Long-lost 'Purple People Eater' Corvette race car heads to Amelia Island

Famous in auto racing circles for its successes, the Chevrolet Corvette nicknamed "The Purple People Eater" will be on display this weekend in Florida.

|
Motor Authority
This custom-built Chevrolet Corvette – nicknamed "The Purple People Eater" – won a series of road races back in the 1950s. The vehicle will be on display this weekend at the Ritz-Carlton and Golf Club of Amelia Island in Florida.

Each year, the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance features some of the most remarkable automobiles in the world, but this year it will host a true monster. One car that is sure to grab attention is the restored Corvette racer known as the Purple People Eater.

Named after its unusual purple-and-white paint scheme, the car gained fame by dominating West Coast sports car racing in the late 1950s, with driver Jim Jeffords at the wheel and backing from dealer Nicky Chevrolet.

Race car technology moves fast, though, and soon the Purple People Eater became just another used car. After dropping off the radar for several years, it resurfaced at a classic car event in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1974. However, the car's true identity had been (temporarily) lost to history.

Luckily, the two men who recovered the car weren't exactly Corvette novices. Chris Miller was the founder of Carlisle Events--which organizes car shows in its namesake Pennsylvania town, including the one where the car was found--while Ken Heckert owned a restoration shop.

Ironically, the Purple People Eater sat in the back of Heckert's shop for years, until Miller set out to find the assumed-to-be-missing car. Obviously, he didn't have to go far to find it.

The restored car will be on display during the entire Amelia Island Concours, which runs from March 7 through 9 at the Ritz-Carlton and Golf Club of Amelia Island in Florida.

_______________________________________

Follow Motor Authority on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Long-lost 'Purple People Eater' Corvette race car heads to Amelia Island
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2014/0308/Long-lost-Purple-People-Eater-Corvette-race-car-heads-to-Amelia-Island
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe