Photos: Chadly Johnson Words: Rex Marshall & Chadly Johnson
If you have ever attended Speed Week at Bonneville, you know there is hot rod eye candy around every pile of salt – so for any particular car to really stand out from the crowd, it has to be something very, very special. While roaming the gathering of precious metal that packs the parking lot at the Nugget hotel in Wendover after each day of racing, I spied the incredible ‘vette you see before you.
The stance, the patina, that damn red hood scoop! Man, this thing was something else; I had to know more. I quickly located the lucky owners, Rex and Deby Marshall. I knew I had to get the survivor in front of my lens, but it was already dark and the couple was leaving early the next morning, so a return trip was scheduled to grab images.
Rex’s addiction to corvettes was due to his older brother Scott, a common and very cool recurring theme in our hobby. Scott’s first car was “almost” a 1960 Corvette, but he was talked out of it by his neighbor and mentor, and purchased a ‘62 Pontiac Bonneville convertible instead. The Poncho was cool, but all of his buddies drove Chevys, which were faster. Rex’s brother knew power to weight ratio was important, and he was also concerned a bit with mileage, so he wanted to stick with a small block. With these factors in mind he narrowed his choice to a Nova or a Corvette… He chose a ‘vette.
While driving the Corvette, he purchased another to play with and then flipped it for some extra cash. Soon another followed, and so on. About this time Scott opted to move back to Utah near Rex, and of course his Corvette came along with him. Scott got Rex involved with his new side interest of fixing and flipping Corvettes, and it didn’t take long for Rex to get addicted. Now I’m not sure if Rex had a really good teacher in his older brother, or if he was born with restoring in his blood, but at the ripe old of age 16 he had his first restoration featured in the April/May 1977 issue of the factory GM publication known as “Corvette News.” The restoration was an impressive feat at any age, even more so at only 16.
The story of the ‘54 you see before you began for Rex as a matter of luck and a little help from mother nature, after a heavy wind storm lifted a military tarp just enough to reveal a small portion of the hidden Corvette sitting in a small neighboring town.
Rex recalls: “A good friend of mine (Corey) bought this car about 6 years ago. I tried to get the car then but he was still too excited about his new acquisition and didn’t want to sell, so I waited. Then, one day a few months later, a couple of guys in a work truck (Rick and his son Rich) pulled into my place and wanted to see my ‘56 Chevy. As I was showing the Chevy to them, Rick couldn’t help but notice my Corvettes and said, ‘I used to have a Corvette,’ to which I asked ‘What was it like?’
“Rick told me it was a ‘54 hot rod. He said when he first got the car in the early ‘60s it had a 430 Lincoln motor in it. Rick dated his wife in it and after they were married he transplanted a bored out 283 (301) into it with a T-10 trans. Rick built some traction bars for it and raised the front end up, and then he said it had a red Plexiglas hood scoop on it. ‘Holy crap,’ I said, ‘I know where your car is!’
“I called Corey right then, and we went over to his house to reunite the previous owner with his car, which he hadn’t seen in over 40 years. Rick showed us a picture of the car with the Lincoln motor, chrome wheels and his soon to be wife posed on the fender. I was surprised to find out he sold the car to another person who I also knew, who was the last registered owner in 1968.
“The story of Rick getting the car was like this… One evening at the family dinner table, his grandfather said he would like him to go with him after dinner to look at something. The family owned an asphalt business and he figured Granddad wanted him to go look at a job.
“They drove to a parking lot where people parked their used cars on a busy street. They pulled up and there was this beautiful ‘54 ‘vette sitting there. His grandpa says, ‘What do you think of that?’ Well Rick says, ‘it’s great.’ Gramps said, ‘Good, ‘cause I bought it for you this afternoon.’ Of course Rick had to pay back the money from his job with the asphalt company and get a second job just to be able to drive it. Rick sold the ‘vette through a newspaper ad four days before he shipped out to Vietnam in 1967 and thought he’d never see it again.”
A little tinkering was performed on the ‘54 over the years by Corey before another car was purchased, and then another, pushing the ‘vette further down the list of projects. Finally, after several years had passed and enough cars were purchased, little room remained for Corey to add another car that he had his eye on. So a phone call was made to Rex, and a deal was struck that involved the bundle purchase of the ‘54 ‘vette and a ‘62 Chevy wagon.
Rex had plans to get the ‘vette back on the road and looking as good as possible while leaving the patina alone.
