Jan, I remember Bob Hippolito very well, seriously nice guy. I don't believe that AK1227 was used in any publicity shots. The first article that was written about the Mark IV appears in the second edition of Automobile magazine. I supplied the Red/Black car to William Jeanes editor of the magazine who came to our dealership-Frontier Motors Ford/Mercury inPawnee, Oklahoma to do the story about the car and about me (I was very flattered to be a big part of the story). They sent a professional photographer to Pawnee to do all the photos for the story. A Black car provided by a Ford Exec, Bob Nagy, in Detroit was used for the cover shot. Not long after the article came out I called Motor Trend magazine and asked if they would be interested in doing a road test/story on the car. They assisgned the story to Rick Titus, a feature editor and son of legendary Cobra racer, the late Jerry Titus. Rick and several of the staff flew from California to Oklahoma to do the tests and story with all the photos being taken in and around Pawnee, Oklahoma. It was an exclusive cover story. Rick and I became very good friends and are to this day, and less than a year later I approached him I approached him on the basis of doing a comparison test on the Mark IV and the Corvette. The senior editors of the magazine ate it up so I arranged for a Mark IV test mule that was in Detroit undergoing EPA cert tests to be moved to California for the tests at Sonoma California. Needless to say the Mark IV came out on top, and again was the cover car for that edition of Motor Trend. I arranged a Blue/Tan Mark IV that is now owned by a gentleman in OKC for another story in Automobile. We also provided a Red/Tan car for a feature in Road and Track Magazine. TO AC3024, AK1234, one of our first of many cars, to the best of my knowledge that car was sold by our dealership to an individual in Dallas Texas, as the original purchaser. I should have the original order and production information on the car as well as the information on the owner from Dallas.
