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January 17, 1953 The Corvette's Debut

A former friend who has since passed away was on the Super Car build team at Yenko Chevy.
Warren, another friend who was in charge of the team is still kicking.
Because they were no longer factory vehicles and the assembly line build sheets didn't apply, Warren retained all of the build sheets out of all the Yenko modified cars, which are likely worth as much as the cars by now.
 
My father did some of the machinework modifications on Don's Stinger Corvair project.
All of the flywheels were lightened and the carb adapters were made in the basement of the home I was raised in ;)
 
The flywheels were cast iron with a steel facing riveted to them.
The rivets, known to get loose under higher stresses were drilled out and then the iron was redrilled and tapped for grade 8 bolts.
Arc sections were removed from the periphery to lesson the rotating mass.
Somewhere in Dad's shop, the arc sections are still in the same coffee can he stashed some them in.
 
Why did he keep those small sections of iron?

In the machining business, you can still make something out of everything until you can no longer hold it to cut it.
The other part is that just like me, he's a hoarder :D
 
The Super Car builds were a product of GM management's edict that there could never be an engine over 400 cubic inch displacement in anything other than a full sized chassis or the Corvette.

Don ordered 396 Chevelles, Camaros and Novas and 427 engines and the build teams did the swaps and mods to make them unique and uber quick.
Later, he discovered a loophole to get the 427s installed on their production lines.
He use what was known as a corporate office production order form that was reserved for specing out police cruisers and taxis to get it done.
And that is why some of the later Yenkos are called COPOs.
 
My mantra has always been either bring 7+ liters to the table or stay on the porch with the pups :p
 
And we should never forget how Ford, a production vehicle builder was able to boot-stomp Ferrari, a specialty car builder with racing lineage, with parts sourced from their own production lines ;)
 
Sure thing, modern engines blow away anything I have ever played with.

The stuff I work with is the dinosaur stuff designed in the early 50s and 60s.
Stuff that was never intended to be high performance yet somehow ended up that way.
Nothing more exciting than the sheer terror that results from cutting loose huge amounts of power in an ill handling vehicle with inadequate brakes.
That is the true definition of a factory American musclecar :D

Now, some of the mods I favor are improved suspension systems, better steering geometry and braking upgrades to work alongside all that power.
 
@Forest Cat @Nitro

How to make an Edsel look better... :) A local car...

Edsel 01.jpg
 
But back to Corvette's... One company here in Alberta built a replica of the 1963 Corvette Grand Sport, hoping to sell more of them, I think only one was built, this one... A photo I took about 12 years ago when the car was doing the car show circuit, and I was fortunate to be there when he had it out for a track day... Plus a bonus genuine Ford GT40 that I was able to photograph back then as well... But I still think that @Nitro has far better automotive adventures than mine...

Chev Corvette 03.jpg

Chev Corvette 03.jpg

Chev Corvette 02.jpg
Ford GT40 01.jpg
 
Sherlock77 said:
But back to Corvette's... One company here in Alberta built a replica of the 1963 Corvette Grand Sport, hoping to sell more of them, I think only one was built, this one... A photo I took about 12 years ago when the car was doing the car show circuit, and I was fortunate to be there when he had it out for a track day... Plus a bonus genuine Ford GT40 that I was able to photograph back then as well... But I still think that @Nitro has far better automotive adventures than mine...

View attachment 73965
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Years ago when I ran an automotive driveability shop, I had a customer who owned a Grand Sport replica.
It was built on Stingray chassis, so it did have the refinements offered by that one instead of the '63 version like the original.

What is interesting about the Le Mans win over Ferrari is that it involved Carrol Shelby to pull it off.
Carrol Shelby was also responsible for gaining the three earlier Corvette chassis that were sent to Italy to produce the three Scaglietti Corvettes mentioned by @Raggamuffin
 
FreeDiver said:
Ahh! The poor edsel. Too bad people had to make fun of the radiator grill on the front. I've heard it being called all king of nasty names, like, the vagina, the toilet seat and an ox's yoke.
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Ford's FE series of engines denoted that they were Ford/Edsel engines.
The first Edsel offering was a 332 cubic inch version.
The generation 1 engines were offered in displacements up to 390 cu. in, all the way up until 1975 in the F series trucks.
The second generation engines eventually went on to sold in many popular displacements over the years including the 427 SOHC engines, the 428s and the 429/460s
Just to give an example of how Ford operates, the last of the 460s were offered in the F series trucks until 1997.
 
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