In the summer of 1960, Zora Arkus-Duntov took a lucky guy with a recorder for a test drive in a new 1961 Fuelie Corvette. After a brief introduction, Duntov says,… “I have a ‘61 Corvette ready to go. This one is equipped with our new 315-horsepower, high-lift cam, and fuel-injection. Let’s get in. Is your safety belt fastened? Alright, let’s go…” And OFF THEY GO with Duntov rowing through the gears! Sounds WONDERFUL!
Obviously this is a “1959 Stingray Racer” wanna-be. I personally would not have finished off the car this way. The dual headrests is one too many, the Stinger hood is out of period by eight years, the side vents are odd, and the wheels should have been polished Hildebrand-style wheels.
But hey! It’s a customized kit car. I’m sure it’s fairly light in weight, and with the 283 Fuelie and 4:11 rear, it’ll be a hoot to drive.
The car was recently restored and despite my own personal quibbles, I’d say the car was, WELL BOUGHT. Whom ever is the new owner, I hope you really enjoy your cool new ride! – Scott
On this date in 1953, GM officials never imagined their little fiberglass concept car would one day become a world-class sports car and GM’s technological...
Last month we told you about Chevrolet PR-man Myron “Scotty” Scott’s induction into the National Corvette Museum’s Hall of Fame. Mr. Scott was the man responsible for coming up with the name “Corvette” for Harley Earl’s “American sports car” show car concept. The working name for the two-seater had been “Opel.” How uninspiring! (Hey Man! Did you see the new Op?”) Over 300 names were rejected before Myron Scott found the word, “Corvette” in the dictionary. I wonder if a copy of that last is still around?
Corvette Mike’s Beautiful Video Presentation of the 1956 SR-2 Corvette Racer Dateline: 7.21.15 “Corvette Mike” of Anaheim, California, the car dealer that ONLY sells...
Here’s one for the Kawinkydink Department. I thought we were all done with our look back and the life and career of Larry Shinoda – wrong! This morning while surfing around the net, I found a video about Bill Mitchell. Before I knew it, there’s Larry Shinoda telling stories about his former boss, Bill Mitchell!
Lucky for us, GM design chief, Bill Mitchell had a fish fetish. Or should we say, a shark obsession. I once read an amusing story about Mitchell and his “shark thing.” He was talking with someone about the Mako Shark-I show car and he said, (sorry for the paraphrasing) “Look at the open mouth in that grille area. You can just see the blood dripping from the opening!” Yea, he was “into it.”
The story goes that Mitchell caught a big shark off the coast of Bimini and had it stuffed and mounted. It must have been his muse because he obviously picked up on three design elements.
Check out the three unique design elements, PLUS the video!!!
Every so often a car design comes along that is “perfect.” It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, you end up stopped dead in your tracks. You find yourself almost unable to STOP looking at the car’s shape. For me, the 1959 Stingray Racer is such a car.
The 1959 Stingray Racer was an outgrowth of the dead-on-arrival 1957 Q-Corvette, which never made it past the full-size clay model stage. But the pint-sized concept had a nuclear-powered punch because it set in motion a design process that is still with us today. Consider the lineage…
Q-Corvette leads to…
1959 Stingray Racer leads to…
Mako Shark I show car leads to…
1963-1967 Sting Ray leads to…
Mako Shark-II-inspired C3 “shark” Corvette… that leads to…
C6 Corvette (look closely at the front and rear fenders of the C6 – there’s a C2 Sting Ray in there).
Back to the timeless ‘59 Stingray…
Dateline: 11.2.11 Hemmings Motor News old sister publication takes a look back at the first special-built Corvette race car, the SS Corvette (Be sure to...
What an OUTRAGEOUS proposal! Take a Chevy sedan chassis and drivetrain, soup up the in-line-six “Stovebolt” engine, and dress it with a sexy lightweight body made of an exotic new material – fiberglass. That’s was GM chief of design, Harley Earl’s idea of an American sports car.
Passion and love bring a famous old Briggs “Swift” Cunningham 1960 Fuel Injected Corvette war horse back to life and into the lead roll in a movie!
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