Between 1970 and 1972, Steve McCain heard of two very neglected 1955 Corvettes: one he bought, and the other he sincerely regrets not buying.
McCain was still in high school, already in love with early Corvettes during a time when the rest of us were in love with the late model versions. “Back then, everyone who owned a Corvette automatically got a subscription to Corvette News,” McCain says. “In one of those issues, they did a search for the oldest 1953 Corvette in existence. I thought the car looked really neat, and decided I wanted one.”
It took McCain four years to restore the Corvette. The early fiberglass work—rough even from the factory—had begun to deteriorate from sitting in the elements. STEVE MCCAIN
McCain, who lives in Summerfield, North Carolina, heard about a 1955 Corvette sitting behind a house in nearby Lexington, about an hour away. “It was parked in the backyard of the owner’s parents,” he says. “It was in pretty sad shape.”
McCain wanted to check the VIN tag, which he was told was mounted on the steering column, but the tag wasn’t there. “The owner didn’t know where it was either,” he says.
But McCain finally found the tag on the driver’s side doorjamb. The VIN # read
#VE55S001001, which translates to:
V |
= |
V-8 |
E |
= |
Corvette Series |
55 |
= |
Model Year |
S |
= |
St. Louis Assembly Plant, where the car was produced |
001 |
= |
All 1953–1955 Corvettes had this designation |
001 |
= |
The very first 1955 Corvette off the production line |
McCain had scored! For a negotiated price of $500, he bought the very first 1955 Corvette to roll off the assembly line. Not bad, even in 1970.
Two years later, he heard about another 1955 Corvette in a Wilkesboro, North Carolina, junkyard for $1,000. He had to investigate. “It was also in pretty sad shape,” McCain says. “And it had this big headrest molded into the trunk, holes drilled in the frame, and holes where a small windscreen had mounted.
Steve McCain followed up a lead on a 1955 Corvette, one of seven hundred built, which was near Lexington, North Carolina. The car was in pretty sad condition, but at the $500 asking price, he feels he got a pretty good deal. STEVE MCCAIN
“It was a botched up car for $1,000, and I didn’t need another ’55 anyway. So I didn’t buy it.”
It was only later that he heard that Smokey Yunick had four 1955 Corvettes with headrests molded into the trunks and that the one in the Wilkesboro junkyard was one of Smokey’s. It had been used exclusively for testing at GM’s Arizona test track.
He regrets not buying the car to this day, more than 40 years later. Nonetheless, he still had the #1 1955 Corvette he had purchased for $500, which he restored and sold in 1976 for $10,000 to a collector who also owned the first 1956 and first 1957 Corvettes built as well.
Since then, McCain has owned numerous Corvettes, including one 1953, four 1954s, and one 1955. But does he regret selling 1955 #1?
“If I still owned the car today, I think it would be more historically significant than the last 1967 big-block, which bid to $600,000 at the 2007 Barrett-Jackson auction, but it wouldn’t necessarily be more valuable. These older cars are just not as popular as the later ones.”
Not to most people, at least. To McCain, they’re everything.
