The phrase “Pro-Touring” is thrown around nearly as often as “iconic,” “rare,” and “patina” when it comes to eye-rolling catch-phrases that people jam into their listings when trying to sell a car. We’ll revisit that shortly, but this 1967 Chevrolet Corvette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa has good reason to use the phrase “Pro-Touring,” having already had its body loosely settled on an Art Morrison chassis. Wilwood six-piston calipers? Remote reservoir coil-overs? That’s Pro-Touring stuff for sure. The listing here on eBay enticed at least 10 bidders so far, but it will take more than $27,100 to meet the seller’s Reserve. Thanks to reader Larry D. for spotting this high-potential corner carver.
Many paths may lead to a tight-handling classic, but when it comes to name recognition, Art Morrison is hard to beat, and the C2 Sport Chassis replaces Chevrolet’s 1960’s state-of-the-art features with 21st-century upgrades that no bolt-on parts will ever match. Most owners can’t out-drive their stock C2 Corvettes, let alone wringing out the elevated limits of the Art Morrison set up, but everyone will appreciate the ride and performance of this updated superstructure.
The high-tech skeleton awaits a new heart, and the engine that fills this void could be anything from retro-cool to twin-turbo madness.
So what does “Pro-Tour” mean? The phrase may have been coined in 1993, according to Wikipedia, when One Lap Of America invited car lovers to spend time traveling from place to place while enjoying awesome roads, friendly competition, and interesting stops along the way. While you could probably enter nearly any vehicle in such an event, the quintessential Pro-Touring car can be driven long hours on any kind of road while offering competitive acceleration, handling, and passenger comfort.
My ideal Pro-Touring car would be mechanically bulletproof with a full interior, fuel injection, manual transmission, plenty of power, great brakes, all-weather performance tires, upgraded but compliant suspension, air conditioning, and a killer stereo. I would favor a naturally-aspirated motor for road racing track days. Certainly, Porsche, Ford, and others have engineered track-proven turbocharged engines, but most factory power-adders are good for 20-second blasts of full throttle with some sort of heat-dissipating rest in between. I have several turbo books with all the rules of thumb and mathematics to design a turbo for all-day racing, and for that exact reason I’ll stick with “all motor.” How would you transform this pile of parts into the ultimate Pro-Touring ‘Vette?
Let me have that frame and suspension components.
May be the way to go these days, but I am OEM guy 100 percent when it involves a 67 coupe. Only 8,504 built.
I thought Art Morrison sold a ‘bolt on’ frame for the C2’s, apparently not. Thought it looked funny till I read that the body was just sitting on the frame without body mounts. I think one of the various replacement frames could be a good idea if you have a C2 or C3 with frame rust issues. Get a better engineered frame with the updated suspension components and build a canyon crawler out of it, assuming the oem frame has issues.
It won’t be a cheap build but it could be interesting to the right person.
Out of my price sphere but I like this car. Lot of work and lot of money ahead but solid bones to start with makes a huge difference. Would love to see a follow up on this one when it’s finished.
Item location:
Cedar Rapids, Iowa