After it went through a handful of owners in quick succession during the last decade, Belk ended up with it. One collector to own it was from Long Island, and had chased the car for many years. He found out one day that it had just been sold. The car went to Florida, then came up back the coast to New Jersey, where buyer Mike Simonellli talked with Joel Rosen. Rosen confirmed that Motion had done the upgrade work to it that made it a Phase III rocket but could not verify that it was delivered through the Baldwin dealership. This car is the only 1968 Phase III roadster to come to light (and one of only two or three built that year), as a conversion of this nature likely cost someplace above seven grand.
Unlike some of the later conversions done by Motion, the 1968 design was modified just enough to make it look like a street custom. The Stinger-type hood, headers, and big wheels gave it appeal.
Chevrolet’s styling on the 1968 Corvette was already dramatic; adding the paint and body changes like this was right out the playbook of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters. Far out…
Equipped with a 427 L36 390-horse engine new, the car would have gotten the L88 replacement engine as part of its Phase III conversion. By the time Dave bought the car from Simonelli in early 2004, the lung had been replaced by a later LT-1-type 350” small-block.
“You know, the engine was really all I had to find for the car, which was great,” saysDave. “It still had all the good Motion parts on it – the steering
wheel, the gauges, the mirrors, the gas cap, the Stinger hood, even the mags. In fact, when I bought it, there were two extra mags with it, which Motion included as part of the deal back then so you could mount slicks on them for racing purposes. Overall, the car was complete.”
The car still had the M21 close-ratio manual transmission and a 3.73 street gear was in the differential (Phase III cars normally optioned out with very steep 4.88s in the 12-bolt). As the restoration work continued, Dave acquired an L88 race engine. Dave Hoskins of D&R Engines in Marion, Iowa, went through it for this project, getting an honest 700 horses at the flywheel when he was finished. Incidentally, this was an engine the late Tom Billigen had bought directly from Yenko Chevrolet in 1969 for his 1968 COPO Camaro.
