The Daytona Gathering That Brought Zora’s Story to Life

by Scott · Published November 14, 2025 · Updated December 8, 2025

March 6, 2023, friends, co-workers, and fans enjoyed two hours of bench racing at the Shores Resort & Spa in Daytona Beach to share stories about Zora Arkus-Duntov.

This story first appeared in the May 2023 issue of Vette Vues Magazine.

Check out Part 2 of the “Zora As We Knew Him” March 2023 event in Daytona Beach, Florida, HERE.

It is hard to believe that Zora Arkus-Duntov has been gone for twenty-two years, and we’re still talking about him. His shadow is that long. Former Corvette engineer and National Corvette Museum Hall of Famer, Herb Fishel, pointed out that arguably, there are three huge performance car icons: Carroll Shelby, Enzo Ferrari, and Zora Arkus-Duntov.

Many mistakenly refer to Zora as “The Father of the Corvette”. That honor belongs to Harley Earl, period. The perfect accolade for Zora would be ”The Godfather of the Corvette”. One of the definitions of “godfather” in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is: “one that supports, or inspires”. Harley Earl conceived of a Chevrolet sports car for America, but of all of the people who championed Corvette in the early days, no one had more gasoline in his veins than Zora. One of the Chevrolet Proving Grounds engineers once said, “… You never worked FOR Zora, you worked WITH Zora. He led by love…”

That love and passion for Zora and what he gave to Corvette was palpable on Monday, March 6, 2023, at the Shore Resort Spa, on famous Atlantic Avenue, in Daytona Beach, Florida. It was the perfect place for the event because the beach behind the resort is the same place where NASCAR launched timed speed records and Stock Car racing. In 1956, Zora, John Fitch, and Betty Skelton set records in Smokey Yunick-prepared 1956 Corvettes right on the beach behind Shore Resort Spa. From the top-floor conference room of Shore Resort Spa, you look down at the beach where it all happened nearly seventy years before.

Events such as this don’t just happen all by themselves

The “Zora As We Knew Him” was the result of long conversations between George Haddad, owner of Fabulous Restorations in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and George Levy, author, former editor of Autoweek, and President of the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, in mid-2022. Levy and Haddad assembled a panel of men who worked with and knew Zora. The only panelist who did not was Ken Lingenfelter. But since Ken owns the 1954 “Zora Mule” Corvette (covered in the February 2023 issue of Vette Vues), his place on the panel was appropriate.

The panel included; moderator Tom Peters, former Director of Design for the GM Performance Car Studio and 2019 National Corvette Museum Hall of Fame member; Gib Hufstader, former Corvette engineer and 2001 National Corvette Museum Hall of Fame member; Herb Fishel, Chevrolet engineer, former Executive Director of GM Racing, and 2015 National Corvette Museum Hall of Fame member; Jerry Thompson, former Chevrolet Engineer, and C3 L88 Corvette racing champion and Tony DeLorenzo, both 2009 National Corvette Museum Hall of Fame members; Burt Greenwood, the other half of the John Greenwood Racing enterprise, both members of the 2018 National Corvette Museum Hall of Fame; and Ken Lingenfelter, owner of Lingenfelter Performance Engineering and The Lingenfelter Collection of cars

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George Levy started the event with his Zora story

George Levy: “Zora used to call me from time to time. One day in the late ’70s, after his retirement (mandatory at 65 years of age at GM), he called and wanted me to help him get a sponsorship with AARP because he wanted to drive a Corvette to a speed record. At the time, the world closed-course speed record at the time remained the 221.120 mph mark set by Mark Donohue in the CAM2-sponsored Penske Porsche 917/30 in August of 1975 at Talladega. Zora wanted to design, modify, and drive a turbocharged Corvette at the Transportation Research Center in East Liberty, Ohio on their high-speed oval. If I remember correctly, Zora had decided on TRC because the car would lose less speed in the larger, gentler turns. He had done all the calculations. He was dead serious about this and, in fact, was very excited about it. One last great adventure! He even considered potential sponsors and chose to target AARP for obvious reasons.

What a story it would have been if this dashing racing legend had set a new world closed-course speed record in his 70s! Sadly, I was not particularly well-equipped to make a pitch like this, and I never got very far with AARP. It’s also possible they were put off by the substantial downside risk should anything go wrong. Zora was always going for more.”

