The Civilized Grand Sport Corvette Replica – Sort of…
Today you can go to your local Chevrolet dealer today and buy a Grand Sport Corvette to your liking. Almost 50 years ago, there were only five Grand Sport Corvettes in existence and they were NOT for sale. “Unrealized potential,” “the ultimate could’a been Corvette” and many other expressions tell the original Grand Sport Corvette story. Unlike today’s C6 Grand Sports, the originals were all-out racing Corvettes, designed to give the Cobras a good run for it.
But GM had a completely different attitude about racing back then that can be nicely described as “backward.” Fortunately, all five original Grand Sports are still around. Along the way, there have been numerous companies that offered Grand Sport replicas – some, better than others. But today there is only one “officially licensed” by GM, Grand Sport replica, and that is the Duntov Motors Grand Sports.
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.
1. The real shark’s side gills. On the car they show up just ahead of the front wheel wells and just behind the rear wheel wells. 2. The real shark’s open mouth snout. Gee Bill, no teeth for the car? I think over the years, a few show car Corvettes have been seen with shark’s teeth. 3. The real shark’s light underbelly and dark blue top. This became the signature “Mako Shark” paint job with lots of variations.
Car and Driver Splashes the C7 Corvette – A PERFECT swan dive or a belly flop?
Cast your vote at the end of this post.
Don’t you just love a nice surprise in your mailbox? You know, a nice fat IRS tax refund, a Publishers Clearance Warehouse winner notification, or a letter from an old flame. (okay, maybe not that last one) The April 2012 issue of Car and Driver arrived in my mailbox today and I was greeted with what appears to be the real car that the November 2011 Jalopnik illustrations were based upon. It’s SO hard to tell computer rendered cars these days. “Usually” computer images are a little too flashy and that’s the telltale sign. A year, or less, from now, we’ll know for sure how spot on Jalopnik and Car and Driver are.
But for now, it’s deal with what’s in front of us. Sometimes, cars look better in person. But the C7 is looking more like a C6.75. I know that Corvettes tend to be evolutionary in their design, but honestly, there’d better be some stunning things going on under all the pretty fiberglass and carbon fiber.
The front view of the car is interesting, but two design elements bother me. The front grille opening looks awfully close to that of the 1993 – 2002 Camaro with its Billy Bass mouth. Going by the Jalopnik renderings, the hood vents and vents on the tops of the rear fenders indicate that this is the 2015 ZR1 configuration. But the vents on the hood look like those on the new ZL1 Camaro. Since when does the Corvette FOLLOW the Camaro? (when Camaros outsell Corvettes 6-to-1?) I suppose we’ll get used to it. But we’re not supposed to “get used to it,” we’re supposed to LUST for it!
The car looks as if there were different “design teams.” This view clearly shows the work of the Back End Team. The design elements and shapes just don’t “go with” the rest of the car. From the side, we see compound curves and swoopy lines. But the rear view shows flat sides. This doesn’t even LOOK like a “Corvette” from the back.
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. Clearly, Bill Mitchell wasn’t done with the design of the proposed Q-Corvette. So, with a borrowed chassis from the aborted ‘57 Corvette SS racer (1957 was a VERY GOOD year for the Corvette!), Mitchell designed a roadster version of the interesting Q-Corvette around the small, lightweight birdcage tube chassis from the mule version of the Corvette SS project. Continue reading “Vette Videos: The STUNNING Corvette Classic 1959 Stingray Racer”→
Watch “The Master of Oversteer” Enjoying a Day’s Work!
MacDonald driving his 1,700-pound MacDonald/Simpson 1961 Corvette Special. Photo by Dave Friedman.
It’s been a pleasure to get to know the family of Corvette racer Dave MacDonald. The April 2012 issue of VETTE Magazine has part 1 of my story about the career of MacDonald and the May 2012 has part 2, the conclusion. While pictures and words are great, video just adds some dimension. So, I thought some vintage MacDonald videos were in order.
MacDonald’s racing career path was similar to John Greenwood’s, in that like Greenwood, MacDonald started out in drag racing. But like many guys that like to drive Corvettes in, shall we say, a “spirited” way, it didn’t take MacDonald long to get used to not only thundering down the straight-aways, but sliding the back end around the corners. MacDonald was known as “the master of the oversteer” and his tail-out driving style was very popular with the spectators.
