Working with good friend Joe Gillooly,
the pair started by carefully removing
the front clip and followed by removing
the rear clip. They continued by prepar-
ing the body for the new GS-2 sections
to be mounted in place. To give the car
a very distinctive look, Charlie had Ron
Gagnon work his magic on the hood
by adding custom stainless louvers to
set it apart from the rest. The doors,
trunk and hood were then fitted and all
panel gaps were dialed in to make sure
everything was perfectly balanced. This
included modifying the original doors
with updated door handle recess panels,
installing the fuel filler and glass. From
there, the pair made the body razor
sharp and prepped it for paint. It was
Ron Lavoie at Eastern Auto Body in
Manchester, who handled final prep and
laying down an immaculate coating of
PPG Glenn Green accented by a Gold
Sand Poly stripe, bringing it all to life.
Inside it’s all business, starting with
a custom dash from Mid-America—as
part of their GS-2 conversion—filled
with factory gauges with the stock
speedo recalibrated to 200 mph. An
original Corvette three-spoke steering
wheel carves the course while a Hurst
Competition-Plus shifter pulls gears. For
comfort, Charlie covered a pair of 1968
Corvette buckets in saddle leather and
equipped them with Simpson Racing
five-point harnesses. Matching side
panels as well as leather-bound factory-
style carpet complements it all. Inside
you’ll also find custom aluminum pan-
els by Mike Curley along with a four-
point rollcage and ATI fuel cell with
custom-fabbed mounting straps and
fill tube by Ron Gagnon. Throughout
the build, Mike MacCallister addedplenty of mechanical expertise to vari-
ous areas and Jay Doerfler of Auto Body
Specialists in Manchester dialed the car
in upon completion with all of the fine-
tuning to make it completely road ready.
The build spanned more than 1,000
hours over 15 years to create a visually
striking C2 Corvette paying homage to
the original Grand Sports. Seeing, hear-
ing and watching it in action proves it’s
the real deal. VETTE“The build spanned
more than 1,000
hours over 15 years
to create a visually
striking C2 Corvette
paying homage to the
original Grand Sports.”