The story of the Chevrolet Corvette started back in 1953, with the introduction of the C1. Although America’s sports car is known for its potent V-8 engines, the earliest production examples started with the anemic Blue Flame – a 3.9-liter (235 cu in) inline-six that made 150 horsepower and 223 pound-feet (302 Nm). And while, eventually, they put a V-8 in it, it was Oldsmobile that beat Chevrolet to it by making their own version of the Corvette called the Oldsmobile F-88.

You would be right to think that GM would never allow that, except somehow, it slipped past the executives. Initially, it was believed that this was a single prototype that never saw production. But an editor from Hemmings actually did some digging a while back, discovering that no less than eight of these C1 Corvette-based Oldsmobiles were commissioned.

While the Oldsmobile F-88 was visually similar to the C1 Corvette, it packed Oldsmobile’s very own Super 88, 5.3-liter (324 cu in) V-8 with a four-barrel carburetor, rated 270 horsepower – 120 more than the C1 Corvette’s Blue Flame engine. The Olds V-8 was mated to a four-speed Hydra-Matic (automatic0 transmission and featured a 3.55:1 Corvette rear axle.

Although not all of the cars were completed, at least three fully functioning examples made it. One of them was a bright-colored example with a dark stripe that, according to a Hemmings investigation, found itself in the hands of Bill Dobbins – at the time manager of a used car dealership called Velie Olds, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

No one can definitely say how many cars are still roaming around. What was believed to be the only one is displayed at the Gateway Colorado Automobile Museum, while another example, reportedly, met a grim end, during a fire. Back in 2005, the same Oldsmobile F-88 that’s displayed in the Gateway Museum, in Colorado, was acquired by Discovery Channel founder, John S. Hendricks through a Barrett Jackson auction. The car was auctioned off for $3,240,000.