Dave MacDonald: Corvette Racer… Corvette Man… Family Man
Here’s Dave MacDonald next to his purpose-built MacDonald/Simpson 1961 Corvette Special, looking a lot like Johnny Unitas, the pro football quarterback great.
Could there have been a more exciting time and place to be into cars than Southern California in the 1950s? Probably not. It was postwar America, California only had about 1/3 its current population, Rock’n Roll was in its infancy, and the car culture was revving up. El Monte was just a semi-rural community in Los Angeles County, the perfect place for young Dave MacDonald and legions of other guys to pour their hearts and souls into cars. What’a time!
MacDonald’s Professional Racing Career
Dave’s first car was a fast 1953 Cadillac. But when Chevy put the small-block 265 into the ‘55 Corvette, 19-year old MacDonald had to have one. He saved his money and a year later, bought his first Corvette, a Gypsy Red ‘55 Corvette. The Caddy was fast and Dave did some street racing with the car, but it was the Corvette that got him into drag racing and eventually road racing. In February 1960, MacDonald had his first official “ride” as team driver for Don Steves Chevrolet at Willow Springs Raceway, and won the Sunday main event. In his first year, Dave entered 15 regional races, taking 1st place in three events, three second place wins, and 4 third place wins. Very impressive for his rookie year.
MacDonald’s ‘53 Cadillac Sixty-Two Coupe de Ville hardtop. This was Dave’s first car, bought in ‘54.
1961, was even better. MacDonald entered 20 races, won 13 victories, and three second place finishes. Dave’s last win of the year was in his purpose-built, tube frame, lightweight Corvette Special. This car is a story unto itself. 1962 was the year the spotlight really shown on MacDonald. While he didn’t totally dominate the year, he did finish on the podium in 16 races, including 10 victories. It’s also worth noting that MacDonald won every race entered from early February to June – seven wins in a row. The first three wins were with the lightweight Corvette Special. After that, the lightweight car only raced two more times. MacDonald had one race behind the wheel of another lightweight tube frame car, a Devin Corvette that provided Dave with a second place win. Continue reading “Corvette Legends – The Great, Dave MacDonald – Part 1”→
Even if you’re not “into” Indy Car racing, the Indy 500 is a uniquely American special event. Whom ever coined the expression, “The Greatest Spectacle in Motor Sports” got it spot on. In its own unique way, it is the American equivalent of Le Mans. The expression in road racing is this, “You can win at Daytona and America knows about it. But when you win at Le Mans, the whole world knows!” Even though the event at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is just one race in a series of races and is early on in the season, it might as well be the Super Bowl of American auto racing. When the flag comes down and the winner is declared, every city newspaper,as well as every national and local TV station reports the winner. But if you win say, the Baltimore or Los Angeles Grand Prix, very few outside the arena of motorsports will know. No, there’s only ONE Indy 500.
While pace cars have been used at the Indy 500 since 1911, the tradition of giving the pace car to the winner of the Indy 500 goes back to 1936. Tommy Milton (winner of the 1921 and 1923 races) was invited to drive the official pace car, a Packard 120, and suggested giving the pace car to the race winner. A new tradition was born. As the speeds of the Indy race cars increased, so did the demands of the pace cars. Eventually, the pace cars were specially modified versions of the street machines with enhanced engines, suspensions, and brakes. By the ‘60s, manufacturers began to sometimes offer pace car replicas to their customers. Tracking actual pace cars is a little tricky because manufacturers usually build several pace cars for the actual race and for promotional use that all pretty much look the same.
The Master of Cut-Away Technical Illustration Automotive Art
Check out the slide show at the end of this post!
Please allow me to indulge myself and geeze a little. It seems that the farther north you are from the age of 50, the more times from the past begin to blur together. If you’re under 30 or 40 and are wondering what I’m talking about, just wait. I think it was somewhere around 1984 or 1985 the first time I saw one of David Kimble’s cut-away technical illustrations.
