Some of you may have seen this before, I hadn't seen it until I came upon it searching some corvette related stuff. Noting like going back in time here. James looks real young here. Reminds me of the Rockford file shows we watched back in the late 70's.

http://www.airl88.com/

Cool pics. I knew Garner was a race guy but I didn't know about the vettes.

Oh yeah man, Garner had a serious Jones for Corvettes, and a knack for race cars. I like learning more about him and his history with Corvette racing.

Thanks for posting Curt.

Very cool! I didn't know about the Vettes, either - I remember a wicked off-road Toronado he had back in the day. He's always been one of my favorites.

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I like the one picture outside the dealership showroom where the price of a new '68 was $2198. I'd love to go back in time and put these in a vault for 40 years.

I think $2198 was for your garden variety Biscayne - a Vette would've been closer to $4500.

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Heck if I had the opportunity to go back I would take out a sizable loan, go back, buy a few LT1s, L88s, ZL1s...and stick them all in a sealed and protected vault with no mileage on the clock.

Sell the rare ones today to make a severe fortune and drive the streetable ones just like they were new.

Yep, hindsight is a great thing - I have that in spades! $4500 seems like nothing now, but it was a lot of dough back then. My first car, a '62 Chevy I bought in '71, cost $125.

In 1970, I paid $1,300 for a '63 Z06. In'74 I paid $3,000 for a 67 Coupe, still have it.

Garner did an interview a few years back about making Gran Prix. It was an hour of talking about the cars and how they got the film shots, pretty cool.

I think you would find that a Vette with a ZL1 or L88 would have set you back more like $6k+ They were not cheap... the L88 option was nearly $1000 in 1967.

I need to check my Black Book for some more detailed info.

James Garner did a documentary on his racing team in the late 1960s. I saw it on Speed a few years back. They were running a Lola T70 (strangely enough, an offspring of the Ford GT40 project) in the old pre-IMSA days.

He got into racing after filming Grand Prix. He did much of his own racing sequences and was complemented by the real drivers for his skill. If you have never seen Grand Prix, get it! Bastet44 and I were lucky enough to see it on the big screen a couple of years back. Intense.

The Oscar Academy folks have a theater in Hollywood. They were doing a special event about movies that had won Oscars for sound and film editing. Grand Prix won such an award.

The cost? $5.00 each. The theater? A real live full sized screen in a very small theater. Imagine multiplex seating, with a real screen and you about nailed it. Wider, but shallower. Who needs HD?!?!?

The only thing missing was the smell and John Frankenhiemer. Mr. F. passed a few years ago, but his lovely wife was there. She was very gracious and shared a funny story, I paraphrase:

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She was a real sweetheart.

The movie was insane.

James Garner, sadly, was not in attendance. I want to clarify that right now. No need for rumour on that fact! There was hope he would come, but there were no reserved seats for him or guests.

James had a stroke last year. He has a very bad back and is aging rapidly. But we have a lot of great movies and shows with him to remember why he is still a favourite of ours.

I would like to meet him... but I doubt it will be doable. I do have the ability to pull the strings (we have common friends/acquaintances), but I don't want to impose, considering his health.

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I agree but maybe a group het well card sent to his home on behalf of the GURUs?

I saw the movie when I was spending the summer in upstate New York in '69. It was and still is an awsome movie.


Oh, Curt, thanks for the link!!!!

James Garner was quite the racer

Didn't know about the Corvette though

Thanks

Derf - I like the idea! Let me do some checking.

The interesting thing about Jim's racing was that he could not, due to contract restrictions, race on closed courses.

He could, tho, do point-to-point off road racing (think Baja 1000!).

So he bought a team!

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Interesting thing about the filming and a GT40: How did they get the high speed shots in the film? Well, they took a GT40 and pulled off the rear bodywork. Then they built a camera platform over top of the engine!
They had some film of that on the TV interview.
Much better than the computer generated crap they use today.

I found this video of James' cars running. These sound bad to the bone!