Within the span of less than a week we learned of the
passing of two Corvette Legends.
Dick Guldstrand
No one deserves the title of Corvette Racing Legend more
than Dick Guldstrand. In the early days
of racing, before the engineers had come up with race-worthy designs, Dick was
enthusiastically using Chevy’s finest marque to compete with cars from the best
racing heritages. With guts and bravado,
Dick used his mechanical skills to squeeze every ounce of performance out of a
Corvette and his driving skills to beat the competition. Dick was one of the first inductees into the
National Corvette Museum Hall of Fame.
In recent years Dick was a leading Corvette celebrity
attending racing events everywhere Corvettes were found, autographing anything
people brought him. I met him a few
times at Long Beach and Road America races, and Dick was one of the most
interesting stops on the National Corvette Museum’s “Jay Leno Tour” in 2004. When the NCM guests visited Dick’s shop in
Burbank, California we each received autographed copies of “Corvette Thunder”,
the autobiography of Dick’s escapades. The
photo below is Dick with my buddy, Don Kingery, at the IMSA race in Laguna Seca. Don tells many stories of Dick’s enthusiasm
and friendliness, including the time Dick tossed him the keys to a rare and wild
Corvette and said, “take it for a spin”!
Martin Milner
Perhaps no actor has done more to convey the mystique of the
Corvette in its early years than Martin Milner, co-star of the TV show, “Route
66”. With George Maharis, who played Buz Murdock, Milner,
who played Tod Stiles, brought the joy
of cruising across America in a Corvette to our living rooms for four seasons (116
episodes) beginning in 1960. Each year
Chevrolet would offer up a new model Corvette.
In the first episode we learn that Tod’s father died and left him the
Corvette. Later in that episode, Tod is
asked why he is dedicated to “. . . just a car”. Tod’s reply is my motto about Corvettes, “It’s
more than a car to me!” Buz was an
employee of Tod’s dad. The two of them
decide to set out across America to find themselves and adventure.
Like many Corvette fans, Milner lived in Carlsbad,
California!
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