FLY ME TO THE MOON
1n 1969, the three Apollo 12 astronauts each leased a new Corvette for a dollar a year. This one, the Lunar Module Pilot’s car, is the sole survivor
When Chevrolet introduced the Corvette in 1953, a new automotive legend began that continues today. Almost 70 years later, you can still go to a Chevy dealer and buy a new Corvette. Of course, many different versions have been offered to the market during the intervening decades and one of the best-loved is the Series 194 ‘C3’, especially those manufactured for model years 1968 to 1971. It’s a symbol of the American Dream, and the series most closely linked with that other American dream: the Space Race. In the era of the Stingray, as it was known, NASA was speeding up to fulfil John F Kennedy’s promise of having a man (an American, of course) walk on the Moon. And there is a direct link between the two.
The engines and chassis of the Series 194 Corvette were mostly carried over from the previous C2 Sting Ray (two words) series, but the long, curved bonnet became its new style reference. Shaped by the Chevrolet styling department under David Holls, it grew from Larry Shinoda’s 1965 Mako Shark II concept which had met GM design chief Bill Mitchell’s brief for a ‘narrow, slim, centre section and coupe body, a tapered tail, an all-of-a-piece blending of the upper and lower portions of the body, and prominent wheels with their protective fenders’. All of that came with the full support of Corvette chief engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov.
As with its predecessor, the C3 was offered in either coupe or convertible form, the coupe fitted with a near-vertical removable rear window and two removable roof panels, a system known as the T-top. It was powered only by V8s, in small- and big-block form, with a variety of options and either manual or automatic transmission. In 1969, the only visible differences between a car equipped with the entrylevel 300bhp 350ci (5.7-litre) and the range-topping 435bhp 427ci (7.0-litre) were a domed bonnet for the bigger engine, complete with two ‘427’ emblems and twin simulated vents.
IN LATE 1968, Capt Charles ‘Pete’ Conrad Jr, Capt Richard Francis Gordon Jr and Capt Alan LaVern ‘Al’ Bean were busy practising for their mission: piloting Apollo 12 to the Moon and back. Lift-off, via a Saturn V SA-507 rocket, was planned for 14 November 1969 from Kennedy Space Center in Titusville, Florida. They were a close-knit team, all former Navy pilots; Bean was personally selected for the mission by Conrad, who was Flight Commander.
For Cdr Conrad, everything related or dedicated to him on board was labelled red. Gordon was Command Module Pilot, who would orbit the Moon while Conrad and Bean became the third and fourth people to walk there; everything of his was labelled white. Bean was Lunar Module Pilot, and everything belonging to him was labelled in light blue. They were all in their late 30s and had a love of cars – indeed Conrad, already an avid motorcyclist, would later in life race single-seaters. All three took advantage of General Motors’ special ‘Car for a Dollar’ leasing programme, just for astronauts.
Following his success in the 1960 Indianapolis 500, Jim Rathmann was assigned a Chevrolet-Cadillac dealership in Melbourne, Florida, just a few miles away from the Kennedy Space Center. He soon became friends with several early astronauts, and it was he who suggested to GM president Ed Cole the idea of linking these heroic men – superstars of the period – to the brand. The programme, leasing for one US dollar every 12 months any GM car to an astronaut, meant that NASA’s best men, full of the right stuff and rich in prestige if not in military salary, could enjoy something special while GM basked in their reflected glory.
Practically every NASA pilot of the time, whether based in Florida, Texas or California, drove a Corvette. (Only family man John Glenn leased a station wagon.) The Apollo 12 crew went one better, picking three identical goldpainted cars and personalising them along team lines. Bean, who later retired from active service to spend time painting, had the idea of applying special graphics to the trio of space-age Corvettes. He then turned to Alex Tremulis, the famed industrial designer who had shaped the Cord 810 and 812 and the Tucker 48 before founding his own design company, to refine it.
