Rare Finds
1966 Mouse motor coupe in woods
“If you look over where that telephone pole is in the middle of that field, in the winter you could make out maybe one-eighth of the side of a red Corvette,” Jerry Coleman said. Coleman pointed through the windshield of his pickup truck as we drove around a curve on a two-lane country black top road.
Classics Corvettes sometimes hide in plain sight. This time, the diamond in the rough was a 1966 Corvette coupe in a rural area northeast of Dallas and less than a mile from Coleman’s house. Jerry Coleman easily made contact with the owner. They were neighbors. Although the car was outside and its license plate expired in October of 1981, the owner had a classic reason not to sell. He was “going to restore it myself.”
When the owner passed, the two sons called Coleman first, in his words, “Knowing I have a few cars.” Coleman has a “real penchant for C2 coupes.” He owns a Daytona Blue 1964 fuelie and an Alpine White 1967 coupe.
“I’ve been after this car for 10 years.”
Coleman sent photos to me and since he had purchased but not picked the car up yet, I made the long trek to his house to see the barn find in the woods. This Corvette was a base 327 small-block coupe with a Powerglide, but it wore its factory Rally Red paint and period modifications that are part of Corvette history.
When we got to the red coupe, Coleman told me to get my camera ready because “we might see a critter under there.” Every time he had raised the hood, he had seen a mouse, and he didn’t mean the Mouse motor. I got in position for photos. Coleman lifted the hood and right there, for less than a second, was a mouse perched on top of the stock chrome air cleaner lid.
The Mouse motor was the base 300-horse 327, which Jerry later determined was numbers-matching. This was also an air car with the original compressor. Nothing under the hood looked messed with, including the air cleaner assembly, belts and hoses and right down to the stock cast-iron exhaust manifolds.
The body had five vintage modifications that Coleman says he will never change: three taillights instead of two per side, a non-functional scoop on each quarter-panel, a pair of black stripes made up of a motif of flowers over the top of the body and hood, a 1967 big-block “stinger” type hood and radical wheelwell flares at all four corners.
Coleman says the mods give this Corvette “history.” A regular on the Hot Rod Power Tour, Coleman plans to “not do anything to the car other than get it rolling and running.” Of course, he’ll get it cleaned up and make the car look as good as possible without a restoration, so this car will be a rolling time capsule, not just with the vintage modifications, but with the patina.
Then, he and his wife, Carla, will drive this 1966, in his words, “Patina on the Tour.” Vette
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