The ultimate example of "taking your work home with you"-the special '64 Corvette Sting Ray built by Chevrolet Styling by then-General Manager Semon (Bunkie) Knudsen. It's in the "MY Garage" Collection at Mid America Motorworks in Effingham, Illinois. (Photo by Jerry Heasley)

By Scott Ross

In this business, I've been enabled to work from home, if need be. That's thanks to an Apple PowerMac G4 Tower computer that I obtained for better than a next-to-nothing price. In fact, I got it for nothing, thanks to an I.T. housecleaning at my previous gig.

Let me put this into Corvett-ish terms: It was like, if you were a powertrain engineer at Chevrolet during the '60s, The General gave you an ex-engineering-toy Sting Ray, with all sorts of "Experimental" and one-off parts in and on it, plus a (filled) rollaway tool chest, cherry-picker hoist, and enough other fabricating tools to fill the rest of the home garage/shop that they built for you next to your house. Oh, and The General also picked up the tab for the Michigan Manufacturer's license plate late on the back of the Vette.

(A word here about Manufacturer's plates: When you saw one on the back (only) of a car around Detroit back in the '60s, you were looking at a car that was owned by its manufacturer, likely a prototype or other test vehicle, either on its way between one test venue or another (like the route between the GM Tech Center in Warren and the GM Proving Grounds to the west in Milford). You'd notice the words "Manufacturer's Plate" on the bottom where the phrases "Water Wonderland,"  "Water-Winter Wonderland" or "Great Lake State" should have been. Then, your eyes would give that car the once-over at least three times. Do the exhausts look a little bigger? Are the tires wider? Do the taillights look different than what's currently in production? )

Which brings us to one of the Styling Corvettes which I wrote about last year. The blue '64 Sting Ray coupe that was built for then-Chevrolet Division General Manager (and GM Vice President) Semon E. "Bunkie" Knudsen. Along with the Manufacturer's Plate that it wore when he drove it, one of its most striking features is the set of side-mounted exhausts, which were built expressly for this car. It's very likely that Knudsen got plenty of positive feedback about them as he drove between his home, his office at the General Motors Building in downtown Detroit, and the Tech Center. So much of it, that it's likely that he green-lighted the RPO N14 side-mounts option for production with a lot less hesitation that someone who was more of a "bean counter" and less of a "car guy" would have. (Per the series of articles we brought you last year about Knudsen's days at Chevrolet, there were plenty of execs at his level and above at GM back then who were comparative "wet blankets" when it came to anything relating to performance.)

Back then, the dream of having a Corvette with side-exhausts that produced a deep-toned growl like no other car on the road could was almost as wild a dream as having more computer power at your fingertips than NASA used to put men into space during Project Mercury (1961-63) or Project Gemini (1965-66). Now that you have about that much computer power at your finger tips-if not more than what NASA used during Project Apollo (1967-72), like my computer at home has-treat yourself to a look to that special Sting Ray.

All you need to do is:

1. Log on to Mid America Motorworks' website at www.midamericamotorworks.com.

2. Click on the "MY Garage Museum" link on the left side of opening page.

3. When the "MY Garage" page opens, click on "The Collection" at the top of the page.

4. Once the "Collection"page opens, click on the "1964 Styling Corvette" icon. It's in the middle of the top row.

5. You''re there! That deep-throated roar you now hear is the car's exhaust note through its one-off side exhausts. I don't have to tell you to crank it up and hit "replay" often, do !?

6. Now, do some dreaming about what it would be like to be Chevrolet's General Manager, driving that C2 when a police car (like the Chevy Biscayne that the Birmingham, Michigan cops drove back then) pulls up next to you at a traffic light, and one of the patrol officers aboard yells to you, "Hey, how about something for under our cars' hoods?"