1963 Corvette Z06 Big Tank Was Once Test Driven by A.J. Foyt

A truly rare and special machine as-is, this 1963 Corvette Z06 big tank has a very cool history to boot.

There have been many rare and desirable Corvettes built over the model’s seven decades of existence, as most fans are well aware. Some are rare because of colors or various options, which makes them interesting, though not what one might call thrilling. Then there are the performance-focused variants, cars that were built for racing purposes, and those are the ones that really get our proverbial motors running. As such, this ultra-rare 1963 Corvette Z06 big tank that YouTuber Lou Costabile came across while perusing the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals in Rosemont, Illinois, recently is a notable find for more reasons than one.

This particular 1963 Corvette Z06 big tank is owned by Michael Johnson, who is quite the Corvette fanatic. In fact, he has owned every Corvette ever made with the “big tank” option, and this particular car has been in his possession since 2014. The Z06 moniker means that this car was built to go racing, of course, and the big tank option – N03 – was also quite beneficial for those purposes, providing extra fuel, which meant that racers didn’t have to pit as much on their quest to victory.

Thing is, checking those two boxes on the options sheet increased the price of a 1963 Corvette by nearly 50 percent, which is precisely why not many people did. Ultimately, GM built just 199 Z06 Corvettes that model year, and only 63 of them – appropriately enough – were big tank cars. But what’s particularly cool about this example is the fact that it was once test driven by racing legend A.J. Foyt, as its owner explains in the video.

The C2 was delivered to Mickey Chevrolet in Chicago, who at that time had their own racing team that Foyt was driving for. Foyt reportedly took this particular car out for a few test laps at Laguna Seca with permission from the original owner, a meeting that came about as Foyt was waiting for his own car – with the exact same spec – to be built, giving him some valuable wheel time in the process. It’s a cool story for certain, and one that makes this already rare and special Corvette just a bit more so.

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