The crowd, consisting mostly of senior citizens, got a good laugh. Levy then handed the microphone to moderator Tom Peters

Tom Peters: “First, I want to acknowledge our panel of Legends. I worked at GM for forty years and with many of you. The cars are fantastic, but more than that are the people. Our panel is here to share experiences with Zora. You know, with the amazing success of the mid-engine C8, I’m often asked, “How long did it take to develop the C8?”. My answer is always, “About seventy years.” (crowd laughs) No, it’s true because, as a racer-first, Zora knew from the beginning that mid-engine was the way to go. So, as we go forward, I know that what you will hear today will be stories of passion and creativity.

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So, let’s get started. I’d like to ask each of you, when did you meet Zora, and what was your first impression?”

Gib Hufstader: “I guess I’m the oldest here. (Gib is 92 years old and worked at GM for 45 years) When I started at GM, Zora was well known among the automotive enthusiasts and the sports car world. He was kind of a short legend in Detroit. I started after Zora and was happy with my engineering tasks, and had acquired a few patents. Then, in 1964, I thought I had done something wrong when I was transferred to Zora’s group. We had a meeting, and he was rather shy and quiet, so much so that I didn’t know if he liked me. After a few weeks, he got to know me, and we hit it off. I even got invited to Zora and Elfi’s house for dinner. They were very European, and I was just a regular American. But they were wonderful to be with.”

Herb Fishel: “Zora was always against the grain. He always colored outside the box. In his time, there were three similar major icons: Carroll Shelby, Enzo Ferrari, and Zora Arkus-Duntov. They all did it their own way.”

Ken Lingenfelter: “I never had the opportunity to meet Zora, but I can tell you this. I saw my first Corvette Sting Ray in 1963 when I was ten years old, and that was it for me! A few years ago, I bought the 1954 Corvette XP-87 Duntov Mule at auction. This is the car that Zora tested at the GM Phoenix test track in December 1955 and was clocked at 163 mph! I have been all over the country with the car, and it gets more attention than any other car in my collection. Once, I drove the car on a track demo. At 65 miles per hour, I was scared to death!” (audience laughs)

Corvette racers share Zora stories

Jerry Thompson: “Around 1964, I was just a punk engineer working on 409 big-blocks in a lab. Zora came in one day. I knew who he was because I’d read about him. Zora asked me some engineering questions, and I told him that the exhaust pipes we were using on the dyno were all banged up and hurting the power readings. He told me that if we wanted more power, we’d need a set of headers. Then he told me to make a set of good exhaust pipes. I did, and a little while later, he asked about the clean pipes. I had to tell him, “It didn’t matter”. He said, “Okay, let’s move on.”

Tony DeLorenzo: “One of my uncles was a GM V.P. and sponsored a Scarab race car. One day, he took me to the races. I knew nothing about racing, but when I saw that Scarab up on jack stands being fired up, I was transfixed! That was the moment I knew I wanted to drive race cars. My older brother and I put our heads together and learned that you had to be twenty-one and had to go to SCCA driving school, but first, we needed a car. Our Dad worked in Chevrolet Promotions and let my brother order a 1964 Coupe with all the good parts.”

“One day after we ordered the Corvette, I got a phone call from Zora asking who would be driving the car? I told him, “I am, I’m going to Watkins Glen Drivers School.” Well, when the car arrived, it had a fresh set of scrubbed Goodyear tires and maybe even a special motor. What I knew was that I couldn’t be beaten on Woodward Avenue! So we started cutting up the car for racing. We put in a roll bar and cut the mufflers off. For a while, the car kind of just hung around the house. Even my Mom took the car to the supermarket a few times.” (audience laughs)

“Then one day, our Dad said the car had to go back, so we had to put it back to stock. He also told us, When the car comes back, don’t touch it!” The car went to Chicago, where it was stolen, stripped, and burned! (crowd groans!) The other connections we had with Zora were when we used to see him at Daytona. Zora Arkus-Duntov was just beyond amazing.”

