Whatever Happened to Zora’s Secret Chevrolet Engines? – PDF
The PDF version of the December 1967 Hot Rod Magazine cover story, “Chevy’s Moustache Curlers,” is available. You can download it free from the Corvette Report Free Public Library and read every page for yourself.
Through the 1960s and 1970s, Zora Arkus-Duntov was every car magazine’s best insider friend
Duntov and his team experimented with many configurations. This CERV-I small-block engine had a GMC 4-53 Roots-type supercharger that pulled 420 HP at 6,000 rpm.
The editors, writers, and photographers loved Zora, and he loved them back. Duntov became a legend because he was a daredevil engineer first, racer second, and corporate executive third.
In GM’s gray corporate culture of the 1950s and 1960s, Duntov was a total misfit. On weekends when his executive pals were on the golf course, Zora and his beautiful dancer wife, Elfi, were at a car show or on a lake in one of Zora’s speed boats. While Duntov was becoming a folk hero in the world of Corvettes and Chevy high performance, insiders thought of him as a showboat.
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Many of the free downloadable PDFs in the Corvette report Free Public Library feature road tests and interviews with the Godfather of Performance Corvettes, Zora Arkus-Duntov. The December 1967 issue of Hot Rod Magazine is especially tantalizing. There sits the smiling Godfather of Corvette performance, surrounded by four of his most exotic children.
Based on the engine configurations shown in the article, the upper-left engine appears to be Chevrolet’s experimental SOHC hemi big-block, while the lower-right engine appears to be the aluminum 377 small-block with hemi cylinder heads and dual spark plugs per cylinder. Duntov envisioned an engine like that powering future Grand Sport Lightweights.
Judging from the magazine’s cover, this looks like it will be a dynamic read
The 2026 C8 ZR1 uses twin turbochargers. The early 1960s twin-turbo, fuel-injected small-block put out 500 HP and was tentatively tried in the CERV-I.
The cover promises a detailed overview of Chevrolet’s four experimental engines. For a company that was officially not involved in racing, these don’t look like truck motors.
Hot Rod’s editor from 1966 to 1969 was mechanical engineer Jim McFarland. This must have been a peach of a story to write. Chevrolet Photographic and Jim McFarland received photo credits. Chevrolet most likely provided the staged color cover shot. McFarland likely photographed the interior black-and-white images.
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The title itself is a clever play on words. Chevrolet engineers called small-block V8s “mouse motors,” so “Moustache Curlers” hinted that these experimental engines were designed to make every Chevy enthusiast’s moustache curl. The article says, “by Jim McFarland”. Five paragraphs into the story, McFarland writes, “A meeting with Zora Arkus-Duntov (who’s a real friend of hot rodders, whether you know it or not) was arranged to get that look we’ve been promising. Here, we will hand the mike to Zora”.
Zora launches strongly…
The 1964 AWD CERV-II was tested with this SOHC small-block. The overhead camshafts were driven by shafts and bevels from a half-speed jackshaft and had three valves per cylinder and a “mailbox” plenum chamber over 8 ram tubes.
“First, I would like to point out that the exploratory engines under discussion represent only a fraction of Chevrolet engineering’s efforts in this area and are a partial output of the Corvette engine group.”
From here to the end of the article is very dense reading. You can tell you are reading the words of an old-world mechanical engineer. Zora gets into the granular details of combustion chamber shape, spark plug placement, intake runner length, and shape. In detail, he explains the challenges of three- and four-valve hemi head design and of gear-drive versus chain-drive overhead camshafts.
At the end of the article, there’s an amusing back-and-forth between Duntov and McFarland.
Duntov says, “… It all takes time, and you must understand that we cannot hit the ballpark right away. I can say, however, that we’ve seen 600 hp out of some of our big-block experimentation”
McFarland, “Injected?”
Duntov, “Yes.”
McFarland, “On gasoline?”
Duntov, “Yes.”
McFarland, “Do you want to explain the model camber I saw sitting on your desk this morning?”
Duntov, “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss that right now.”
McFarland, “Later, perhaps?”
Duntov, “Perhaps.”
The Godfather knew how to keep us on the edge of our seats
Duntov was planning to use this 16-plug, fuel-injected, all-aluminum small-block hemi in his Grand Sport Lightweights. GM enforced the 1957 AMA Racing Ban, and all serious Grand Sport development stopped.
So, you might be wondering what happened to those beautiful engines on the cover and why they never got close to production. Here’s a possible explanation, followed by an anecdotal story from the late Gib Hufstader.
The Hot Rod story came out in the December 1967 issue and was likely photographed and written in September 1967 or a few months before. Remember, the lead time for paper magazines was around three months then. The introduction of the Mark IV big-block in the spring of 1965 changed everything. The 327 L84 Fuelie went out, and the L78 396 L78 arrived.
The 283 and 327 Fuelie served the Corvette very well for nine years. It’s what Corvette needed to establish itself as a force in road racing. But the 327/375 Fuelie engine was expensive, $538 in 1964 and 1965. That’s $5,838 in 2026 dollars, for an extra 10 HP over the $129 ($1,400 in 2026 dollars) 4-BBL 327/365 L76.
