CLASSIC CADDY; GM re-creates a grand car with a great story.

Byline: BRANDON DYE

Modern car races are a far cry from the Carrera Panamericana that Blu Plemons competed in 52 years ago. Now if teams want to seriously compete at an FIA-sanctioned event, they need multiple cars, dozens of crew members and a budget that would make NASA jealous.

Plemons and friend Keith Andrews had none of the above, but that didn't stop them from entering a virtually stock 1954 Cadillac Series 62 coupe in the 1954 Mexican Road Race and nearly embarrassing the factory-backed Lincolns.

GM's history is rich with such stories, and from a PR standpoint they are too good to pass up. GM will produce a series of one-off reproductions, starting with the Carrera Cadillac, to show people the values that drove the company five decades ago are the same principles guiding GM today.

As project manager for heritage vehicles, the assignment to re-create the car fell to Antoinette Jablonski.

"To rebuild a car like this, especially one with such a great story, was a lot of fun,'' Jablonski says. It was also a challenge.

No one knows what became of the race car, but as luck would have it a 1954 Series 62 coupe matching the original right down to the color was listed in the company's vast collection. Jablonski found the car forgotten and rotting outside at GM's Milford (Michigan) Proving Grounds, but that didn't deter the Performance Division crew from buying a parts car and going to work. The pre-production trim shop refurbished the interior while GM's show-car paint team tracked down the original shade of white and re-created the racer's paint scheme.