How I Met the Original Owner of my ’67

My first story for the club told of how I bought a ’67 427 Corvette roadster in 1973.
I kept that car almost 28 years. It taught me a lot about driving a serious but twitchy, sometimes treacherous, big-block Corvette. It taught me about working on cars and how cars work. There were lots of fun experiences, wonderful days and nights of top-down driving, a few times I almost died in that car.
It was a well-used car, some would even call it an abused car, and had been through at least three owners before me, but there in the glovebox sat the original poly GM envelope with owner’s manual and warranty book, including the P-O-P: the Protect-O-Plate. The P-O-P was a stamped metal plate about the size of a business card affixed to one page in the warranty book. The P-O-P meant little to me at first, but I later realized it documented the key original equipment, even carburetor type, embossed in the metal plate [there’s a decoding guide on pages 448 and 449 of Noland Adams’ excellent book, The Complete Corvette Restoration and Technical Guide – Vol.2]. And when the car sold, the dealer would punch out those Mission Impossible-style DYMO® plastic label strips (you’re old if you remember those!) showing the first owner’s name and address. All of the data was in reverse-font for use in those Addressograph® devices with carbon paper (showing my age here, again) to imprint the info on Chevy warranty documents in ‘right-reading’ font. The warranty book also included a page showing the original dealer’s name and address and date of sale – filled out by hand, and so my warranty page was kind of hard to read. For years, I couldn’t figure out the town where the dealer was located – the names I came up with from the handwriting didn’t show up in my road atlases (and again showing my age).
When I bought the car in 1973, it was as I said, pretty much just a used car and also a bit before the time enthusiasts started preserving Corvettes, so I paid little attention to the info in the warranty book. But as time went by, I became more curious.
In 2001, I decided to sell the car. I had a young family with two kids, a nice home, a family business, but I felt frustrated that I didn’t have the money or time to restore the car, as I felt it deserved. And I was tired of fixing things, especially those always-leaky Holley gas inlet fittings for the steel fuel inlet pipes. It’s a wonder more Holley-equipped cars didn’t burn to the ground.
But, before selling, I decided I should visit the address on the Protect-O-Plate to see where the car first ‘lived’. I figured the original owner would be long-gone.
The address was in Danville, IL, a town I never passed near. Some of my wife’s family lived in Batesville, IN and we’d drive over from northern Il several times a year to visit. I-80/94 was undergoing long, long, long-term repairs/improvements and became more parking lot than Interstate, so I planned a trip to Batesville via I-57 and I-74, passing by Danville. I mapped out the way to my ‘67’s first home address.
To make this story easier to follow, and to protect the identity of the first owner, here is the name and address we’ll assume from the P-O-P:
Henry S……
XXXX Clara Street
Danville, IL
So, my family makes the drive to Danville and we find the address. I had long imagined the house where my Corvette first lived would be in more of a 50’s-style, closely-spaced subdivision with a sloped concrete driveway – I was wrong. The house was actually a good-sized A-frame house on a nice cul-de-sac lot near Lake Vermilion. We got out of our car, stretched our legs and looked around. Looked like nobody was home. Before long, a neighbor came out and, in a nice way, wondered what we wanted there. I told him about the Corvette I owned for decades and the warranty book that came with it which showed that this was the address of the first owner’s, Henry S…’ home.
“I’m sorry but Mr. S….. passed away a few months back.” In a way, that was sad but partly exciting news – the original owner had lived there a long time — however, I wouldn’t get to meet him after all. “… But his son, Butch, likes cars and airplanes and he has a restaurant in Danville.” I got the address and we drove into town.
The restaurant looked like a very nicely, re-purposed Burger Chef that was turned into a family restaurant. It was mid-afternoon, but busy. I asked at the counter if Butch was there, and was told ‘just a minute’. I looked around the restaurant and it had lots of WWII Army Air Force memorabilia: pictures, curios, airplane hardware — and a large portrait of Henry S… – Butch’s dad was a WWII fighter pilot!
Butch, a well-built man about 9 years older than me, came out to meet us — right after helping a frail elderly man that others avoided because he smelled like urine. Butch was kind to the old man, and sort of quiet, reserved. I showed Butch a copy of the Corvette warranty book and he looked it over carefully. I explained that I owned that Corvette for almost 28 years, I was getting ready to sell it, but before I did, I wanted to drive over to the address to see where the car first ‘lived’, and so sorry that we missed meeting, the first owner, Henry S…
Butch paused, and quietly replied in that almost-Southern drawl we enjoy here even in central IL and IN, “I’m the Henry S…. that owned that car.” We talked for about a half an hour. I learned that he had collected Corvettes for years, still had his first Corvette, a ’65 FI coupe he bought used, but he had sold almost all of his Corvette collection to support his present collection of WWII warbird aircraft, including a P-51 (my favorite aircraft of all time, BTW).
I told him how happy I was to meet him, that I never expected to, that I hadn’t planned this, but now wanted to offer him the car back, and that I could give him whatever time he needed to buy it/pay for it. He quickly responded that he wasn’t interested in having it back.
He was 22 when he ordered the Corvette from a tiny dealer, Songer Chevrolet, out in the country, in Catlin, IL, he befriended the secretary there, he went with her to St Louis at the predicted build date, saw a green 427 roadster with white hood stripe on the line, that it might not have been his car he saw there, but if it wasn’t, it sure looked just like it. He only kept the ‘67 about a year, and traded it in on a new ’68 L-89 (aluminum heads) 427-435 Corvette. Since he only had the ’67 for a year, it was not that special to him.
The more we talked, the more it felt like we were brothers! We parted that afternoon and I drove on to Batesville, IN.

