Category: Videos – C1 Corvettes

Vette Videos: 13 Videos Featuring the Sights and Sounds of the Corvettes at Carlisle Show!

Published on by Scott

Dateline: 8.28.11 (Our 150th post!)
All you’ll need is a knockwurst with mustard on a bun and a tall, frosty root beer!

Special thanks to Jason Harding at CorvetteForum.com.

Perhaps you are simply too far away from southeastern Pennsylvania to attend. Fret not, we’ll bring the show to you. Unless you have been holed up in your Corvette or in your man-cave, you may have missed the news that a hurricane zipped up the East Coast. Hurricane Irene made a mess here and there. While the southeastern part of Pennsylvania only caught the western edges of Irene, Saturday was a yucky day and Sunday was only better in that it was not raining like it was Saturday night. While Irene didn’t deliver a washout, it didn’t help.

I can only describe the Corvettes at Carlisle experience as a “happening.” Pardon the 60s expression, but I AM a baby boomer. There’s so much to see, look at, oggle, take in, sounds, smells, talking, laughing, smiling. Plus, the Corvettes! (12 more videos below) Continue reading “Vette Videos: 13 Videos Featuring the Sights and Sounds of the Corvettes at Carlisle Show!” →

Vette Videos: 1953 Corvette TV Commercial

Published on by Scott

Dateline: 8.12.11
It all had to begin somewhere…

Harley Earl was a leader in women's rights in the workplace.

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.

The Stovebolt-Six engine was goosed by adding three Carter one-barrel carbs, a more aggressive solid-lifter cam, increased compression to 8:1, dual valve springs, stronger exhaust valves, and a high-efficiency water pump. The 115-HP Stovebolt six was reborn as the Blue Flame Six and packed a mighty 150-HP @ 4200 rpm and 224 LB/FT or torque. (calm down, calm down) The transmission was the tried-and-true Chevrolet Powerglide automatic with the shifter on the floor.

The Blue Flame Six engine had 150-horsepower, 223-lb/ft or torque, and a redline of 5,000 rpm!

While the fiberglass was exotic for 1953, there was a more practical reason for using the plastic material – COST. Even though finishing the body was more labor intensive, it was no where near the cost of making the huge metal stamps for steel body parts. Chevrolet engineers determined that if the car failed, they would have a minimal financial risk using fiberglass. Continue reading “Vette Videos: 1953 Corvette TV Commercial” →

Vette Videos: Building the 1957 Corvette SS Racer Video

Published on by Scott

Dateline: 8.11.11
Take a trip in the CorvetteReport.com Video Time Machine to 1957!

Many times, a bold project must have a bold leader. Zora Arkus-Duntov was one of the all-time great corporate outsider misfits. Not only was he the only executive at GM that had actually raced cars, he had raced at Le Mans! Plus, he was constantly wandering off the reservation!

Corvette SS racer at Sebring 1957.

After Sebring in ‘57, it was obvious that modified stock Corvettes would never be competitive against the Jaguars and Ferraris. GM’s chief designer, Harley Earl proposed building a “Corvette” based on a D-Type Jaguar with a Corvette engine and a modified body. When Zora heard about the proposal and looked into what would be needed to create such a car, red flags popped up all over the place for the wild Russian. But Earl was no fool, he was a master tactician, and may well have made such an outrageous proposal as a way of pushing Chevrolet towards building their own purpose-built Corvette racer.

Obviously, because of Duntov’s background, he was the only man to lead the project. After he put together his team of designers, draftsman, and fabricators, the chassis of a Mercedes-Benz 300SL was used as a model for how to construct a tube space frame. Continue reading “Vette Videos: Building the 1957 Corvette SS Racer Video” →

Will “The Quest” Be the Ultimate Corvette Movie?

Published on by Scott

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!

Restored old race cars has become an exciting aspect of the Corvette hobby. If you have ever wondered if master craftsmen are still working today, I suggest checking out the work of Kevin MacKay, at Corvette Repair. Kevin and his crew have brought back to life famous Corvette race cars, including the Roger Penske ‘66 L88 Corvette, several of John Greenwood’s Corvettes, and Briggs “Swift” Cunningham’s 1960 Fuel Injected Le Mans class-winning 1960 Corvette, the star of the new documentary film, “The Quest.”

Here’s the official movie preview…

Here’s what I find to be so cool about these kinds of cars. The men that build or buy race cars do it to win races. Some cars become champions, others just competitors. But what usually happens is that this year’s used up race car is sold off and the team owner buys a new fresh car. The new owner of the used racer usually repaints the machine, Continue reading “Will “The Quest” Be the Ultimate Corvette Movie?” →