Lot 268 |The Amelia Auction 2025Saturday, 08 March 2025

Estimate: $1,000,000 – $1,300,000

Chassis No. 00867S102272

Persistence… tenacity… resolve. Each one of these qualities is the hallmark of nearly everyone fortunate to be involved with this special Corvette from Day One. Competition has a way of amplifying certain innate traits and for Lucky Casner, Fred Gamble, and Loren Lundberg, the certain doggedness that each possessed would come to define their time with Camoradi U.S.A.’s factory-supported 1960 Corvette Fuelie, serial number 102272.

CASNER MOTOR RACING DIVISION – CAMORADI U.S.A.

Nearly every dream begins with a risk. Lucky Casner’s dream in the late 1950s of competing at the highest levels of international motorsport with American drivers in American machinery was dismissed by many when first suggested as a laughably risky proposition. Yet within just a single year his team, Casner Motor Racing Division, better known as Camoradi U.S.A., became an international powerhouse fielding Maseratis, Porsches, and, yes, Corvettes, piloted by the best-of-the-best drivers with names like Gurney, Shelby, McAfee, Gregory, Ward, and Rathmann. Casner, of course, could not do this alone and hunted a number of like-minded individuals to push the team further including racer and journalist Fred Gamble.

After meeting and joining forces with Casner after the SCCA Nations in March 1959, Gamble believed that “No matter how good a driver he might be, we Americans were always at a disadvantage. So, our promotion became to solicit U.S. industry financial backing to buy the most competitive cars we could get and select America’s best drivers from whatever phase of the sport they came.” Naturally, an all-American team needed an all-American sports car, a search that led to a meeting with GM’s Ed Cole and “Father of the Corvette” Zora Arkus-Duntov.

1960 RACE SEASON – CHASSIS NUMBER 00867S102272

Despite an auto industry ban on factory supported racing efforts at the time, Camoradi acquired—with the help of Duntov—two “competition optioned Corvettes plus spare parts, technical advice as needed and a financial testing contract” with both 1960 283/290 Fuelie Corvettes delivered through Don Allen Chevrolet of Miami, Florida. Both cars were run at an SCCA Regional event at Daytona as a shakedown test before the team’s first major event: the Gran Premio Libertad in Havana, Cuba. In the words of Gamble, Camoradi “won absolutely everything.” Two-time national champion Jim Jeffords piloted start number 4 to an overall victory Grand Premio de la Habana and then later a GT Class victory in the Grand Premio de la Cuba finale. The second Corvette, with start number 3, entered for 1960 Indy 500 winner Jim Rathmann, suffered a DNF with an electrical issue in the finale after 27 laps. Camoradi also took overall honors in the finale with Stirling Moss in a Maserati Tipo 61 and Masten Gregory a class win in a Porsche 718 RSK Spyder. Camoradi were immediately elevated as serious contenders with major manufacturers like Ferrari and Porsche and the British Garagistas forced to pay attention to the Florida-based upstart.

In an effort to throw down the gauntlet at the Sebring 12 Hours, their home event and the second round of the World Sportscar Championship, Camoradi brought both Fuelies, two Maserati Tipo 61s, a Porsche 356 A Carrera, and an OSCA sports racer. Signed on to drive the Corvettes were Jim Jeffords, Bill Wuesthoff, and Skip Hudson with Gamble nominated as a reserve driver. Jeffords would start the race in the number 4 and with Hudson a no-show, and without turning a single lap of Sebring, Gamble was drafted in to start the race in chassis number 102272 as race number 3, focused on maintaining a steady pace. Incredibly, Gamble lead the entire field into turn one of the Tenth Annual Grand Prix of Endurance, yet Jeffords quickly “thundered by in a cloud of tire smoke.” Jeffords’ lightning pace resulted in an early pit stop with an overrev and some bent valves. Gamble was called in to hand over 102272 to the number one driver Jeffords and was finished for the day—or so he thought. A few minutes later Gamble was told the sister car was all his if he “wanted to ride around ’till it blew.” It did not. Despite a late pit stop for a new fuel line borrowed from a street car in the paddock, Gamble’s resulting drive to a 5.0-liter GT-class podium is stuff of Sebring legend. According to Competition Press, Gamble was “superhuman” on track for 11 hours and 15 minutes earning him the nickname “The Iron Man of Sebring.”

