Corvette Timeline Tales: 10.4.73 -The Four-Rotor Experimental Corvette makes its debut at the Paris Salon Automobile Show

Published on October 10, 2015October 10, 2015 by Scott

October 4, 1973 – The Four-Rotor Experimental Corvette makes its debut at the Paris Salon Automobile Show – Video Below

Photo: GM Archives

Dateline: 10.4.15: GM president Ed Cole spent $50 million dollars for the license to develop and build Wankel engines for Chevrolet cars. The plan was to start with a 2-rotor Wankel as an option in the ’74 Vega in October 1973. But the car biz is part show biz, and what a better way to make a big splash for the new “rotor-motor in a Chevy” concept than to build a super-sexy Corvette with not just a Vega-type 2-rotor Wankel, but a 585-CID, 350-to-370-HP 4-rotor monster! Corvette engineer and Duntov’s right-hand man Gib Hufstader, hand-built the unique engine and said that it could have produced 480-HP!

VP of Styling, Bill Mitchell directed the look of the Four-Rotor and Hank Haga and Jerry Palmer worked out the details. Inspiration for the design came from the Mercedes speed record-breakers of the late ‘30s. Getting to the teardrop shape Mitchell wanted wasn’t easy, but the end result definitely looks like a “Corvette” and Continue reading “

Corvette Timeline Tales: 10.4.73 -The Four-Rotor Experimental Corvette makes its debut at the Paris Salon Automobile Show” →

Zora Arkus-Duntov, Ahead of the Curve in 1953!

Published on December 23, 2011December 24, 2011 by Scott2 Comments

Dateline: 12.23.11

Duntov’s Thoughts Pertaining To Youth, Hot Rodders, and Chevrolet

Duntov-Engines-Color — Chevrolet engineer and Duntov co-worker, Gib Hufstader, managed to save one of Duntov's DOHC experimental engines from the scrap heap! It might have been one of the above engines. Too bad they all weren't saved!

Zora Arkus-Duntov started working at General Motors on May 1, 1953. His first few months were a little bumpy, plowing through some junky assignments, such as sorting out why a prototype car with a heavy rear end wouldn’t handle right and solving a driveline vibration on a GM bus. A few weeks after Zora started, his immediate supervisor, the very capable senior engineer Maurice Olley, suggested that Duntov quit because he didn’t like Zora’s non-engineering solution to the prototype’s handling problem. And Duntov actually considered it! (for a very short time)

But ever the “GO-GO!” racer guy, Duntov had gasoline in his veins and was a pretty good writer for an engineer. Below are his thoughts on the then burgeoning aftermarket hot rod industry Continue reading “Zora Arkus-Duntov, Ahead of the Curve in 1953!” →

The Great 454 ZL-1 1969 10-Second Monster Corvette Pumpkin!

Published on October 31, 2011February 29, 2012 by Scott

Dateline: 10.31.11

December ’69 Motor Trend reports on Chevy’s 10-second, 454 ZL-1 Monster Pumpkin Corvette!

Forty years ago it took a lot to get a car to run 10s in the quarter-mile. You needed a BIG engine, open tuned headers, a giant gas sucking Holley carb, slicks, ear plugs, and a lot of NERVE! Today, it’s no biggie for a performance car to run low 11’s. Lingenfelter Engineering has been able to get a mildly modified ZR1 to run low-to-mid 9s with ALL of the stock creature comforts. All you have to do is HOLD ON!

No, back in the old muscle car dayz, low 11s and high 10s in the quarter-mile was Super Stocker and Modified Production territory. Low 10s and 9s was the realm of Pro Stockers with the likes of Grumpy Jenkins, Sox & Martin, Dick Landy, Dyno Don Nicholson and a few dozen others. In their day, they were the rock stars of drag racing.

When the December 1968 issue of Hot Rod Magazine hit the news stands, with a full-cover shot of the all-aluminum 427 ZL-1 engine, heads spun like Linda Blair in The Exorcist! The headline at the top of the cover read, “A 625-HP LOOK AT: CHEVY’S ALL-ALUMINUM 427.” While today we might say, “There’s no substitute for a supercharger,” back then, the expression was “There’s no substitute for cubic-inches. If there’s enough meat left in the block, just bore it out and insert bigger pistons. Chevy’s 427 had been in production since ‘66, so when the ‘70 models came around, what was Chevrolet to do? Bore, Baby, Bore!

The cast iron 454 was a no-brainer, but what about the all-aluminum ZL-1? Just to see what kind of response they’d get from the press (as if they weren’t sure) Chevrolet engineers Tom Langdon and Gib Hufstader built a special 454 version of the ZL-1, coupled it with a Turbo 400 3-speed tranny, a high-stall torque converter, tall gears, and 9-inch slicks. Yes, it was a quasi-Super Stocker and they let the automotive press make passes on a 1/4-mile stretch at the test track!

Continue reading “The Great 454 ZL-1 1969 10-Second Monster Corvette Pumpkin!” →