The recent Mecum auction in Dallas, Texas brought out some big players to raise hands and slap down cash for awesome cars. It was a record draw, so much so that the top ten sold vehicles managed to rake in just over three million dollars. And at the top of the top, there sat this beautiful black C3: a 1969 L88 once owned by Tony DeLorenzo.

To the familiar, the name alone is enough to understand how this Stingray dropped the gavel at $680,000. To the unfamiliar, just know that this machine belonged to a man who claimed 22 straight SCCA wins in the late ’60s, and wanted a daily driver to match his race-prepped C2. A quick look at the spec sheet of this Vette demonstrates it was the perfect match for the speed demon DeLorenzo.

As an L88, the Corvette was essentially a wolf in sheep’s clothing that Chevrolet did its best to keep secret. It came with the beefed-up 427 V8 using Can-Am heads and solid lifters, a four-speed manual, and little else; no radio, no heater, no power accessories, and no A/C (it also required high octane gas, making it that much more impractical to the average Joe). The combination of high cost and poor marketing ensured that the L88 would remain a limited-production model–116, to be exact.

Nevertheless, this particular Corvette has lived a very fulfilling life, having been taken on a journey over the past forty-five years over thousands of miles spanning the U.S. and Europe, through five different owners and even a stint as an exhibit in the Porsche museum. Whoever he or she be that now has this black beauty stuffed away in a collection, we say this: take good care of her!