NASA JIM AND HIS GRAY RAY CORVETTE
“I always told myself that if I was ever able to have a Corvette, well, I wouldn't be the type to just park it.”
For 37 years, comprising 165 launch missions, Jim Meyer came to work each day in his 1969 Corvette. A NASA engineer, he was part of America's huge effort to put a man on the moon. His life's work led to human footprints in the lunar soil. On the 50th anniversary of the year a man took one giant leap for mankind, Meyer gave several presentations in his adopted home of Squamish. An avid skier, he fell in love with the west coast, and in pre-pandemic times, split his time between Florida and Squamish. Squamish folks came to know him as “NASA Jim.”
He told the assembled audience about what it was like to work with astronauts like Neil Armstrong. He talked about his involvement with Mars rovers like Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity. He talked about one of his proudest achievements, the Cassini probe that orbited Saturn for 13 years. And he told us about his special Corvette, the one he called the Gray Ray.
“One of my fraternity brothers in college had a white 1962 Corvette, and I just thought it was the most wonderful thing. When I reported to NASA in Houston, September 12th, 1966, well, you'll never guess. Parked out front of Building 4 was Alan Shepherd's white 1962 'Vette.”
Most of the Apollo astronauts drove Corvettes, as did many of the Gemini and Mercury crew before them. Not all did — for instance, the late Michael Collins, of Apollo 11, drove to work on moon launch day in a Volkswagen Beetle. However, thanks to a near-free leasing program set up by a well-connected Florida dealer named Jim Rathmann, the Chevrolet Corvette became a symbol of the space race.
Meyer showed up to work in a Corvair. He was newly married and fresh out of small-town Indiana. Speaking to him on the phone from Florida, he still has that down-to-earth Midwesterner humble charm. He explains his work at NASA in a matter-of-fact fashion, careful not to brag, but proud of what he was involved in.
If astronauts are the face of a manned space mission, then the engineers are the muscles who get the work done. Meyer's duties for the Apollo flights included everything from building mockups of the command and lunar modules for underwater training, to making the seat for one of the astronauts on Apollo 15.
He spent two years at Houston before transferring to the Kennedy Space Center, where he would work for the next 35 years. Now being established in his career, and having a bit of money in his pocket, he decided to get finally order his longed-for 'Vette. But there was a problem.
“At that time, Jim Rathmann was getting most of the dealer allocation, and we were just waiting around. The dealer I ordered my car from, Bob Dance, gave me a number to call. He said I should explain I was working on the space program, too.”
Meyer called the number and spoke to a man who said he would take care of the problem. The next day, a messenger arrived carrying a note saying the car would arrive in 30 days. The note was signed “John DeLorean.” The Corvette arrived 28 days later.
That car was a 1969 Corvette Stingray in Cortez silver, with a high-compression 350hp 350ci V-8 and a four-speed manual gearbox. The Corvette's styling had been changed in 1968, based on the Mako II concept car, and the silver paint really accentuated the shark-like lines.
“I tell you, I can still clearly remember the day I drove that car out of the dealer,” Meyer says.
He also remembers the day he was out on the front lawn when astronauts Jim Irwin, Alfred Worden and David Scott came by with their red, white and blue Stingrays. He knew them all well, having worked on Apollo 15.
There can't be that many original-owner 1969 Corvettes left in Florida, and certainly not ones that were driven every day to fire rockets into space. And, speaking of launches, Meyer slyly revealed one other habit that both ground crew and astronauts had.
“The engine was so high-compression in those days, that you'd get carbon buildup on the spark plugs. The solution was to run it at about 100 m.p.h. I used to run it up to about 120 m.p.h. in front of the VAB because we wouldn't get tickets if we got stopped there, just points. But I never got stopped.”
Meyer had the car refreshed a few years back, but it still remains largely original. Currently, the Gray Ray has covered 173,000 miles, and it continues to rack up more. He retired from NASA in 2002, but on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, Meyer was able to take the Gray Ray around his old stomping grounds. “I took it pretty much everywhere I used to work,” he says.
Of course, he took his car out to Pad 39A, where all the Apollo missions launched from, save Apollo 10 and Meyer's first launch, Apollo 7. Today, SpaceX launches their Falcon 9 rockets from there.
On that day back in 2019, Jim Meyer parked his Stingray near the pad, got out to take a photograph of his beloved car, and thought about the old days. He looked up, and thought about the feeling of being part of a team that put a man on the moon. The feeling of watching a Saturn V rocket thunder into the sky.
But then he got back in his Gray Ray and fired up its smallblock V-8. He had made himself a promise years ago, and he intended to keep it. This wasn't a car made for parking and just looking at. It was built for flight.