James Garner 1968 L88 Trio of race cars

[Lynn S.]

Does anyone know what happened to the three L-88s Mr Garner sold after his unsuccessful attempt at the 24 hrs of Daytona. My initial reading says he sold the cars after returning to Calif to move up in class to continue racing. Thanks

[Rick G.]

Re: James Garner 1968 L88 Trio of race cars

Hi Lynn,

If you do a search on this forum for James Garner Racing, there are several threads which talk about the cars. Also several years ago there was an article in the Corvette Restorer on finding and restoring one of the cars.

[Bill M.]

Re: James Garner 1968 L88 Trio of race cars

After James death his biography came out and in the book it mentioned how unhappy he was with the corvettes he said they were way to heavy. I will look for the book when I get home tonight I will find out what he did with the cars.

[Lynn S.]

Re: James Garner 1968 L88 Trio of race cars

Thanks for your reply.

[Dave S.]

Re: James Garner 1968 L88 Trio of race cars

Does anyone know what happened to the three L-88s Mr Garner sold after his unsuccessful attempt at the 24 hrs of Daytona. My initial reading says he sold the cars after returning to Calif to move up in class to continue racing. Thanks

One of them was just for sale on EBay. No sale at $777,000.
I believe it is owned by an NCRS member in Southern California.

[Gary C.]

Re: James Garner 1968 L88 Trio of race cars

Interesting tidbit about James Garner racing. I was briefly involved in 1968/9 with one of his racing managers over his investment in Willow Run Raceway SE of Oklahoma City. IIRC Garner invested in the dragstrip and wanted to develop a road course there. Garner was originally from Norma, Oklahoma.

Gary
....

[Tim G.]

Re: James Garner 1968 L88 Trio of race cars

The American International Racing (AIR) website is interesting. I visit it once or twice per year.

[Gary B.]

[Bill M.]

Re: James Garner 1968 L88 Trio of race cars

Read James Garners Motoring Life what a diverse person he was. The Corvettes finished so bad at Daytona 24 hrs that they were not assigned finishing positions. The cars were immediately sold to other teams and did ok from there on. I believe AIR replaced the cars with T 20 Lola's.

[James G.]

Re: James Garner 1968 L88 Trio of race cars

This website tells all. http://airl88.com/.

[Gary B.]

Re: James Garner 1968 L88 Trio of race cars

The first three photos on the link Jim posted show the Garner car that Bob Radke displayed at the 2009 San Jose, Calif National. I mistakenly said 2002 in my previous post.

Gary

[Gary B.]

Re: James Garner 1968 L88 Trio of race cars

Here’s a bit more history I could find. Don’t take this as gospel, but the main gist of things, I believe, is correct. Jim Heringer bought the #44 Garner car in 1973 (and maybe subsequently sold it, but still co-raced it) and raced it off and on, until around 2007. With the help of unknown other people, Jim’s brother Dave, who owned Herlinger Corvette Repair in Mt. View, CA, restored it at some point. It was sold again in 2008. It went for $744,000.

In the 2005 time frame, Dave was planning on restoring the 3rd Garner car, after it had been found in Alaska. I haven’t seen or heard from Dave since Google bought out the land where Dave’s shop was located and at that point Dave semi-retired. He planned to work out of his home and still rebuild components, like rear differentials and transmissions. Dave might still have the 3rd Garner car, and it still might be in many pieces. An L88 engine intended for the Garner car was in Dave’s Mt. View shop until the shop closed in around 2015 or 2016.

Gary

[Jeff P.]

Re: James Garner 1968 L88 Trio of race cars

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[Lynn S.]