Son Gets Dad’s 1955 Corvette Back After Losing It in a Coin Toss

The owner of this 1955 Corvette grew up wrenching on the car, and years later, made up for losing his chance to own it.

In the Corvette world, many fans of the fiberglass sports car have either grown up riding around in and admiring our father’s rides, or for a lucky select few, possibly even wound up taking ownership of those vehicles later on in life. That’s also the case with Keith Tholin, a retired medical device executive living in San Clemente, California, whose father owned several C1 Corvettes over the years, including the 1955 model that Tholin currently owns today. However, the story of how it came into his possession, left it, and returned once again is quite fascinating, as he recently recalled to the Wall Street Journal.

Tholin and his brother grew up learning how to wrench on these old Corvettes that their father would bring home, and also used them to commute to and from college. However, in 1971, Tholin’s dad bought this white 1955 Corvette, which quickly became a favorite among the siblings, thanks to the fact that it was the first with a V8, though this example had been modified with the addition of a larger 283 V8 and a BorgWarner gearbox by the previous owner, who used it in autocross competitions.

In the ensuring years, Tholin’s dad became friends with Zora Arkus-Duntov and even got a photo with the father of the Corvette inside his C1, which is obviously a big deal. Sadly, however, he passed away years later, leaving the brothers with a dilemma – they had to decide who was going to take ownership of the ’55 Corvette, as well as the 1978 model their dad also owned at the time. They decided to sort this out with a coin flip – which Tholin’s brother won, and rightfully chose the early car to take home.

That wasn’t the end of this particular story, however, as Tholin was able to buy the car from his brother, years later. It sat in his garage for a quarter-century, but when he retired, he set out to give it a total restoration. “While I was doing this work, all these memories of my father and brother – the three of us – working on Corvettes came back to me,” Tholin said. “I still have some of my father’s tools and I used them during the restoration.”

These days, Tholin treasures his dad’s old ride just as much – if not more – than he did when he was just a kid, helping work on it and drive it on occasion. After all, you can’t put a price on memories. “These days I take the ’55 to car shows and Cars & Coffee events. I think my father would be proud of the work I did, because I used all the skills that he had taught me to do the job on this Corvette he had bought over 50 years ago.”

Photos:Keith Tholin

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