Grand Sport, one of the fiercest prototype Corvettes to ever tear pavement out of a race track. Te story of the Grand Sport is


one of those tantalizing ‘what ifs’ of North American automobile racing history. Chevrolet had prepared its brand new Corvette Stingray for a fall 1962 introduction. However, GM was no longer producing America’s only sportscar any more. Te irrepressible Carroll Shelby had announced his Ford-powered Cobra would also have a fall intro. Duntov was intrigued and the Chevrolet team was a tad nervous about being upstaged by a Ford- powered product. Corvettes had pretty much ruled the roost in the production sportscar scene and the debut race where the two sports cars would meet was at Riverside Raceway in October 1962. Al- though Shelby’s Cobras did not last, they ran rings around the best Corvettes on the west coast.Te new Corvette was 50 per cent heav- ier than the Cobra with only a 25 per cent engine displacement ad- vantage. Consternation reigned in the shops of the racer engineers at GM. Duntov got together with his superior, Bunky Knudson, to pro- pose a secret weapon— a light- weight Corvette. Such a Corvette had never been seen before. Paul Van Valkenburgh in his landmark


book, Chevrolet-Racing? Fourteen Years of Raucous Silence describes the process of the creation of the legendary Grand Sport: “It couldn’t be an obvious race car, but a light- weight version of the production Corvette seemed to be within the letter of the AMA rule.” 100 to 125 lightweight Corvettes were to be built. Te engineers started off with a brand new aluminum tube frame, with an integral rollbar. All the ad- ditional components were made out of lightweight materials and fin- ished by hand. Te body was made far lighter and stronger with hand laid fiberglass. Everything in the in- terior was lightened while giving the appearance of being stock. Te plastic windows were hand lifted or lowered with straps.When it came to engines, there were many options such as the “Porcupine” 427 engine or a highly modified 377 ci used by the Mecom Team during the Ba- hamas Speed Weeks Trials in 1964. However, what Zora Arkus Duntov wanted was an all-aluminum DOHC engine for his lightweight Grand Sport Corvette, as in his sights was a visit to LeMans to steal some of Ford’s thunder. Tere were three DOHC engines actually assembled, according to Van Valkenburgh, but the first one was not actually put on a dynamometer until after the GS was cancelled.


Te engine put out 550 horsepower and perhaps displaced a ground shaking 402 cubic inches. To make a long story short, there were only five Grand Sports built. Tey were to be either scrapped or used as test cars but found their way into the hands of people who appreciated them.In January 1964, Zora Dun- tov had Grand Sports numbers #001 and #002 converted to road- sters in order to prepare them for the Daytona Continental races. En- gineers had calculated that the cars had to do at least 200 mph on the oval section of the Daytona course and the coupe bodies provided too much lift at that speed. Tus, there was the danger that the cars could become airborne. By cutting down on the frontal area and eliminating the lifting tendencies of the bodies, the Grand Sports could have done the job. However, we will never know what became of these cars because they were never entered. Tey were moved to a Chevrolet garage in Warren, MI, where they were stored.In 1965, Tony De- Lorenzo, whose father was vice- president at GM, wanted an unusual car to take to a car show at Notre Dame where he was a stu- dent. Grand Sport #002 was taken out of storage. While all Grand Sports were originally painted white, #002 was painted Cadillac


Firemist Blue for the show. Conse- quently, #002 is the only Grand Sport to have a body trim tag con- taining a paint formula.Roger Penske bought #002 in January of 1966 and sold it to George Winter- steen in April of that year. Winter- steen fitted it with a Traco built big block of 427 ci and campaigned the car until he sold it in February of 1967 to George Torne, a competi- tor who lived in Georgia. Torne sold the car and it is now owned by Jim Jaeger. Te potential was there for a world-beater in road racing, but in the opinion of some, GM with its on-again off- again policy of racing or no racing hobbled the Corvette effort. Tus, the Grand Sports were forced to compete in the SCCA’s C Modified Class as there were not enough of them to qualify as production sports cars. From the mid-1960s on, it was hit and miss, as Corvette enthusiasts attempted – with some clandestine GM support – to make the Corvette a champion in its class. In addition, this time was also a time of transition: the transfer of the en- gine from its place in front of the driver to behind him where Colin Chapman and others overseas had demonstrated it must go. Tus, the Grand Sport was ultimately trumped by rapid developments in racing technology.


2012 canadian Historic Grand Prix 9


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