Corvette Oddball: Kevin Mackay’s Drivable 1967 Corvette Chassis

Is beauty skin deep or is it what’s inside that counts? K. Scott Teeters plays Corvette Oddball with renowned Corvette restorer Kevin Mackay of Corvette Repair. In addition to his award-winning classic Corvette restorations, Mackay has a fleet of special display cars including a drivable 1967 Corvette chassis.

Question: Do you really need a body for your Corvette?

Answer: Not really, but it’s nice to have one.

A Naked Corvette…

This car has been seen at many Corvette shows. over the last few years. It’s just too quirky to not share. The car is a fully functional ’67 big-block Corvette… with no body – just the fully running chassis. It must be a BLAST to drive!

The Drivable Chassis ’67 big-block Corvette is the work of Corvette Repair in Valley Stream, New York. Owner Kevin Mackay and his crew specialize in body-off Corvette restorations and have done restoration work on Chip Miller’s 1960 Le Mans and Purple People Eater racer, the first L-88 ’66 Sting Ray (the Roger Penske Chevrolet car), the ’69 Rebel #57 L-88 racer, and many others.

Kevin has built four drivable chassis/cut-away cars. The drivable chassis 67 big-block was built in 1990 and is the first of first of Kevin’s unique Corvette collection.

The crowd response from car shows was so overwhelming that in ’92 Kevin built his suspended body 66 big-block Coupe. This is a beautiful demonstration piece that shows the inner working of a body-off restoration.

On somewhat of a roll, Kevin then built the cut-away Sunray DX Racer. No, he didn’t actually cut up the original Sunray DX car, the body is a donor, but the engine is a for-real L-88 and everything else is race track ready.

Ten years went by before Kevin unveiled his latest creation, the fully-functional and New York street legal, see-thru ’69 L-88 Corvette. Everything works on this car and it passes inspection. I would have LOVED being at the inspection station the day Kevin took the see-through L-88 for inspection!

All of the Corvette Repair, Inc. cars are beautifully detailed and have won many awards. I consider these cars as educational, functional display pieces of automotive history.

Only a few people have actually experienced the sound of fury from behind the steering wheel of a big-block Corvette with side-mounted exhaust and no body to buffer the noise. WOW!

You might have to think about that for a while.

Take notice that the drivable ’67 Chassis car has no passenger seat. That’s so that no one dies from fright!

You can see more of Kevin Mackay’s work: http://corvetterepair.com/index.htm

Kevin, if you sold rides at the car shows, the lines would be HUGE!

– Article Contributed By K. Scott Teeters

K. Scott Teeters is an artist and writer of the the popular Illustrated Corvette Series column as seen in Vette magazine for over 12 years. Enjoy more of Scott’s articles and sign up for his Free Illustrated Corvette Series Corvette Engine Spotters Guide Ebook at www.corvettereport.com. His Corvette art can be found at www.illustratedcorvetteseries.com. Save the wave!

Source:
CorvetteReport.com

Related:
Corvette Oddball: Andy Granatelli’s Turbine-Powered C3 Corvette
1962 Gulf Oil Corvette Sells for $1.485 Million at Pebble Beach