1958 Corvette Restomodded To Perfection

Second Time: this Corvette ended up having a longer history with its current owner than expected

- Taylor Kempkes

Over the course of 50 years, Jerry Lyndon’s obsession with Corvettes has resulted in his owning of over 100 Vettes of every generation. It all started back in 1967 when he bought his first Corvette at just 17 years of age and has essentially built his whole life around Corvettes since then. That Vette was a 1960 which, remarkably, he still owns, but that’s not the object of discussion for today. The one that caught our attention was a 1958 that he purchased back in 1985 and later sold off, never to be seen again. Or so he thought.

Jerry originally found the ’58 at a Corvette expo in Knoxville, Tennessee. It was just a body, but the price was right so he bought it and brought it home where it sat for a while waiting to find a purpose. Eventually, a friend of Jerry’s asked if he could buy it off of him for use as an SCCA race car he intended to build. Still lacking a distinct purpose for the C1, Jerry decided to let it go with no intention of seeing it again. As it turned out, his friend went through a divorce and was forced to sell the body off. Over the next 35 years a couple dozen other Vettes came in and out of Jerry’s possession, then another friend reached out asking if this ’58 body he was interested in was worth the asking price. “I told him yes,” recalls Jerry. “He went to buy, then backed out. Said he was over his desire to do anything with it. He asked if I wanted it and took me to it,” says Jerry. When they got to the car, it was under a canvas on a trailer and although it was just a fiberglass body, everything was there so he bought it.