The final choice, picked from three sketches, saw a black aviation-inspired graphic applied to the Riverside Gold paint. Tremulis added flags in red, white and light blue, recalling national colours and those personal colour codes of the crew. In Bean’s case, ‘LMP’ (Lunar Module Pilot) was scripted on the light blue flag on his car’s front wing.
His Chevrolet Corvette, ordered on 10 October 1968 under order number AXR 924, bore chassis number 194379S704987. It was a 1969 model-year Corvette Coupe with the mid-ranking L36 390bhp Turbo-Jet V8, a 308 RA Positraction Axle and a four-speed manual transmission, assembled at GM’s St Louis, Missouri, plant and specified (like its two sister cars) with side-mounted exhausts (an option only for that model year), AM/FM radio, ‘FourSeason’ air-conditioning, head restraints and De Luxe wheel covers. The order clearly shows that the car was all speed and no frills, with standard all-vinyl black trim, no electric windows, no power steering and no power brakes.
Although his day job kept him busy flying to the Moon, having a nice walk there while taking some amazing pictures and then returning to Earth, Alan Bean found time to drive the car, too. When he returned the Corvette at the end of its lease, it had covered 28,000 miles. The first journey the trio of cars took together was the 1200 miles from collecting them at the Florida dealership to the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center) in Houston. The astronauts posed for photos with them for magazine.
In August 1971, while driving to downtown Austin, Texas, Corvette collector and NASA enthusiast Danny Reed spotted this car for sale on a General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) lot, surrounded by other lessappealing metal. Immediately he recognised it. ‘I stopped and asked if they knew the history of the car, but they had no idea. All they knew was that the car was offered for sale by closed bid. The typical price for a good, used ’69 bigblock ’Vette then was about $3200, so I put in an offer for $3230. Some days later, I got the call to say I didn’t get the car. I bought a racing boat instead.’
But then destiny played its card. Unknown to Mr Reed, the winning bidder – at $13,000! – couldn’t stump up the cash. ‘Six weeks later, I got another phone call from the dealership, asking if I were still interested. Mine was the second highest offering. The third bidder was $30 lower. I got it, and in 2021 we’ll celebrate 50 years together.’
Today the odometer reads 34,500 miles, and it is still mainly original down to the smallest details. ‘I always kept the car as a historical artefact,’ says Reed. ‘It deserves to be protected as it was. In 1974-75, I started showing the car at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, the Houston Space Center, the Cosmosphere and the National Corvette Museum, and immediately it got a lot of attention. On a couple of occasions I had the privilege of driving it in a parade with
‘HIS DAY JOB KEPT HIM BUSY FLYING TO THE MOON, BUT BEAN FOUND TIME TO DRIVE THE CAR, TOO’
Alan Bean himself waving by my side. He remembered his Corvette fondly.’
Bean himself once said: ‘I had a lot of fun in this car a long time ago. When we went to work, we’d park them side by side; they’d look great.’
In 2019 the Historic Vehicle Association registered the ‘AstroVette’ as car number 25 of the National Historic Vehicle Register, the very first Corvette to receive that honour. The car was officially declared to be of historical significance and, last September, was shown inside a glass case on the National Mall between the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum and the National Gallery of Art, and its data and identity are registered in the Library of Congress. For years it has sported a Texas vanity plate – ‘LMP XII’ – revealing its origins to those in the know.
In 1972, people began to complain that GM was getting free advertising from the NASA men, and the special lease programme was shut down. What happened to the two sister cars is unkown. No evidence has been found of the cars being registered after their first owners, indicating that they could have been exported or, for some unknown reason, crushed. For space enthusiasts they are a Holy Grail: could they be hidden away somewhere, waiting to recreate the magic of the three AstroVettes parked together in front of a NASA building?
From their special place above the moon, we can be sure that Conrad, Gordon and Bean would be happy to see their endeavours – and their cars – commemorated again.
THANKS TO Casey Maxon of the Historic Vehicle Association.