1967 427 Corvette: The power not to molest paid off in the end
As Good As It Gets
The ongoing trend was overdone restorations. In the world of early-model collector Corvettes it’s only been in the last few years that discovering an unmolested example became the holy grail. Looking back the year 1967 meant wild times in America, and modifying a brand-new Corvette Sting Ray was an irresistible urge, so it’s impossible to imagine there was a soul alive capable of resisting, and yet here it is an unmolested example of a 1967 427 Corvette Sting Ray convertible.
It wasn’t exactly the warmest of days on November 4, 1966, in Davenport, Iowa, when Bob Olderog decided to buy a new Corvette. The mean temperature was 38 degrees. But nevertheless Bob had his mind set on buying a 427 Corvette convertible, so he and his girlfriend Connie made the trek to Bob Erikson Chevrolet in Milan, Illinois, and ordered the beast from Bob Erikson himself.
Olderog checked all the right boxes. An RPO C07 auxiliary hardtop for $23.75, RPO A01 tinted glass $15.80, RPO M21 close ratio 4-speed transmission $184.35, RPO U69 AM-FM radio $172,75, RPO N36 telescopic steering wheel $42.15, RPO F41 special suspension $42.15, RPO N11 off-road exhaust $36.90, $42.15 RPO G81 positraction with 4.11 gears, RPO K66 transistor ignition $73.75, and the icing on the cake an RPO L71 435hp Turbojet for $437.10.
Right from day one, Bob Olderog’s 1967 427 Corvette could have been the rarest of the rare had the Corvette plant in St. Louis been able to follow a simple request to delete accenting the Stinger on his hood, but that was not to be. At Erikson’s dealership it would have been an easy matter of breaking out a quart of DuPont Tuxedo Black acrylic lacquer and spraying over the red, but thankfully that never happened.
Who knows why the Stinger showed up in Rally Red. Since Bob ordered black vinyl upholstery, the Stinger could have been painted in any one of nine colors from the ’67 color chart. And as soon as he got it back to Iowa there was just one little thing that Bob wanted to do to make the Corvette his, install a set of Cragar SS wheels and wide tires from the Olderog’s family owned tire shop.
It didn’t take long … only two years before the curse of matrimony; stinky bathrooms, screaming kids, and station wagons, overcame Bob and his ’67 Corvette was history. In 1969, Bob married Connie and sold the bone stock (except for wheels and tires) ’67 Vette to his friend Dan Hummel. Dan made absolutely no changes to the ’67 and then sold it to a fellow named Terry Brotman in 1973 after he’d bought a brand-new ’73 Corvette.
