The Last C1 Corvette Lived with One Owner for 50 Years
The Last C1 Corvette Lived with One Owner for 50 Years
Winning the NCRS Top Flight award in 2015, the final C1 Corvette spent 10 years undergoing total restoration, has nearly 40,000 miles.
What’s possibly better than owning the first of something? Owning the last of something. For every #001 Corvette to roll off the line, there’s one that signals the end, ready to bring in the big bucks. Whether it’s the final one of a given model year, or the last one of a generation, that ‘Vette will have all eyes on it, and a few wallets open.
Doubly so when it’s the final first-generation Corvette. Heading to Mecum Kissimmee 2022 in Florida Saturday, January 15, Serial No. 20867S114531 will set the famous red carpet ablaze.
Purchased in Louisiana back in 1965 by Jimmy Ezell with 11,000 miles on the 327 V8, the ’62 Corvette stayed with Ezell for 50 years. Alas, it didn’t stay on the road for long, winding up in storage when Ezell went off to serve in the U.S. Air Force in Thailand in the late Sixties. It wouldn’t come out of storage until 1995, when it then spent the next decade undergoing a total restoration.
The centerpiece of this Tuxedo Black ’62 Corvette is its 327 V8, of course. The 300-horsepower gem sends its output to the road through a BorgWarner T-10 four-speed manual, while its rumble goes out through an off-road exhaust. And who needs the Wonderbar radio when you’ve got tunes like that just ahead of your feet?
Speaking of the radio, it lives among the chrome within the black interior, whose seats are just as beautiful as the rest of the car. The odometer shows the Corvette wound up travelling 39,350 original miles in its life. A few of those miles included the last ones Ezell made with the car between 2005 and 2014, when it was sent off to auction.
Once back on the road with its current owners, the final C1 Corvette received an NCRS Top Flight award in 2015 after a professional refinishing. Some seven years later, it’ll make more waves on the Mecum red carpet like few other Corvettes have. After all, it’s not every day someone has the chance to own the last of something.
Photos: Mecum Auctions
