The Corvette Hunter. Tyler Greenblatt

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       The amount of documentation that Frank Dominianni had kept over the years was astounding and made finding the original car that much more special. This document is called “Copy Number Seven,” which is a duplicate of the original gas tank sticker that holds every bit of information about a car. All the serial numbers are noted along with the list of options and ordering information. Copy Number Seven is vital to identifying the car’s original components when the gas tank and sticker are gone.

      With four decades of significant racing history in one spot, Kevin asked Frank if he could “snoop around a little bit.” Frank allowed it, so Kevin went back into his office to find plaques, trophies, awards, and photographs on the walls of Corvettes that Frank had been involved with. “That was back when I was young and wild,” Frank told Kevin. “I was pretty good at it. I won the National Championship in 1964, beat out Don Yenko in the points.”

      Kevin asked if he could look through his cabinets for anything of interest. Frank replied, “Go ahead. I can’t take this stuff with me.”

      As he went through the file cabinets, Kevin spied a folder named “Sebring Corvettes.” He opened it to find a car shipper report, which is a carbon copy of a car’s window sticker. The car it was attached to was ordered through Bast Chevrolet in Seaford, New York, and included the car’s serial number and list of options.

      “So I go down the list and there it is. Bingo!” Kevin says. “L88 Special Turbo-Jet 427. Son of a gun! That’s one of 116 cars produced. Even back then those cars were bringing close to $100,000.”

      He continued going through the paperwork, finding it remarkably complete. Frank had “Copy Number Seven,” which is a copy of the gas tank sticker that’s on the car. He had key numbers, engine numbers, the complete auto transit report, everything. The car was originally ordered from Bast Chevrolet, but it was shipped to Gene Jantzen Chevrolet, which is right across the street from the St. Louis plant. Because General Motors frowned upon race teams picking up cars at the plant, they used Gene Jantzen Chevrolet as a cover for what would have otherwise been factory pickups.

      “Oh yeah, I went there,” Frank recalled after Kevin asked him about what he had discovered. “This guy named Bob Essex, very wealthy guy in New York City, big into real estate, hired me to build him a race car. I told him the best way to build a race car is to get one of these L88s. ‘Let’s fly out to Detroit and meet with the engineers there and maybe we can get a special car built.’”

      Frank and Bob flew to Detroit to meet privately with Arkus-Duntov and a few other engineers, who told them about the four special lightweight L88s. Only certain teams would be given the cars and because Frank had been a national champion, Arkus-Duntov would give one to him as long as he promised to build it and race it. Frank told them how Bob wanted to get into racing and was financing the operation, but reiterated that he was 100 percent in charge.

      Only one question remained: “What color do you want?”

      Frank wanted a red car, but Bob told him that he was colorblind and red appeared to him as maroon. So they decided on a burgundy car.

      On the car’s build sheet that Kevin held in his hand appeared the words, “No Water Test.” Kevin knew that the car was something special and was “shaking like a leaf” as he put it with his pile of parts.

      Not only was it a documented L88, there were secret letters from General Motors in the folder about how to run the oil lines and set up the car, telegrams about ordering special brake pads and Sylvania lighting for racing. There was a letter from Ed Lowther, a driver who was involved with Don Yenko. There was documentation from the car having raced at Sebring. Frank Dominianni had saved everything.

      After agreeing on prices for the parts in his pile, Kevin turned to Frank and asked how much the folder and its contents would cost. Frank wanted $50, a more than fair price, Kevin thought. He paid him and left, taking the folder with him, and planning to return later to pick up the parts.

      “I can’t believe it,” Kevin remembers thinking when he got back to his shop and sorted through the Sebring Corvette’s folder. “I have all this paperwork. I have to go find this car; it’s got to be worth a fortune!

      “This car started my hunt for rare cars. I could never afford an L88 at the time. I was a young guy, just turned 30 years old, and this would be a dream come true if I could find an L88 car that went to Sebring, Daytona, and was one of four lightweights.”

      How Do You Spell “Essex”?

      After he secured all the paperwork and did as much background research as he could, Kevin returned to Frank Dominianni to ask him more about his partnership with Bob Essex and how he could find him to begin tracing the car. “Yes, Kevin, the guy is just a rich ***hole. I don’t like the guy; we had a big fallout.”

      “Frankie’s a bit of a hothead also,” according to Kevin. “But this guy Bob Essex was also a hothead, so that’s probably where those guys clashed. I asked where Bob Essex lived.”

      “I don’t know, Kevin, the guy’s some rich guy, I don’t know much about him. I was with him for not even a year. We raced at Daytona, raced at Sebring, then we had a big fallout. We were supposed to go to The Glen, but he did his own thing and I cut ties with him. That’s all I can tell you.”

      “How do you spell Essex?” Kevin asked.

      “I don’t know, E-S-S-E-X?”

      Kevin started by going through all the phone books in the area looking for Robert Essex. He went to the library for more phone books once his local ones turned into dead ends. He repeated “E-S-S-E-X” every time he ran his finger down the page. Nothing.

      Then an idea popped into his head. “To race at Sebring or Daytona you gotta have a special racing license through the SCCA. I contacted the SCCA, and the guy who ran the archives department was a guy named Harry Hanley. I told him I was looking for a guy named Robert Essex, E-S-S-E-X; he raced a 1969 Corvette.”

      A week later Harry Hanley called him back, asking if he was sure he had the right spelling. Kevin said that he wasn’t sure; he’s a very bad speller. Hanley told him he had found a Robert Esseks, spelled E-S-S-E-K-S, and gave him СКАЧАТЬ