[TimG]

Oddly enough, I had dinner at Texas Motor Speedway Hall of Fame dinner last week and sat next to Danny Reed, the owner of this car. He and I have been friends for about 15 years. He is an interesting guy that owns an advertising firm here in Austin. Corvette Enthusiast Magazine has a great article this month on a red '62 Corvette that was owned by a NASA engineer and restored by Danny. It was at San Antonio last August and received it's PV award.

Danny has the ID numbers of the two other cars leased to the astronauts for one year for one dollar. They have never been found by Danny. Danny Reed bought the car at a sealed bid auction in 1970 after Alan Beans year lease was up. The tank sticker says "Alan Bean" and the three cars were not built in consecutive order. Alan Beans car has LMP on the side as he was the "Lunar Module Pilot" for the second trip to the moon. Danny bid "I believe" something like $3,555 for the car in 1970. The top bid was higher, but the guy flaked out (it even happened before ebay) and Danny was called on to perform, he won the car over the next bid by five dollars and has owned the car since. He is in very close contact with Alan Bean and visits with him regularly and provides the car to NASA for display for periods of months at a time. The car has been repainted and detailed and its mileage is in the 25,000 range. Prior to his acquiring the car from the auction, it was left under a tree that damaged the paint a bit. It is a 390 horse, air 4 speed that has a body that was set up for an automatic originally. The hole for an automatic was repaired at the factory and it is a factory 4 speed car. There is a very detailed miniature replica of this car that is sold. Danny said it is accurate except for the color of the rocker moldings. On a visit to Alan Bean, he presented the model to him, Alan has it displayed in his memento case, right next to the gloves he wore while on the moon. Quite an honor. He told me this story last Wednesday evening at the dinner honoring Roger Penske, Eddie Hill, Jeff Burton, and Tony Stewart. That was a fun evening on its own.

Danny had the opportunity to trade this car plus cash for Grand Sport #1 (the Penske roadster) that was housed in Austin for many years. He knew the owner of GS #1 and he wanted the '69 Corvette as it was a running, driving street car and the GS was a worn out old race car. Danny refused the offer more than once, a choice he kind of regrets. He feels that GS #1 would be gone by now, and he still owns Alan Beans car with the black wings painted on it. While considering the offer, he compiled a detailed record of the GS to try to figure out what it's history was. He knew it was a special one off factory race car, but its history was cloudy. He took lots of pictures of the car in the mid 70's before Richard Seiver sold it to Jerome Shinkay for $30,000.