Burt Greenwood: “John and I first met Zora at a Bridgehampton event sponsored by Vette magazine. John was introduced to Zora, and before I knew it, they were into a deep conversation about cam profiles. Zora was very excited. Then we brought up the issue of the front suspension idler arm. Zora said, “Let’s go for a ride.” So Zora and John took a couple of laps and came in and had more suspension talk. He seemed to me to be like The Wizard of Oz; I wasn’t sure if he was real or just all talk. But it turned out that he was a real car guy. After the ’73 Trans-Am Championship, we had a lot more interaction with Zora.”

Tom Peters then asked Gib and Herb to talk about Zora and the corporate angle, and how a lot of unofficial things happened

Gib Hufstader: I knew about Zora’s 1953 “Thoughts Pertaining to Youth, Hot Rodders, and Chevrolet” memo letter regarding building high-performance Chevys for racing. I was very impressed that someone in Chevrolet Engineering was interested in Chevrolet cars being successful racers. But I knew it wasn’t going to be easy because GM just didn’t race. There were a lot of engineers who thought racing was a waste of time and money. And then there was the bad news of the 1955 LeMans crash that helped launch the 1957 AMA Racing Ban. Ed Cole was Chevrolet’s General Manager and recognized that the crash was a very big problem.”

Herb Fishel: “I operated behind the scenes and knew that racing was important. In 1989, we tried to quietly go to Le Mans to do some exploration. We had two plain trailers, but it was soon discovered that GM was there. So, word got out that we were exploring our possibilities. After the all-new C5 came out and it was deemed worthy for Le Mans, we brought in Pratt & Miller. At first, it wasn’t a pure factory effort. We began in 1999, and in 2000, we started winning races, and then we won Le Mans in 2001. Le Mans is a “happening” event, and GM recognized this. It all led us to the C8. And now the GM culture has changed to Cadillac, and Pratt & Miller will be building customer Corvettes for racing.”

Gib Hufstader: “For years, I had to be careful when I went to races. And there were times I got called in to cut back on the racing activities. But I was happy with the formula we had. We were helping privateers with special parts and better parts to help make their performance more consistent. Zora would send me to the tracks to monitor the teams. We didn’t want the parts to fail, but if they did, we wanted to see why. So I spent a lot of time visiting the pits to ask the teams about parts we sent them.”

“But I have to be careful. Chris Economaki, the automotive journalist, was often there, and he loved asking probing questions that I really didn’t want to answer. So when the teams told me he was there, I did my best to make myself scarce but not look like I was avoiding him. I just had to stay out of sight of Chris.” (audience laughs)

Herb Fishel: “When I came to Chris Economaki, you had to face the music or he’s make up something!” (audience laughs)

Tom Peters: “Fellows, I’d like to ask about Zora and the body shape, and aero development.”

Tony DeLorenzo: “Gib remembers, we were always working for improvement, but mostly from the hardware engineering aspect. When new gearboxes or axles came out, we were anxious for the improvement so the car wouldn’t break down. We did a lot of work on brakes and brake pads. Ten years before brakes were the bane of every Corvette racer. We ran one 24-hour race on one set of pads. The person who worked on our axles made them indestructible. With the Owens-Corning car, we worked mostly with Gib, but we knew Zora was always watching and getting full reports from Gib.”

Jerry Thompson: “When our team started, we were racing Tony’s ’67 L88 Convertible. We really liked the nose because it was very good at picking up the front end. It would make the steering so light at speed, you could steer with one finger! So, thanks, styling, you made our anatomy tighten up! That really made an impression on us.” (audience laughs)

“Then Tony tried to get a ’68 L88, but actor James Garner was racing and being a big name, went to the top of the list. So, we tried to make our own ’68 L88 that was just a bunch of parts. It was fast, but it was a handful! When we got home, Zora called me to his office. He said, “Jelly, (that’s the way my name came out through his accent), how did the car perform?” I told him we bent the relay rods and burned lots of bearings, parts, and just about everything that rotated. We even borrowed some parts from Corvettes we found in the parking lot.”

“So Zora would go into the engineering department and tell them what happened and how to fix it. There were engineers for specific parts, and they didn’t like it, and they’d get on their high horse! But Zora always had our backs.”

This is the End of Part 1. To read Part 2, CLICK HERE. – Scott