Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts

Decades of accumulated parts are used to turn this old Vette into a stunning big-block restomod

- Taylor Kempkes

If it’s a numbers-matching survivor, there’s no better way to honor and preserve the heritage of a car than by leaving it that way. It’s not until you’ve got a classic car where most of its original parts have been lost over time that some options open up. At that point you could go the numbers-correct route and locate all the technically correct parts for your specific car or you could go full restomod and bring it into the modern age with an all new drivetrain, suspension and the works. The owner of this 1967 Corvette coupe had his own plan that met somewhere in the middle. If that sounds like a compromise, trust us, it’s not.

Paul Musschoot is a lifetime car enthusiast and SCCA race car driver. He’s been around the block a few times when it comes to cars in general, and has owned plenty of Corvettes and other specimens of American muscle, but more than any other car he keeps coming back to his ’67. Paul has owned the car since 1971 when he found it in a local newspaper ad. The car was originally a big block, four-speed car but even though it was only a few years old, it had already lost its original engine and transmission. When Paul picked it up, it had a small-block 327 and a Power glide automatic. He drove it that way for a few years, taking it on road rallies and auto crossing the car regularly until 1975 when he replaced the 327 with a 400-horse/427ci big-block from a 1969 Corvette. Just one year later, Paul parked the ’67 to focus more heavily on his racing. 

Over the years, the Vette moved from one storage location to the next while Paul was consumed with racing, other builds and life in general. All the while, he knew he wanted to rebuild his C2 Corvette and get it on the road again one day, so he began slowly accumulating parts for it.