Apollo Astronauts and their Vettes

[Kai Noeske]

I know, COM looks more like a Miata club these days, but since the founders set out as a Vette club, here's a piece of history:

Did you know that the Vette was the car of choice for Apollo astronauts, and that some of them were pistonheads/racers?

http://www.vetteweb.com/features/vet110 ... index.html

[cuda6666]

Alan Shepard was a member of the NH Sports Car Club (still in existence)

[horizenjob]

That's pretty impressive. Did he ever run Mt. Ascutney, I wonder...

Cool.

That would extremly likely have made him by far the fastest member of any club in these parts. I mean no matter what other people say, he can answer with "Saturn V" there is no substitute for Horsepower...

[paultg]

Wow, that was a cool article. I can remember in the Movie Appllo 13 that Tom Hanks drove a Corvette, and I always wondered how accurate (or how far to be accurate) the movies went.



Paul G.

[John F]

.. I always wondered how accurate (or how far to be accurate) the movies went.
Paul G.

We were contacted by the studio when they were filming Apollo 13 because Ron Howard wanted the interior of the command module to look exactly like the original. We supplied all of the toggle switches for the Apollo program. I sent them pictures of the switches but had to convince them that they didn't need the originals because we no longer made them. I'm in the process of resurrecting them for the new Orion program (if the funding stays). I have some old lot qualification parts populating the dashboard of my cobra.

[jimalley]

In the mid sixty's my brother bought a insurance company 62 Vette missing the entire drive train. We purchased a totalled 62 for the drivetrain and other parts needed to complete the first car. When we started to disassemble the totalled car we found a engraved placque that had been on the dash with the engraving "Made Especially for Commander Alan B. Shepard". I assume General Motors either cut the astronauts a special deal or the Corvettes were given to them.

I think my brother still has that momento. I will have to ask him the next time I talk to him.

[paultg]

Wow. Be cool to see some pictures of the car and plaque if hebhas them. Small world.

[6PAK72]

Completely small world. I always forget how much space "stuff" was done in MA and NH.

My father worked at Raytheon when I was very young, so I got the cool promo stuff from whatever program they were on at the time - Hawk, Sparrow, Atlas, Apollo, etc.

To get back to motor content, anybody have any idea where Steve Tyler was building his stuff before he went into rehab?