A friend from Effingham, IL tells me of the Corvette museum there being in the midst of a restoration (rebirth) of a rear engine Corvette from maybe 1961 or so. The story he got from their shop is that Smokey Yunich was in charge of destroying a concept car, cut it into three pieces, took it to a scrap yard, had it certified as being demolished, and made a secret agreement to take the remains into his (Smokey's) possession. My friend saw the car, said it looked like a StingRay, but pre-dated that series by a few years. Passing it along for what it's worth.

Why would Yunich be put in charge of destroying a concept car? Was he an employee of GM at that time?

My very limited knowledge is that yes, he was.

Should be easy its only plastic.

Smokey Yunick was quite the character, doing something like that would have been "right up his alley."


Smokey Yunick

I agree, this sounds like a true Smokey "story" ... he did similiar things with Camaros and the experimental hemi-head cross-ram 302's.

Similar story... different vehicle in the shape of excess military Jeeps being crushed. Story is that after one of the big wars (Korea maybe don't recall time period) was that the US Government had way too many Jeeps and they sent out a bid to have them crushed.

Elwood Grim out of Maryland was one of the few scrapyards at that time who had a portable crusher and he got the contract. Story continues that no parts what so ever were to be saved... everything got crushed and there were several MP's on duty to watch and insure the job was done according to contract.

At lunch time the MP's went on break, and Elwood's staff went to work. They had a huge hopper full of used tires, and every day at lunch time they would hide two Jeeps in the tire hopper and fill the hopper with tires to hide the Jeeps inside. They did this daily I'm told.... 2 Jeeps saved per day.

You just have to love government waste... amazing.

Ramblin Randy
Vote Ron Paul - Eliminate Wasteful Government