We are a day late publishing our weekly In the Barn story, but we think that you will agree that the wait was well worth it after reading this one. Just about every car guy would love to find an old Corvette that had been stashed away, but the prospect gets even sweeter when it is a rare racing Vette. This tale was penned by Bill Connell and was originally published in The Corvette in the Barn, but is featured here with permission. You can signup to win a free copy of the book or just purchase it through Motorbooks or Amazon. Enjoy!

“It’s not for sale!”

How many times have we heard these as the first words out of an old car owner’s mouth after we rang the doorbell?

This is what Bill the Farmer said when asked if the old Corvette in his barn was for sale. Bill was a hog farmer in rural Ohio. In his younger days, he raised a lot of hell street-racing and drag racing various hot rods in and around his rural hometown. As he got older, though, he became both reclusive and a “hoarder” of all things mechanical.

Inside various barns and outbuildings around his farm, Bill stored an assortment of Corvettes, farm tractors, pre–World War II motorcycles, and literally tons of assorted junk. Bill Connell was the one who asked Bill if he could purchase the above-mentioned Corvette.

Connell was intrigued with the car and its No. 4007 serial number because he believed it was one of the long-lost serial No. 4007 cars, one of only 43 Corvette “airbox” racers that Chevrolet built for serious road racing in 1957.

In January 1957, General Motors announced the car’s development at a special Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) meeting in Warren, Michigan.

Corvettes ordered with the RPO 579E option would be fitted with a competition suspension, which included heavy-duty springs, a quicker steering ratio, heavy duty shocks, larger wheels, and special ceramic drum brake linings with cooling ducts. But the major modification was the installation of a cold airbox, which captured cooler, higher-density outside air and forced it into the Rochester fuel-injection unit. The same air was also supposed to aid cooling to the rear brakes.

“General Motors told the amateur racers in attendance that if any of them ordered the car during the convention, they would guarantee delivery in time to compete in the Cumberland, Maryland, road races that May,” said Connell. Several versions of the Corvette would be driven by professional racer drivers that March in Sebring, with the team of Dick Thompson and Gaston Andrey finishing in a hard-fought 12th place overall, first in class against a strong field of Maseratis, Ferraris, Jaguars, and Porsches. Interestingly, at that race, the airboxes were removed because they contributed to overheating of the left-rear brakes. “The front brakes had funnels that resembled elephant ears to cool them,” said Connell. “But the rear brakes were a different story. The right rear brake was cooled by a large hose, and that worked fine, but the left rear brake shared cool air with the engine intake.

“When the engine was driven hard, it required all the cool air that the airbox could capture, which caused the left-side rear brakes to badly overheat. There just wasn’t enough air in the box for both duties.”

Anyway, at the January SCCA meeting in Detroit, two racers were particularly excited: Bill Howe and Jack Knab. Howe owned a Chevrolet dealership in Middletown, Ohio, and on weekends he raced in amateur sports car races. Knab was his racing buddy. At the conclusion of the meeting, Howe plunked down his deposit and was promised the car in plenty of time to make the May 19, 1957, SCCA National event in Cumberland.

He waited and waited, hoping he’d get the car soon enough to at least practice driving it in a lesser event. What Howe didn’t know was that General Motors, along with Ford and Chrysler, voluntarily ceased participating in racing events and marketing high-performance automobiles. Chevrolet’s head engineer Ed Cole had the factories in a tizzy as they attempted to get their racing programs closed down before the end of June.

“There was such tension to complete the cars that engineers sourced prototype parts from the engineering department just to complete the cars on time,” says Connell.

On May 16, word finally came that his Corvette was completed. Howe and Knab jumped on a plane and flew to the St. Louis assembly plant to take delivery. They quickly signed the papers and headed east. They drove through the night, as they had only two days to drive the new Corvette to Maryland, change tires, prep the car, and practice before the Sunday race. That Sunday’s feature race has been viewed as Corvette’s “coming out party,” because the brand dominated the field with the “Flying Dentist,” Dr. Dick Thompson, winning, and champion racer driver Carroll Shelby finishing second, both driving 1957 Corvettes. And amateur driver Howe finished third, attesting to the race-worthiness of No. 4007 with the RPO 579E package.

With that, Howe jumped in his car and drove back to Ohio so he could be at work on Monday morning.

Howe continued to race No. 4007 for the rest of the season and even assisted GM in early brake testing of the new sintered metallic competition brakes, which would be offered to racers in 1960.

At the end of the 1957 season, No. 4007 was retired from road racing.

Howe parked the car on his used car lot as he awaited the delivery of his new 1958 Corvette with the RPO 684 competition package.

