Big-block photos by Ed Baumgarten, courtesy RM Sotheby’s.
After the end of the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair, many of the displays that captured the attention of hordes of visitors either were destroyed or left behind to burn or weather away under the elements. A handful still exist, most notably the giant U.S. Royal tire-shaped ferris wheel, as well as perhaps one of the most significant GM displays from the fair, a cutaway 427-cu.in. Mark IV big-block V-8 that will head to auction next month in the city in which it debuted.
When the fair opened in April 1964, the 409 still reigned as the top V-8 in Chevrolet’s lineup, but rumblings of a newer, more powerful big-block engine had already begun a year earlier with the Mystery Motor that powered the Chevrolets entered in the 1963 Daytona 500. Indeed, the 396-cu.in. production version of the Mark IV bowed in the Corvette shortly before the second year of the fair opened, complete with a very space-agey World’s Fair-appropriate name of Turbo-Jet.
But it wasn’t enough for GM to show what was already available on dealership floors. Instead, the company prepped a number of Motorama-style concept cars – the Runabout three-wheeler, the Firebird IV non-operational gas-turbine car, the futuristic GM-X, and the Bison turbine truck among them – and, to maintain excitement in the Mark IV big-blocks, a cutaway display of the pending 427-cubic-inch version, claiming 385 horsepower.
Likely the first exposure many gearheads had to the engine that would become Chevrolet’s go-to performance engine for the rest of the decade, the cutaway model included a companion Turbo 400 cutaway transmission and could split into two and rotate to show off its innards.
Chevrolet would go on to introduce the 427 in the 1966 models just a couple weeks before the second and final year of the fair closed in October 1965. According to RM Sotheby’s description of the cutaway model, a collector in Louisiana ended up with the display, from which the current owner bought it before completely restoring it.
Small-block photos by Mid-America Motorworks, courtesy RM Sotheby’s.
The same auction will include another Chevrolet cutaway V-8 engine display, though one showcasing an engine introduced long after the New York World’s Fair closed. The Turbo-Fire 350 as it appeared in the Camaro Z28 only carried a net rating of 245 horsepower for a couple of years – 1973 and 1974 – and it was in the latter of those years that the engine benefited from High-Energy Ignition, which dates this particular points ignition cutaway to 1973. Like the big-block cutaway, the 350 also comes with a cutaway transmission, but unlike the big-block, the small-block doesn’t split into two or rotate. RM Sotheby’s description makes no mention of the display’s history.
Both displays will cross the block without a reserve, and both are estimated to sell for $60,000 to $80,000. The only comparable cutaway display we’ve seen come to auction in recent years – the more complicated cutaway 1965 Corvette – sold earlier this year for $715,000.
RM Sotheby’s Driven by Disruption sale in New York City will take place December 10. For more information, visit RMAuctions.com.
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