While Sebring was not as successful for the entire Camoradi team, the Corvettes were a bright spot earning Casner a 2nd and 3rd place in the 5.0-liter GT-class due to the team of Gamble, Jeffords, and Wuesthoff. After the race, a Camoradi mechanic removed the borrowed fuel line from start number 4 and returned it to the owner. Due to the lack of a fuel line, according to Gamble, “The next day a helper got in, started the car, and it burned to the ground” leaving the team with the Sebring 2nd in class Fuelie chassis number 102272 to contest the European phase of the World Sportscar GT Class Championship.

After an abortive attempt to get 102272 to the Targa Florio along with Camoradi’s Tipo 61 and 356 Carrera that May, Casner’s team brought the Corvette to the Nürburgring later that month along with two Maserati Tipo 61s for the formidable parings of Gurney/Moss and Gregory/Munaron for the 1,000 kilometer race. While the Corvette proved its pace at the hands of Gamble and Lee Lilley—Road & Track thought that they were “only fractionally slower than some of the Ferrari GTs”—a broken wheel bearing just before the first pit stop put paid to any chance of placing. No doubt Gamble and Lilley’s spirits were raised by teammates Dan Gurney and Stirling Moss’ amazing overall victory in their Maserati. The early DNF in Germany likely kept the Corvette fresh for the most important endurance event on the globe, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Camoradi kept a European base in Modena for their Maseratis and the Corvette was sent there to be prepared for Le Mans. Bob Wallace of later Lamborghini fame and New Zealand cohort John Ohlsen were hired to prep the car. Both Gamble and Lilley were newcomers to the fabled circuit and according to Gamble, turned “maybe five laps each just to satisfy the organizers we were competent.” The organizers needn’t have worried. The duo settled on running at a reasonable pace in inclement weather, very similar to how Gamble began the Sebring 12 Hours in the 102272. An ace up their sleeve were Goodyear’s phenomenal Blue Streak tires that “were just as quick through the corners in heavy rain as any car on track.” Their conservative pace, lack of issues, and stout motor netted them 2nd in class and 10th overall on distance. Yet, after receiving their awards and a hearty round of applause, French logic handed the team a “Not Classified” finish due to a lack of distance traveled (just 6 laps behind the 8th placed Cunningham Corvette) relative to the displacement of their 283 cu-in V8. It did not appear that the result bothered the Camoradi team much, likely having been handed down days after every had departed France for Modena.

That August, chassis 102272 was prepared by Bob Wallace for the Swedish GP in Karlskoga for team boss Casner along with one of the Maseratis for local hero Jo Bonnier. The race, well-documented by local photographers, went off without a hitch. Casner finished 4th in GT 2.0-liter + Class piloting the Corvette with start number 5 hastily applied over the hand painted Le Mans start number 4. Just a day after 75-kilometer sports car race, the Camoradi team, in true GT racing fashion, were driving the car directly to England, entered in the prestigious Goodwood RAC Tourist Trophy. Still in Sweden, with Wallace at the wheel and wearing Florida license plates 1-157240, the Corvette left the road in the town of Ljungby. The Corvette overturned, its fiberglass bodywork damaged in the process. Wallace emerged unharmed, gave his statement to the officer on the scene, Carl Reimer. To Camoradi, the car was unable to be repaired in time for the Tourist Trophy race at Goodwood and was abandoned in the very spot it came to rest. The engine and transmission were removed and brought back to Modena, the driver’s seat and steering wheel were given to Officer Reimer to smooth the situation over. While it was likely local news for a few days, the Corvette faded into obscurity and simply listed as a “Did Not Arrive” in the Goodwood TT results. Camoradi moved on to Formula One the next year and, in the eyes of most, the remaining Camoradi Corvette was lost to time—not for Loren Lundberg.

LOREN LUNDBERG AND STIG JOHANSSON

Perhaps located as far from Sweden as possible, Glendale, Arizona was the home to Corvette aficionado Loren Lundberg, who in 1991, was tasked with arranging the showing of one of the Cunningham Fuelies that competed at Sebring and Le Mans against Camoradi in 1960. Talk turned to racing Corvettes, and the owner of the Cunningham car noted that Lundberg lived very close to the Bob Wallace who played a large part in the Camoradi Corvette’s preparation and, later, its accident in Sweden. After contacting Wallace that same doggedness that propelled Casner to take on the world’s best pushed Lundberg to track down 102272 without even knowing the chassis number! Beginning in December 1991, Lundberg contacted, in no particular order, Fred Gamble, the Swedish and French Consulates, the Swedish Embassy, French-American Chamber of Commerce, the ACO, the AvD, his member of Congress, and multiple police departments within jurisdictions along the probable route from Karlskoga to Goodwood. By September 1992, Lundberg’s tenacious nature was rewarded with an impressively complete accident report from Farin Ek, Archivist of the Landsarkivet i Vadstena and the local police department of Ljungby. Lundberg latched on to Officer Stig Johansson of Ljungby, who, after months of back-and-forth correspondence, began to understand Lundberg’s passion for ascertaining the whereabouts of the mysterious Corvette.