While Kimble had been working for many years as a technical illustrator for the US Navy, an RV company, the Chaparral Racing Team, the Harrison Racing team, and Sports Car Graphic Magazine, I believe that it was his 1984 technical illustration of the then-new 1984 C4 Corvette that put him on the automotive map. If it wasn’t his ‘84 Corvette cut-away that I first saw, then it was his Ferrari F40 cut-away that appeared in Motor Trend that definitely caught my attention. In the early ‘80s I was a freelance commercial artist specializing in machines. There was a wonderful magazine for commercial and graphic artists back then titled, “Step-By-Step Graphics” that was truly awesome for aspiring artists. Each issue featured several articles that took you on a step-by-step overview of exactly how the artist created their works. It was a terrific magazine.
Here’s the artist, himself, David Kimble, holding his new book, “Cutaway – The Automotive Art of David Kimble.”
One issue had a feature story covering David Kimble’s unique approach to the classic “cut-away” style of technical illustration. I was already familiar with James A Allington’s cut-away illustrations from a series of Shell Oil print ads that ran in the late 60s featuring famous road racing cars, such as the Ford GT40, Jim Hall’s Chaparral, and others. But Kimble’s style was quite different and unique. Where as most cut-away technical illustrations show what’s under the car’s body by illustrating a section of the body that seemed to be snipped away, Kimble created a new dimension to the “cut-away” body sections. David’s illustrations looked as if most of the car’s painted body was transparent. Parts, such as tires, wheels, floorboards, dash panels, transmission cases, valve covers were either transparent or used the traditional “cut-away” technique. When you look at a Kimble technical illustration, you experience a journey of discovery. For us gearheads, Kimble’s art satisfies the the question, “What’s under there?”Continue reading “David Kimble’s Incredible Cut-Away Corvette Art Creations”→
To see the BIG version of this very cool Zr1 Corvette ad, just click the above image.
The very cool “Chevy Runs Deep” video featuring the C6.R Corvette racers is at the bottom of this post. Wouldn’t it have been awesome if General Motors had told the AMA to “stuff it” back in 1957? Why should Ford and Chrysler get all the racing glory? Just before the GM enforced the 1957 AMA ban on racing, paperwork had been submitted to take Duntov’s Corvette SS race car to Le Mans. And what might have happened if Zora had been allowed to fully develop the ‘63 Grand Sport. Ah, the stuff of bench racing.
In the early years of the Corvette, Chevrolet and General Motors seemed to almost be shy about their involvement in Corvette racing. While the infamous 1957 AMA ban on corporate involvement in racing was for a very long time, their excuse for not being upfront about racing, there was PLENTY of back door parts and engineering “field testing” going on. Select individuals received special assistance that always kept things a little murky. Names such as Smokey Yunick, Roger Penske, Bill Jenkins, Jim Hall, John Greenwood, and others were often gifted with development parts (at no, or little charge) in exchange for feedback from the race track.
And for the regular customers, there were plenty of go-fast parts that were unofficially referred to as Duntov’s “racer kits.” Not that the parts came in a special box, like an AMT model kit, but they did give a wanna-be Corvette racer the benefit of solid Chevrolet engineered parts for their racing efforts.
Fortunately for every Corvette owner for the last several decades, many race developed parts slowly and subtly made their way into production Corvettes. The tide didn’t really turn in the corporate attitude towards racing until the mid-’80s when Chevrolet began to build specially prepared cars for the Corvette Challenge Series. Plus, there was a lot of help given to the C4 Corvette racers in the Showroom Stock Series. Then there was the GTP Lola/Corvettes and the Morrison Motorsports speed demon C4 ZR1 Corvette that shattered speed records. Continue reading “Vette Videos: Chevrolet Embraces Corvette Racing”→
Are the Jalopnik C7 renderings revving you up, or stalling you out?
Catch the entire Jalopnik report here... http://jalopnik.com/5858683/exclusive-this-is-the-2014-chevy-corvette
Be sure to take out C7 Jalopnik rendering poll at the bottom of this post!
I’ve been meaning to get to this for about two months now. Back on November 14, 2011, Jalopnik.com dropped a fire bomb on the Corvette community with three renderings of what they claim to be, accurate illustrations of a ZR1 version of the C7 Corvette. Chevrolet immediately said, “Thanks, but WRONG, Jalopnik!” And Jalopnik called GM’s response, “a weak ass denial…” Okay, play NICE, everyone!
