A Van Gogh on Wheels: The Forgotten Story of the Stunning, Coachbuilt Kelly Corvette

In 1961 at the Salon de L'Automobile in Paris, France, the Carrozzeria Vignale booth hosted a stunning, yet unusual car. A low-slung bundle of seductive curves painted bright red, it looked like a Ferrari but lacked the iconic Prancing Horse badges. Those who were fascinated by this unmarked beauty and ventured to take a peek inside were perplexed by the sight of chrome Corvette lettering decorating the leather-upholstered door panels. Yes, it was America’s beloved sports car dressed in an Italian suit.

But contrary to what attendees were led to believe, it wasn’t a show car build for GM. Instead, the coupe was a one-off commissioned by an American stylist called Gordon Kelly.

While showcasing a car built for a private customer at such a prestigious event wasn’t all that uncommon, the fact that Kelly himself designed the car and convinced one of Europe’s most prestigious coachbuilders to turn it into reality certainly was.

Thanks to its elegant body and fascinating story, the Italian-American Corvette became a sensation in the early-1960s. It was featured in many prestigious automotive publications, including the May 1962 issue of Car and Driver where it graced the cover and was showcased at several other important auto shows.

As decades went by, the car was forgotten by all but a few die-hard Corvette enthusiasts. Fortunately, thanks to its current owner, John Breslow, author Larry Edsall who wrote a book about it five years ago, and our colleagues at Petrolicious who featured the car in the 2016 video that you can watch below, everyone can admire the Kelly Corvette and learn how it came into being.

A resident of Milwaukee, Wisconsin Gordon Kelly was a man passionate about design and engineering, as well as fast cars. He worked as a stylist at Brooks Stevens Design Associates - a company founded in 1934 that’s still around today – where he created many innovative designs, including a series of cars.

Failing to get an automaker to turn one of his sketches into reality through his employer, Kelly decided to take matters into his own hands and build one himself. But, with limited funds and no lack of tooling to manufacture a car from scratch, he had to get creative.

Thus, he took his most beloved design and created a detailed 1/8 scale model. Then he meticulously researched the automotive market for a suitable donor car and compatible parts. In the end, Kelly settled on the Chevrolet Corvette as the perfect building block for his dream car, and after a lengthy correspondence with GM officials who were intrigued, he managed to source one.

Since his dream car was inspired by the gorgeous Italian sports cars of the era, Kelly packed his scale model into a wooden case and flew across the Atlantic to search for a coachbuilder who would be willing to re-body the Corvette.

In the early ‘60s, an American with no affiliation to one of Detroit’s manufacturers dared to walk into a legendary coachbuilder’s headquarters and demand a body constructed to his exact specification, he would have been met with dozens of Italian cuss words in a matter of seconds. These were artists rather than manufacturers and they demanded the freedom to express themselves.

Fortunately, Alfredo Vignale liked Kelly’s scale model and after a lengthy conversation, he was blown away by the designer’s engineering know-how. He agreed to take on the project and a few months later, the Corvette was delivered to Turin.

Kelly’s blueprints were extremely detailed, so the small team who worked on the body managed to complete it on time, without any major setbacks. The result was a near-flawless structure that captivated the hearts and minds of onlookers from every single angle.

Gordon Kelly reportedly spent around $14,000 ($140,000 today) to turn his dream into reality. After the car became famous, he was approached by several collectors who made several tempting offers, but Kelly never thought about selling it. That changed several decades later when financial difficulties forced him to reconsider but even if he made it available for as low as $8,900, the exquisite one-off didn’t pique anyone’s interest. It remained in Kelly’s possession until his death, then his family sold it to John Breslow, an atypical car collector who calls himself “the custodian of the Kelly Corvette”.

Breslow made great efforts to get the car back into the mainstream by taking it to classic car meets or entering it into vintage rallies like the Copperstate 1000 where people can see it and discover its story. He even managed to convince Larry Edsall to write a book about it called “Driven by a Dream: The Amazing Story of Gordon Kelly and His 1961 Vignale Corvette”, which I highly recommend if you want to know more about this fascinating Corvette.

The custodian didn’t do all this, just raised the car’s value. After all, he drives it often, which is not something that a typical classic car trader would do. Instead, he did all this out of respect for Gordon Kelly and his masterpiece, both of whom deserve to be celebrated.