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This matching number Riverside Red Z06 is being offered as Lot S128 at Mecum’s monster Kissimmee
auction in Florida next month. It’s documented with the dealer invoice and receipts back to 1963. It
starred in the 2001 GM Corvette Z06 relaunch brochure and spent its first 43 years with one owner.
Most of 2000 and 2001 were spent living inside the National Corvette Museum. The nifty white racing
stripe and chromed wheel covers were affixed by the first owner shortly after taking delivery from Jack
Schwartz Chevrolet in Elizabeth, Illinois on August 14, 1963.
Kansas City Couple’s 1967 Corvette is a Former Chevy Engineering Test Car
Corvette enthusiasts know you can’t
take it with you, so you might as well
enjoy it now.
Take John and Brenda Cianciolo, for
example.
Back in 1978, after they had just
bought a house and paid as much down
as they could, they had just $312 sitting
in the bank.
That didn’t stop the couple from
buying a 1966 GTO like the one Brenda
had driven in high school when the opportunity arose, however.
“A friend called and said he knew about a ’66 GTO convertible that had been tapped in the back and
needed some work,” John explains. “He said we could get the car for $300. I thought, ‘How can I tell my
wife about it when we only have $312 in the bank?’”
But the next night, over supper, John told Brenda about the GTO. “She perked up and said, ‘Here’s how
I look at it. Whether we have $312 or $12, we’re broke anyway, so just buy the car.’ ”
They followed her advice, fixed up the GTO and three years later made enough profit to buy a 1958
Corvette that they’ve been in the process of restoring for years but hope to have completed by 2014 in
time for the National Corvette Restorers Society convention in Kansas City.
That’s not only the Corvette the couple has owned, though. They’ve had a ’61, ’65, ’67, and ’72 and
currently have a ’67 with an interesting history behind it.
They bought the very nice black convertible four years ago that had already been through a frame-off
restoration and had earned a prestigious Top Flight Award from NCRS in 2002.
The Cianciolos found out after it was built, the car was sent to Chevrolet Engineering Division in
Warren, Mich., for research and development. John believes engineers added the tilt/tele wheel there to
work out any problems for future 1967 models.
One of only 815 black Corvettes that year, and one of only a few with the saddle tan interior, the car still
has its original drivetrain and has only gone about 4,000 miles since being restored.