Part II
Not long after we returned home to northern IL, I placed a for-sale ad in Hemmings for my ’67. I enjoyed a reasonable response to the ad, had people visit from as far as Atlanta, GA and El Cajon, CA. When the guy from Atlanta flew out to see the car, we took down the gas tank together and for the first time, I saw the tank sticker, still in place, still very legible – amazing. He made a deposit but later backed out. I returned his deposit, confident I could easily sell the car.
I ended up selling the car to a nice young man from the Waukegan, IL area. He’d always wanted a ’67 427-435 and had received a settlement for a forklift accident that cost him several toes. Ouch!!! We were both happy with the deal we made.
About three months after the sale, Butch called me. “I’ve been thinking about that Corvette and decided I’d like to have it back.” I later learned he’d been going through a divorce when I met him, but it had settled, and he was now in position to buy ‘his’ car back. I told him how sorry I was, but that I’d sold the car. If he wanted, I’d contact the new owner and see if he wanted to talk with Butch.
I did get permission from the new owner and got the two into contact.
In the meanwhile, as a few years passed:
• Butch moved back into his late-parents’ home on Clara Street.
• He sent me a photo of ‘my’ ’67, taken back in ’67 when it was new, in the driveway at Clara Street.
• On a business trip to Sioux Falls, SD, I was looking at the magazine rack (remember those?) at the airport. I happened to look at the aircraft magazines, which I otherwise rarely did. Air Classics’ cover showed a beautiful P-51-D in photo-recon configuration, known as an F-6. I browsed the article. It was Henry’s P-51! He and it had received restoration awards. Henry was one of the first guys who strived to restore fighter aircraft with their ‘correct’ military equipment (guns, radios, instruments, stencil markings).
• My son and I looked for Songer Chevrolet in Catlin, IL. It no longer exists. The small concrete block building doesn’t look at all like a Chevy dealer anymore.
Did Henry ever get his ’67 back? Long story, short, it took almost ten years and three deals for Butch to get his ’67 from the guy I sold it to. Butch even bought a nicer (and red!) ’67 427-435 to swap with the new owner for Butch’s ’67. On one of the deals, Butch was actually on his way to pick up his ’67 when he got a phone call saying, ‘Sorry, changed my mind.’ Later, when the third deal got done and Butch had his ’67 safely back in Danville, he called me and told me he’d completed the acquisition.
My son ended up living south of Champaign, IL and on a visit to see my son, I made an appointment to visit Butch in Danville. It was quite a day. Butch showed me my old ’67 – looking a little shop-worn after 10 years+ away from me, and Butch said it wasn’t running that well. We also saw the red ’67 he ‘d bought to try to swap, and his ’65 coupe – his first Corvette. And best of all we got to see Butch’s beautifully restored P-51.
He later sent me a friendly front page article in the Danville newspaper “Man buys back Corvette he purchased new in ‘67”, along with his photo and the looking-good Corvette.
Over the years since, Butch and I stayed in occasional contact with a few visits, usually at the Bloomington Gold shows. Through Butch, I got to spend some time with Dave Burroughs, one of the long-time organizers of the Bloomington Gold events as well as a Corvette authority and finder/buyer of original condition Corvettes that he searches out around the country. Butch also completed a beautiful restoration of a ’57 Corvette.
Last time we met, Butch was restoring a P-40 Warhawk fighter, salvaged from the Aleutian Islands. He had partly disassembled ‘my’ ’67.
Today, I haven’t talked with Butch for a few years. I have to say I’m worried he might have aged-out of his car and aircraft restoration endeavors, and I don’t get the feeling he will finish my old car.
Guess I better call him!

Part III
So I did! Butch was generous with his time on the phone. The P-40 is painted and 90% complete. Looks like next year, that P-40 will fly-in and show at the huge EAA Oshkosh event. Butch has been there many times before!

Butch extended an invitation to our club to visit to see his P-40 and his/my 427 Corvette! Butch also has a restored T-6 Texan advanced trainer. And there is a warbird restoration facility within walking distance of his hangar – there they have a P-51 Mustang, an F4U Corsair, and two Me109s.

Interested?