Friday, January 24, 2014

CORVETTE REPAIR INC. AND FRANK DOMINIANNI

As I attend events I started to notice the frequency of the name Corvette Repair associated to some pretty impressive Corvettes! So my curious mind  looks into them and realize the shops right here in Valley Stream NY!
Owner Kevin J. Mackay was nice enough to let me check out the shop where the restorations take place. 
                                      




Corvette Repair has been involved in quite a few hi-profile restorations and Jay was nice enough to arrange a visit to the storage building at a different location with some very interesting cars!





Note the license plate ZL-1
All aluminum 427!
                                     

 I really get a thrill out of seeing this very familiar race cars from the past, it is history preserved!

This is Roger Penske's 66 L88 below seen at Sebring 1966! 



The car below is a survivor unrestored L88 427 tri-power 3 2bbl carb 

Notice anything unusual under the plastic covers?
                                      
A long term restoration is under way, the chassis has been touring the circuit by itself! HUH?
Above I ran into it at Amelia Island Concours D'Elegance March 2013
Below at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals November 2013

The completed "dressed" XP-819 rear engine prototype 
Designed by Larry Shinoda using a reverse rotation marine small block and entirely custom made chassis and body!
Slated for destruction it wound up in the hands of Smokey Yunick himself, but cut into sections. 
In the hands of the skilled crew at Corvette Repair Inc. the XP-819 will once again be mated with its body and should be completed sometime in 2014!
I will try to get updates on the car!
When I saw the engine it reminded me that it looked familiar, it was the engine on the cover of this very popular book! Prototype ZL-1 I believe.
I have been passing this place for years and again never went in, could have actually been a speed shop museum, the owner passed away and I guess they are about to empty it out! 
I am a little surprised I was not told more about the man associated with the speed shop who passed away in 2011? I did find the photos on line I should have taken a few  years back!
Now I really regret not walking in here when I worked down the street at Acura!

A bigger surprise is that Frank Dominianni, the owner was a well known Corvette Racer!
 Frank had no sponsorship





This is said to be the first engine dyno in Long Island and a guy named Joel Rosen would often use it to super tune his cars, does the name sound familiar?
This guy started a crazy now legendary high performance empire!

Motion Corvettes, Camaros, Novas and even Vegas were hot Phase I,II or III!


The Baldwin part of Motion was the local Chevrolet dealer who was the other half of this empire.

Baldwin became Lyons Chevrolet I believe, I worked with a guy named Artie who worked here during the days as a service writer and would tell me about 427 crate motors piled to the ceilings for Motion conversions!
Even the old Markowitz Oldsmobile got into it, there is still a building in Hempstead with the name on it. 
Back to Frank!
 He had a reputation as a master engine dyno tuner
 Very competitive among all the big names of the day! 
 In the 80"s he resurrected the car and competed in some vintage race events! 

 Frank, an early SCCA licensee raced against such names as Mark Donahue, Roger Penske and Don Yenko! 
The car is now in Mike Yeager's Corvette collection who owns Mid-America Motorworks, a Corvette catalogue shop. 









   

1 comment:

  1. Awesome stuff right here local. Must have been a great time back then with local places offering so much FUN.

    ReplyDelete