Armed with a range of 1960 Corvette chassis numbers sent to Johansson in late 1994, the Officer located an individual who had acquired a 1960 Corvette with Swedish license plates “JHE 131” and a chassis number revealed as “S 102272.” Further tantalizing facts revealed in a December 1994 letter by Johansson included a non-original 327 cu-in engine, fiberglass repairs, a quick-fill fuel tank, rollbar cutouts, finned brake drums, and a non-original steering wheel. Furthermore, Johansson noted the car had been returned to the street in 1966 with the story that it had been raced at Le Mans passed down to the current owner who had acquired the car in 1979. It would be no surprise that after three years of searching, Lundberg made arrangements to visit Sweden that summer and acquire chassis 102272 with it returning to the United States in late 1995—the first time in 35 years.

RESTORATION AND TODAY

Shortly after arrival at the Port of Long Beach, Lundberg brought the car home to sunny Glendale, Arizona and began his restoration, a situation he likely imagined innumerable times since 1991. He valiantly chased the original 283 cu-in engine and transmission later concluding they made their way via Camoradi connections in Modena to power a Maserati 250 F sent to New Zealand and then later a powerboat that sank in the Tasman Sea. He had over a quarter century with the car, telling its story at numerous events and shows, and through a two-part series of articles for NCRS’ The Corvette Restorer Magazine in 1996, later reprised in 2016 for a new generation of readers. Before his passing in 2021, the car received a class win at Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance in the “Cars of the Cuban Races” class and the American Heritage Award at the NCRS Nationals. In 2021 the car landed with its second owners since returning to the United States. The car was taken to JTM Motorsports for a painstaking and accurate restoration and, because of the new owners’ passion for everything Camoradi Corvette, the factory competition car was awarded the prestigious The Grand Sport Trophy at The Amelia, the highly competitive Audrain Sporting Choice award, and the American Heritage Award as part of NCRS’ Special Collection Display—all in 2024

Four years before an armada of factory-backed Ford GT40s attempted to take overall honors at the world’s most important endurance event, a small racing team from Florida with big dreams attempted to conquer Europe. Their Corvette, chassis number 102272, played a large part with its all-American driver lineup, capturing both the imagination of those in Europe with its rumbling V8, but also an American who spent years trying to recover it from the cut and thrust battles fought overseas. The acquisition of the sole remaining Camoradi U.S.A. team Fuelie offers a new caretaker very much the same proposition that Lucky Casner risked it all for beginning in 1959. It is eligible for the finest vintage international events such as Classic Le Mans, the Nürburgring Classic, the Goodwood Revival, along with stateside events that include HSR’s races at Sebring and Daytona and, of course, the Monterey Motorsports Reunion. Offered with a meticulously documented history file full of correspondence and acquisition paperwork, digital period photography, video footage, and restoration documentation, the Camoradi Corvette is perhaps the ultimate expression of “America’s Sports Car,” and one that is recognizable to motorsport fans worldwide.

Documentation

Introduction to Camoradi: 1960 Chevrolet Corvette Camoradi USA Factory Race CarCorrespondence: 1960 Chevrolet Corvette Camoradi USA Factory Race CarAdditional Photography: 1960 Chevrolet Corvette Camoradi USA Factory Race CarRace Photography: 1960 Chevrolet Corvette Camoradi USA Factory Race Car1960 Le Mans Carnet: 1960 Chevrolet Corvette Camoradi USA Factory Race CarSweden Accident Report: 1960 Chevrolet Corvette Camoradi USA Factory Race CarIn Sweden and Recovery: 1960 Chevrolet Corvette Camoradi USA Factory Race CarAt Concours and Events: 1960 Chevrolet Corvette Camoradi USA Factory Race Car

Jakob Greisen

Senior Car Specialist

+1-415-480-9028

jgreisen@hagerty.com