Rex started with the gauges and states: “I began by removing all the gauges from the dash for testing and clean-up. As I disassembled the small gauges, I noticed the water temp unit was originally mechanical and the capillary tube had been cut; I also found the fuel gauge was burned up. These cars were 6-volt, so I guess that makes sense. The amp gauge was good – it doesn’t care about volts – and the oil gauge is mechanical.
“I looked at my junk pile and found that a ‘56 Chevy car fuel gauge is basically the same except for the face, so after switching the guts around I had a functioning fuel gauge. The temp gauge looked to be the same deal, and after switching the faces over I discovered the ‘56 Chevy version is 1/4 inch deeper and wouldn’t fit in the housing – crap, it looked great! I hopped on Ebay and purchased an original for $100, and all is good.
“All the chrome and lenses cleaned up nicely. I pulled the sender out of the fuel tank and made sure the gauge read correctly and tested the temp gauge on the bench with a pan of hot water. Temp gauges on old Corvettes are notorious for reading wrong due to the replacement senders being calibrated wrong, often reading 30 degrees hot.
“The more I worked on the ’54, the better I liked it. The thing hadn’t had power in it since 1968, and after I got the gauges back in it I hooked up a battery and started to test the electrical system. I was pleasantly surprised to find that all the lights and turn signals worked, except the right front headlight low beam was burned out and the dash lights wouldn’t light. After a little fiddling I started turning the headlight switch dash light dimmer back and forth, and soon the dash lights began working. Just a little corrosion on the rheostat. The horns, wipers, heater, and courtesy lights all worked as well! I thought after all these years everything would have to come apart and be cleaned to get good connections.”
The good luck Rex was having with the Corvette continued when a friend hooked him up with a free hardtop. I didn’t realize it, but the factory did not offer a hardtop in ‘54, so owners had to resort to aftermarket pieces. The free hand-me-down was also the right color and even matched the condition of the ‘54. Coincidentally, in the trunk of the ‘54 was a pair of rear windows for this same type of hardtop; one window was clear and the other red. There is a good chance that this was actually the top that was once on the ‘54…must be fate.
The interior of the corvette was in great condition and was “done” in Rex’s opinion, but he opted to swap out the steering wheel for one with more leverage. A friend had given Rex a rough ‘61 Corvette wheel, so he restored the wheel, then shot it in white base coat. Rex then masked it off, cut and picked out 798 squares before applying a red top coat. Looks like a ton of work, but Rex claims it only took around an hour… Crazy, and it looks great.
When it came time for a driveline, Rex had a 5 speed transmission ready to go, but had to find a motor. Prepping the motor was when Rex ran into a little less than good luck.
He states: “Things don’t always go as smooth as planned. With the body done it was time to begin on the power train. The engine I had in mind is one I removed a year or so ago from one of my other cars. It was a good runner and it should have been a simple matter to get it ready for the ‘54. The short block was still assembled and simply needed the heads installed.
“All was going well: The left head was on and torqued in place, and the right head was on and all the bolts started. As I’m torquing the 17 head bolts I get to number 14 and it pulls the threads out of the block! In 40-something years I had only had this happen once before… CRAP! Naturally I didn’t have that correct size Heli-Coil kit; got all the others, just not that one. It’s just after 8 PM, so I rushed to the local auto parts store and get a kit before they close.
“I take the head off and start to drill out the hole when the drill catches and breaks the bit off in the block. You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me! Fortunately there was enough broken bit sticking out of the block to grab with some pliers and turn it back out. With a new bit, I got the hole drilled and the Heli-Coil installed. The head was replaced and I torqued the bolts again. I made it to 14 and all is well. 15… good, 16 good… 17 CRAP! NOT AGAIN! I pull the head back off and Heli-Coil that one too. Finally got it done. Of course you don’t want a pretty new looking engine in a survivor, so it was kind of a challenge to make it look old.”
With the engine in place, the ‘vette was soon back on the road after a 50-year slumber. Rex took it to several local cruise nights before making the trip to Bonneville where we ran into each other. Even though I knew Rex had gone through the car, I never dreamed it would have driven as nice as it did when he gave me a ride in it to the airport. It was smooth as silk, with virtually no road or wind noise, and had wonderful road manners. I’ve been picked up and dropped off at airports in some pretty cool rides, but the ‘54 now claims top honors.
Rex has owned many Corvettes in his lifetime, and has a great collection of them at his home that really shows his passion. If the ‘54 survivor was able to pick the right person to bring it back to life after all these years, Rex was definitely the guy. The ‘vette received expert care and restoration where necessary and restraint on the areas that needed to be left alone… The result is plastic perfection.
