(I know this is 1:24th scale but like all of Gary's work, it's just fabulous! - Mark)

“It all started with a slot car body!” 

Following the American Manufacturers Association (AMA) ban on auto racing by the big three automakers in 1957, the Corvette SS project was halted.  William “Bill” Mitchell, GM’s Styling Chief purchased the left over Corvette SS mule chassis and enlisted the help of designers Peter Brock and Larry Shinoda to design a new body for his personal sports racer.  The resulting design by Shinoda was based upon a concept by Brock for the Q Car styling exercise.  The fiberglass body was constructed by GM technicians in their off duty hours at the expense of Mitchell.

Mitchell named his new car the Sting Ray and hired Dr. Dick Thompson, a Washington DC dentist, to drive it in the April 1959 President’s Cup at Marlboro Maryland.  The Sting Ray was raced in 1959 and 1960 and was the C Modified national champion in 1960.  Following its racing career, GM bought back the Sting Ray from Mitchell and it was the basis for the radical redesign of the Corvette for 1963.

Concurrent with the popularity of slot racing, a company called Scuderia Scale released three styrene vacuum formed slot car bodies in 1/24^th scale. The bodies came in two pieces, a top half and a bottom half, and included the Sting Ray, the Chaparral I, and the Lotus Elite.

Fast-forward to 1981 when the enterprising duo of Bill Landis and Dave Sposaro started selling resin cast kits of Corvettes.  Their resin Sting Ray was based upon the Scuderia Scale slot body. The castings were solid resin with voids for the interiors and wheel wells.  The kits included white metal parts for the wheels, tires, steering wheel, grilles, and gear shifter along with resin seats.

I purchased the resin Sting Ray kit in 1982 for $55 and also purchased the Corvette Grand Sport Roadster that they did as well.  Today these would cost about $129!  The Grand Sport I built immediately but the Sting Ray sat unbuilt on my shelf for another 20 years.

Early in 2002, I saw a short Corvette video clip on TV, which included some old footage of the red Sting Ray arriving at the Marlboro Raceway on a red trailer, pulled by a red Chevrolet El Camino.  What a sight that was and very fitting for the sports car of Bill Mitchell, Chief Stylist for General Motors.  The seed had been planted and a trip to the hobby shop produced a reissued AMT 1959 El Camino kit.  The parts box yielded the necessary bits to build a trailer. Now the pieces were in place.

Photo from the Henry Ford Museum Photo Collection

I kept the solid resin Sting Ray casting, the white metal steering wheel, gear shifter, and bonnet vent grilles, and started over from there.  The distinctive fender blisters had to be recarved, the panel lines relocated and rescribed, the bonnet vents altered and an interior and dash built from scratch.  The wheels and tires were replaced and new seats fashioned along with PE seat belt fittings.  I added details such as panel fasteners and the Sting Ray emblem to replicate the Mitchell Sting Ray as it first appeared at the racetrack.  Latter on in its life the Sting Ray would gain more vents and grilles and eventually become a popular show car.

The Sting Ray, El Camino, and trailer models were finished off with Tamiya red and clear spray paints and lots of Bare Metal Foil on the El Camino.  Man, they liked chrome in 1959!

The trio makes for an interesting bit of history.  Model photos taken at the Toledo Ohio model show, October 2002.

Photo by Lyle Willits

Photo by John Sharisky