According to Connell, No. 4007 went through three more owners and accumulated about 41,000 miles—much of it one-quarter mile at a time—before going into a 28-year hibernation. But none of the owners subsequent to Howe knew of the car’s significant racing heritage.

This is where Bill the Farmer comes in.

In the 1970s, Bill the Farmer, who was a longtime drag racer, decided he wanted an early fuel-injected Corvette. He stumbled across No. 4007, which to him was just an abused old Corvette. He bought it and partially stripped it to begin restoration.

Bill stripped the paint and removed many parts before losing interest and pushing the car in the corner of the barn, where it sat for the next 28 years.

During that time, the Corvette became increasingly crowded in the barn as Bill continued to purchase and store additional vehicles and machinery.

An old drag racing buddy of his, Joel Lauman, was one of the few people who saw the Corvette when his friend bought it. Lauman, a Corvette restorer, believed the car was an authentic airbox racer, which didn’t seem to faze Bill.

“I’m going to finish the restoration when I have the time,” he’d say.

Lauman called his friend Connell and told him of his suspicion that the car was possibly a rare racer. The two decided to try and take a look at it.

Bill was becoming increasingly reclusive. He was a well-armed big man who could lift engines in and out of cars without the use of an engine hoist—not the sort who attracts folks just to drive up to his farm and knock on the door.

“You had to arrange your visit in advance so Bill would put away the guns and dogs,” said Connell. Phone calls went unanswered, so Lauman and Connell left notes in Bill’s mailbox, hoping to get an appointment.

Eventually, Bill invited Lauman over “To pay tribute to Jack.” In other words, the two would sit on the porch on Sunday afternoons, sip Jack Daniels, and bench race. Just when Lauman thought he was making progress, Bill mentioned he was still planning to restore the Corvette when he had some time. “And it’s definitely not for sale!”

As the years passed, Bill’s health began to deteriorate to the point where even he admitted he was no longer capable of restoring the Corvette.

In 2005, Lauman finally said to Bill: “Bill, you’re never going to restore that car. I know a guy [Connell] who will pay you for the car and allow me to restore it.” Bill agreed, but only after Lauman promised he would arrange for Bill to drive the car upon completion. That sealed the deal, or so Lauman and Connell thought.

“So the next week I went out to the farm and gave him a Kroger shopping bag filled with cash,” Connell said. “That satisfied him.”

Bill invited Lauman and Connell into the master bedroom of his old farmhouse, where he reached under the bed, pulled out a briefcase, and removed the title. Before handing the title to the new owner, Bill said, “You know, you are the first man to ever set foot inside my bedroom.”

It took at least two days for Bill to dig out all the Corvette’s pieces that were hidden around the farmhouse.

Once the car was removed from the farm, Connell began to take account of what he had just purchased. “At this point, I knew I had an airbox car, but many of the experts said that it wasn’t; that the serial number was too early.”

Lauman and Connell decided not to restore or even disassemble No. 4007, but instead take thousands of photos and attempt to document the car properly.

“Joel was going to Corvette Carlisle, so I asked him to bring the distributor with him to have Ken Kayser take a look at it,” said Connell. “Ken, a former senior GM engineer, is considered the dean of old Corvettes.

“Kayser looked at the distributor and asked, ‘Where did you get this? The codes say this is an engineering piece. This is unusual; I’d like to learn more about this car.’ He asked if he could come down to see the car sometime.”

As Connell explains, Kayser conducted a forensic engineering audit on No. 4007 and was underneath the car for at least two hours. When he crawled out from under the car, Kayser proclaimed, “This is the real deal with this low serial number. It was probably the pilot for the airbox-series cars.

“I need to do more research, but in the meantime, please don’t show anyone the car until we have more documentation,” said Kayser. “And don’t throw anything away. We have a lot of questions to answer before you begin pulling it apart.”

Kayser, along with a number of Corvette experts, including Joe Trybulec and Jack Knab, finally concluded that No. 4007 was the original “pilot” car for all subsequent airbox cars and is the earliest known in the series.

Corvette No. 4007 went through a comprehensive two-year restoration and was completed in time for the 50th anniversary of the 1957 Corvette at the annual Bloomington Gold event. Connell’s Corvette shared the special collection stage with several other airbox racers and other 1957 models of special note. In 2008, No. 4007 was awarded the Bloomington Gold certificate, as well as the National Corvette Restorers Society Top Flight Award. The car has also appeared at the Cincinnati Concours, where it was awarded Best Corvette, at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, and on the Discovery Channel’s one of-a-kind “How Stuff Works” series.

These days, the car is absolutely beautiful, but Connell reminds admirers that this car hasn’t always looked so proper. “This is a barn-find car in the truest sense, because we had to remove a family of mice who had been happily living in the airbox!”