It is with great reluctance that I report the news that another legend in the Corvette world has passed on. Since so many of these icons existed in the same generation, it is inevitable that these days would be upon us. Never the less, it does not make it any easier to type these words: Dick Guldstrand passed away on September 2, at the age of 87.

Doug Stokes, longtime automotive scribe, wrote: "If I can say anything about him it was that he was just about the most honest person that I've ever met. It was really more a form of humility, but it was even more than that, Dick was a supremely civil individual who was modest about his accomplishments and always seemed more enthusiastic about the achievements of others. He was always kind, always ready to listen to YOUR story, rather than tell his (which most, likely would have been much better, by the way). And, when you could coax one or two out of him, what stories he had from the heyday of sports car racing when we were just turning the corner to professionalism and talented guys like him led the way by example."

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Dick Guldstrand's nickname was "Goldy," who hailed from the Golden State. He grew up as hot rodder during the golden years of hot rodding in Southern California, and majored in engineering at UCLA. His charisma and demeanor are evident in his famous quote, "Either you were a hot-rodder or you were a candy ass!" Guldstrand was one of the few who managed to turn his hot rodding hobby into a racing career.

Guldstrand graduated from '27 Fords to dirt track sprint cars before discovering the Corvette in 1957. It wasn't long before he was running Corvettes at Daytona, Sebring, and even Le Mans. Roger Penske had even hired him to drive a Grand Sport, later proving victorious on the west coast, Daytona and in the Trans-Am series. He won California Sports Car Club Driver of the Year in 1964. Perhaps his ultimate assignment, though, was working for Zora Arkus Duntov, driving a 427ci L88-powered Stingray in 1967.

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Like fellow Corvette legend and team member Bob Bondurant, Goldy also starred in the movie Grand Prix with James Garner. The movie and this relationship culminated with the formation of American International Racing (AIR), Garner's race team, which employed Guldstrand and other noted drivers at the time such as Scooter Patrick and Davey Jordan.

Guldstrand eventually returned to building and tuning, opening up Guldstrand Engineering, Inc. in Culver City in 1968 down the street from Ed Iskenderian and Stuart Hilborn. It was responsible for building 70% of the Chevy-powered road race cars on the West Coast in the early '70s. Dick helped develop and test the 1985 Corvette, setting track records at Mid-Ohio and Willow Spring in the process overtaking Porsche's stranglehold. The shop was moved to Burbank in 2000, and during this time period he developed the Guldstrand Grand Sport 80 (GS-80), and the ZR1-based Grand Sport 90 (GS-90) that debuted at the 1994 Los Angeles Auto Show.

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According to Doug Stokes, "His work in the aerospace industry (which I only ever heard him just barely hint at) may well have been an even bigger accomplishment, I don't know. What I do know is that there are literally thousands of Corvettes out there that handled a whole lot better (and won a whole lot of races) with some of Dick's magic pieces under them. There are even those in the know who say that 'some' of his ideas 'somehow' crept into later production Corvettes as the years rolled on."

Dick Guldstrand was inducted into the Corvette Hall of Fame in 1999, and will live on as an innovator as well as a "devoted and loyal fan of the Corvette."