Corvette Man

An out-of-the-way garage in central Florida houses some incredible Corvette history.

Story and photography by Colin Date

We recently had the opportunity to visit Bill Tower in Plant City, FL. Bill has one unique and fascinating collection of early Corvettes! For those of you who may not be familiar with Bill, let us introduce you…

Bill Tower is a man of many talents. He’s done just about everything, from racing the American Bandstand-sponsored Top Fuel “Rat Trap” digger in the late ’60s to working on the Space Shuttle launch program. Bill is a GMI trained engineer and worked for Chevrolet from 1965 through the mid ’80s. He is still involved with GM today, working with them on various engineering projects.

The central Florida-based engineer has built his collection of ultra rare, highly desirable Chevrolet-built racecars over the years. Bill’s philosophy is to preserve (rather than restore) his cars. We agree wholeheartedly. Flawless base coat/clear coat paint on a 50 year old piece of history simply does not belong!

We’ll do more in-depth stories on some of these cars in future issues of Chevy Classics, but for now, let’s take a little tour of Bill’s place.