO the XP700 just wasn’t good enough for the next Corvette, and that might be the reason why it didn’t go any further, and why the Mako Shark study was built on the old XP700 chassis.
What happened to the XP700 body isn’t clear, but after the Mako Shark was designed I doubt that many people in GM design cared very much about what happened to it.
Can anyone say
can anyone say “electrolux”?
It all looks good from the driver’s seat. I like the looks of the Ferrari that inspired it. I’d whack off about 6″ and find a grille that makes it look like a Ferrari. Live with it a while. Might grow to like it. Not quite a pretty as a Scaglietti or Zagato, though!
Al
Maybe Dr Paul from Botched can fix that nose.
If you look up the definition of Fugly ….
The all new “Fugly” for ’59!
This nose conversion or one similar used to be sold from an ad in the back of Hot Rod magazine. Can’t remember the name of the company. (Fiberfab?) One of my high school friends had a Corvette with a nose something like this one.
We actually saw many of those in the sixties and seventies, always considered a former front end total. Many wrecked Vettes ended up with these, in Iowa where I lived.
What it lacks in beauty, it makes up for with ugliness.
I’ve definitely seen these conversions before, I was actually looking for an example of one these and surprisingly, this was the only example I could find online. They must have been pretty popular because I remember seeing several ’58-’62 Vettes with these snouts in old issues of Corvette magazines from the late 70’s. Most of them were on drag cars from what I remember.
So, are there any updates on this?
A friend who raced in CA in the 1960s went to a body shop one day and found all these pieces they were taking off this “ugly” 1956 Corvette, which included a 37-gallon steel tank and a funny-looking nose. They gave him the tank and he put it in his ’57 Corvette, then he put it in another ’57 that a friend and he raced that I am now restoring, and then it got sold to probably go back into the same “ugly” 1956 Corvette that turned out to be an SR-2!
And a few years ago, the purple Corvette in the attached pic turned out to be the missing 1960 LeMans #1 Corvette, somewhat customized as you can see.
Both are seven-figure cars. So, it’s always best to do some research on an oddball Corvette before you turn it back into what it was “supposed” to look like.
I’m from Waterloo, Iowa. Home of John Deere Tractor Works. Our town had several of these Corvettes with this front end kit. After totaling the frond ends of these Vettes, guys would often times instal one of these. Maybe they were laid up somewhere near us or something, I have seen many of them.