The new 1965, 425 HP 396 L78 only cost $292 ($3,200 in 2026 dollars). That’s just 54.2% of the cost of the Fuelie, and an extra 50 HP. Chevrolet discovered that they can offer much more horsepower at a lower cost with cubic inches.
In 1966, of the 27,720 Corvettes sold, 5,258 had the $312 L72 427 engine. That’s 19% of all Corvettes that left the factory with 425 HP under the hood. Then in 1967, Chevrolet unleashed the 427 L88 racing engine with an official 430 HP, but the real number was close to 600 HP.
In the end, Chevrolet reached a simple conclusion:
Here’s the all-aluminum 377, fuel-injected, small-block, hemi without the injector’s velocity stacks. Around this time, Hilborn-injected engines were becoming popular in drag racing’s A/FX classes
Chevy’s big-block was fall-off-a-log simple and made more power than tires could handle. And the L88 needed special Racer Kit suspension and brake parts. Chevrolet Engineering eventually reached a simple conclusion. Exotic valve trains, overhead cams, and multi-valve cylinder heads were fascinating engineering exercises, but cubic inches delivered horsepower more cheaply, more reliably, and with less complexity. The Mark IV big-block accomplished nearly everything Chevrolet needed for both production performance and racing.
Whatever happened to Zora’s secret Chevrolet engines?
Here is the gear-drive SOHC setup on an experimental big-block. Other experimental SOHC engines used a chain-drive setup for the camshafts.
I have two anecdotal stories that provide clues.
Gib Hufstader wasn’t a man given to exaggeration. During our conversation roughly fifteen years ago, he matter-of-factly recalled that shortly after Zora retired, Zora asked him to locate an experimental Chevrolet engine that had somehow escaped destruction and ended up in a GM scrap area. Hufstader said he recovered the engine, had it restored, and later donated it to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.
Although the specific engine has not yet been positively identified, the story reflects the same quiet preservation efforts that saved numerous pieces of Corvette history from destruction. Last year, I wrote an article for Corvsport.com about Gib Hufstader’s long career with Chevrolet. I recalled my earlier conversation with Gib and contacted the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum. I told them my story, but they weren’t aware of any such donation. They kindly told me they’d get back to me if they found it in storage. I did not hear from them.
Here’s the second clue, plus a little extra
This version of the small-block SOHC engine used a chain-drive setup. The chain lash was taken up by adjusting the threaded stop screw. Roller rocker arms were also used.
Earlier this year (2026), I was talking with Becky Hufstader about the Corvsport story, and she told me about tons of documentation, parts, and artifacts her Dad had stored in the airport hangar. Gib also stored his 1966 Corvette race car there.
I told Becky my story about her Dad finding an old experimental engine, restoring the engine, and donating it to the Indy Museum.
Becky said, “Yes, Dad restored several engines.” I asked, “Engines? As in plural?” She replied, “Yes.” That one-word answer suggests Gib may have found and restored more than one of Duntov’s experimental engines.
Was the found experimental engine one of the engines featured with Zora on the cover of the December 1967 issue of Hot Rod Magazine? Was it perhaps a version of the 1963 427 Mystery Motor? Development engines were rarely built as one-off prototypes, making it likely that more than one example existed.
Somewhere, one or more of Zora Arkus-Duntov’s experimental engines may still survive
Zora Arkus-Duntov was no stranger to hemi engines. After World War II and before his employment at GM, Zora and his brother Yura designed, manufactured, and marketed a hemi-head kit for the popular Flathead Ford engine.
Perhaps someday in a museum storeroom, in a forgotten collection, one of Duntov’s exotic experimental engines will see the light of day. Gib Hufstader’s recollections suggest that at least one, and perhaps several, escaped the scrap heap. Or we’ll only know of them from old photographs, bench racing stories, or fading memories.
Given that we are talking about something that happened over 50 years ago, here’s a distinct possibility. Because none of the experimental Chevy engines have surfaced, they might not have survived. Early in 2012, Kevin Mackay, owner of Corvette Repair in Valley Stream, New York, located the ZL-1 that was photographed for the cover of the December 1968 issue of Hot Rod Magazine. This unique Corvette/Chevrolet artifact was found, restored, and presented to the Corvette community.
Maybe someday
If one or more of Duntov’s experimental engines had survived and later been restored, their discovery almost certainly would have made headlines throughout the Corvette hobby. Instead, we have crickets. Until new evidence surfaces, the December 1967 Hot Rod cover remains more than a fascinating photograph—it remains one of Corvette history’s unanswered questions.- Scott Teeters
The PDF version of the December 1967 Hot Rod Magazine cover story, “Chevy’s Moustache Curlers,” is available. You can download it free from the Corvette Report Free Public Library and read every page for yourself.
Hot Rod Magazine regularly featured the coolest high-performance engines on its covers.
Is it any wonder why many of us older guys are still motorheads?
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