[VIDEO] Former Radio Man Owned this 1963 Split Window for 40 Years, Just Had it Repainted in its Original Tuxedo Black

Oct 30, 2025

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[VIDEO] Former Radio Man Owned this 1963 Split Window for 40 Years, Just Had it Repainted in its Original Tuxedo Black

When Stephan was searching for a muscle car back in the mid-1980s, he considered three options – an XK Jaguar, a ’56 Thunderbird, and a 1963 Corvette Sting Ray split window coupe.

He heard the Jag was very temperamental and the cost of the parts outlandish for the T-Bird, but he figured “no matter what way you cut it,” the Corvette is “still a Chevrolet.”

That was way back in 1985, and Stephan still owns the vintage C2 Corvette he found on the pages of Hemmings Motor News, though it’s much improved these days.

Not that he enhanced the performance. No sir, he was intent on making his Corvette just the way it left the St. Louis factory – when he finally got around to restoring the car four years ago.

A recent interview with Automotive AZ Rancher on YouTube doesn’t mention Stephan’s career, but one listen to that deep voice tells you it just had to have been broadcast over the radio airwaves at some point in his life.

Indeed, we’re even told that the car itself served as a radio news mobile unit in the mid-1980s for KNIX, covering the Pope’s visit to Phoenix and the Hands Across America event, along with many other assignments.

Stephan has long known that the car wasn’t painted its original color when he got it. The then-white paint had more chips than a Mexican restaurant, the flaws revealing various layers of paint covering up the original Tuxedo Black, verified by the trim tag under the glove box door. Only 900 of the 10,594 SWCs are said to have been that color.

“So for years I always said, ‘Boy, I’ll tell you, if I get the money, I’m going to make this thing original, put it back to its original color of Tuxedo Black,” Stephan said. “And that’s what I did.”

It may not be the easiest color to maintain, he admits, but when the compliments start flowing his way, he’s glad he made that decision to go original.

Stephan walks around the car, pointing out the many original parts that have either been restored or replaced by actual GM parts, with virtually none of that fake stuff from overseas. He even went so far as to repair one of the original unique to ’63 fuel lids that left the factory with a defective design, to preserve that degree of originality.

The engine, as you might have guessed, is the original numbers-matching unit, a 327/340 horsepower version verified, he says, by the 6300 RPM red line on the tachometer.

“You pick up the hood on this car,” he says, “and what you see is what you get. And that was the stipulation when I had the engine built by an engine builder with the NCRS. I said, ‘You just make it as that engine came out of the factory in Michigan in ’63. That’s what I want.’ So he put everything back, original cam, you name it, he did it. The exhaust manifolds are all the correct numbers. The alternators, the correct numbers. Radiator, the correct numbers.”

Even the “very unique” air cleaner designed only for the 340-horsepower engine, he says. Even the valve covers, seat belt cloth, floor shifter, somewhat rare power windows, ignition shielding, all just like the originals.

And now back to you, in the studio.