So, it’s been almost three months and if you read through the various forums and blog comments, not everyone is jazzed about what they see. Initially, Jalopnik said they would be releasing “photos” and then delivered “renderings,” claiming that their inside source swears on his mother’s grave that the created renderings are correct. I also have it from a Corvette writer friend with an inside source (I don’t know if it’s the same source as Jalopnik’s) that the renderings are spot on. Yes, right down to the Camaro taillights. My friend’s friend claims that even though Chevrolet knows that the Corvette fans will negatively react to the Camaro taillights, it’s a “corporate look” that runs across the Chevrolet line. I suppose it’s like how the Chevy Volt’s front end almost looks like a Malibu.
Be sure to read the entire Jalopnik story here, http://jalopnik.com/5858683/exclusive-this-is-the-2014-chevy-corvette
Since the Jalopnik renderings were published, there have been a rash of C7 sightings wearing those totally UGLY camo suits that could make a Playboy centerfold girl look like a dawg!. About the only thing that clear is that the car will (might) have quad exhaust pipes and LED taillights. But most obvious is the overall shape. Sorry guys, but it sure does look like a C6. And it’s BIG too. Continue reading “C7 Report – Styling Analysis of the Jalopnik C7 ZR1 Renderings”→
Motor Trend magazine has a neat new TV program titled, “Head 2 Head.” To kick off the series MTs Editor at Large, Angus MacKenzie pits the 2012 Grand Sport Corvette against a 2012 911 Carrera S. The program is a lot of fun to watch. There are vintage clips of both cars from 1963 when the rivalry first started with the arrival of the 911 taking on the new Corvette Sting Ray. Footage of the Sting Ray is from a Chevrolet promotional film featuring race car drivers Dave MacDonald and Dr. Dick Thompson wringing out the new ‘63 Vette at the Chevrolet test track in the Summer of ‘62.
Comparisons of the two cars has always been somewhat of a force fit. In the olden days, the Corvette had the upper hand in power, but the Porsche was smaller and lighter – more expensive too. Fast forward 48 years and now the 911 is a smidge larger than the Corvette and is only 211-pounds lighter than the Corvette. Continue reading “Vette Videos: Corvette Grand Sport Vs Porsche 911! – Head 2 Head Episode 1”→
The once obscure L88s are now highly valued Corvettes!
Lurking under the hood is the 427 L88 beast.
It’s always an exciting thing when the heavy guns from the Corvette’s past go on the auction block. Auctions can be a quirky thing, be it a local farm auction or a high-level exotic cars auction. On one hand, the final sale price is a direct reflection of what the market place is willingness to pay. On the other hand, two people can get caught up in the adrenaline of the auction experience and drive up a final sale price. Either way, they’re always fun to watch to get a sense of the market value of Corvettes.
Keith Cornett at www.CorvetteBlogger.com does an excellent job of covering Corvette auction action. Well, it seems that there’s an interesting trend developing in the Corvette world over L88 Corvettes. L88s with the appropriate petegree are getting just just north of $600,000! That’s VERY impressive, considering that new, the cars cost in the neighborhood of $6,500 back in the day.
The L88 option was Mr. Duntov’s gift to his beloved Corvette racers. Just because GM didn’t want to go racing didn’t mean that Duntov couldn’t design and develop parts for independent racers to use. The L88 package was the ultimate racer kit for its day. On paper and in person, the L88 didn’t look all that spectacular. The only visual clue as to what lurked under the car’s body was the special cold-air-induction hood that was essentially a dome on top of the big-block hood’s dome. That was the ONLY visual clue. On paper the L88 was grossly underrated at just 430-horsepower. The real power number was never “officially” published, but it was estimated to be in the high 500horsepower range. Continue reading “C3 L-88 Corvettes Draw TOP DOLLAR at The Auctions!”→
Today you can go to your local Chevrolet dealer today and buy a Grand Sport Corvette to your liking. Almost 50 years ago, there were only five Grand Sport Corvettes in existence and they were NOT for sale. “Unrealized potential,” “the ultimate could’a been Corvette” and many other expressions tell the original Grand Sport Corvette story. Unlike today’s C6 Grand Sports, the originals were all-out racing Corvettes, designed to give the Cobras a good run for it.
