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Illustrated Corvette Series No. 136
1988 Sledgehammer
"Callaway's
254.76 MPH Corvette"
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Greetings!
Well, we've been waiting for many months and it's almost
here. No, not the new ZR1... SUMMER! Depending
on how far north you live, I'm sure you remember that delightfully warm
time of year. For those of you in the southern states, well, you've
been cooking for some time now.
Regardless of where you are, I hope you're able to carve some time out
and enjoy a few outdoor activities and at least a handful of Corvette
shows.
Here's what I
have to share with you this month...
* Illustrated
Corvette Series No. 136
The 254.76 MPH Callaway Sledgehammer
"Des Is Der SLEDGEHAMMER!!!"
* Vette Videos:
1. A Guided Tour of the Callaway Sledgehammer
2. A Callaway Twin Turbo - '90 ZR-1 Comparison
3. Using a Corvette to Sell ...Viagra?
4. Using a Corvette to Sell Satillite Dish TV
5. The King is Back! - Elvis Selling the Z06?!
* Let's Play
Corvette Odd-Ball:
Did Chevy ever seriously consider a
turbocharged Corvette?
* Rumor Mill:
Rumors Gone Wrong - A look back at old rumors.
Let's cruise!
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The Latest Illustrated
Corvette Series: ICS No. 136
1988
Sledgehammer Corvette
"Callaway's
254.76 MPH Corvette"
Reeves
Callaway has been making cars go fast since the early '70s and
has the distinction of being the only outside vendor to have their
specialty Corvette on an official Corvette order sheet.
The "Callaway Twin Turbo" was
an official Corvette option available from your local Chevy dealer. The
$19,995 option
(code B2K) was listed as a "Not GM installed" option that was available
on the Corvette from '87 to '91. As Callaway kept improving the car,
the price also kept going up. By '91
the Twin Turbo option topped out at $33,000! Only 71 units were
built for the last year, with a total of 339 units for the entire '87
to '91 production run.
After the long dry spell for performance cars in the '70s and early
'80s, sports car magazines began touting top speed shoot out events -
you know, "Who's the fastest gun in
the West" kind of stuff. It made for great reading and inspired
more than a few builders and tuners to take the challenge.
Reeves Callaway was in the thick of things with his turbo charged
Corvettes. Car & Driver magazine sponsored one such event and
called it, "Gathering of the Eagles."
Care to take a guess who won the event? Yes, a roughly modified Callaway twin Turbo Corvette smashed the
competition with a 231 mph blast! A "regular" Callaway Twin
Turbo ran 187.95 mph.
Callaway won the event, but wasn't happy with the car. It was harsh,
loud, hot, and smelly inside. Obviously, more race car then street car.
But Callaway wondered, "Could I build
a real car that could
do 250 mph?" A car you could drive to the grocery store or to
church, with power steering, power windows, heater, A/C, and a stereo
cassette player. Oh, and
900-horsepower too!
A sane person might ask, "Why would you want to do that in the first
place? But sanity and speed aren't
always in alignment. I suppose that if anyone could build such
a street beast, it would be Callaway.
The details of how Callaway pulled it off are in the Illustrated Corvette Series No.
136 story, but let me share this with you. The intention of the car
from the beginning was that it was a street car first and last. After
the car was built in the Old Lyme, Connecticut shop, the team DROVE the car 700 miles to the
test track in Ohio! Then, after John Lingenfelter astounded
everyone with his 254.76 mph blast, the team had a little celebration,
and then they DROVE the Sledgehammer
home!
It was just what Reeves wanted, a "real car" and not a trailer queen.
What'a car!
That was 1988 and right on the heals of the Sledgehammer was the ZR-1
that actually cost a little more than a Callaway in '90. Chevy sold
3,049 ZR-1s and Callaway sold 58 Twin Turbo Corvettes in 1990. Clearly,
the market liked the Chevy-designed supercar more than the tuner
version. Callaway wanted to sell
Sledgehammer Corvettes, but at $400,000 each, he had no takers.
As the years rolled on, most of us forgot about the Sledgehammer.
Last winter when the magazines were drooling over the '09 ZR1, with
it's stunning carbon fiber body, peek-a-boo hood, and all-aluminum, 620
hp LS9 engine, I spent some time looking through my old dusty car mags
because I remembered something about
a very fast Callaway Corvette from long ago.
As of this writing, I have not yet seen any real world top speed tests
of the '09 ZR1. Chevy says 200 mph - plus. The speedometer maxes out at
220 mph. The 20-year old Sledgehammer
takes nothing away from the ZR1. Building a one-off speed demon
is one thing - building a 200 mph-plus sports car that passes emissions
and durability certifications is a whole other world.
It must have been an AMAZING thing to see a 349.8 cubic-inch
small-block Chevy-powered street Corvette maxed out at 254.76 mph. And I'll finish this off
with some added perspective.
The Guinness
World Record for the fastest production car in the world goes to Shelby
Supercars' "Ultimate Aero" with a speed of 256.18 mph. It's a
$600,000 super exotic 1,183-horsepower, all-aluminum V-8 engine, that's
available today at www.ShelbySupercars.com. All
that, and just 1.42 mph faster than the 20 year old Sledgehammer.
Hmmm...
You can also read the complete Sledgehammer story HERE.
The article will
appear in the October 2008 issue of Vette Magazine on the very last
page.
To see the LARGE VERSIONS
of this month's prints, just click the images.
You can order the ICS No. 136 parchment paper print directly
fromThe Illustrated Corvette Series website
and simply use the PayPal payment buttons for payment.
Or you can order with a credit card by calling us
TOLL-FREE at: 1-800-858-6670.
There are
two versions of this month's series installment.
Below is
the alternate layout.
(Illustrated Corvette Series II
No. 136)
Both versions are available HERE.
All
of our prints measure 11" x 17", are printed on tan parchment paper,
are signed by the artist and cost $19.95, + $4.95 S&H. For an
additional $10 you can have any of our prints personalized! An
excellent gift for that hard to buy for Corvette person in your life.
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Vette Videos
Classic sights & sounds of Chevy's
Plastic Fantastic!
Welcome to
our growing collection of YouTube
and GoogleVideo
links to some interesting Corvette videos. I have 5 Vette Videos to share with you
this month. These are lots of fun. So, here we go!
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A Guided Tour of the
Sledgehammer
Callaway Project Engineer Tim Good walks
you through the Sledgehammer project. I posted this before, but since
it's connected to this month's topic, it's back.
To enjoy this Vette Video, CLICK HERE.
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A Callaway Twin Turbo Corvette / '90 ZR-1 Comparison
Since I was talking about the '90 ZR-1 in the above Sledgehammer
article, here's a side-by-side test of two '80s supercars.
To enjoy
this Vette video, CLICK HERE.
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Using a Corvette to
Sell Viagra???
I would
usually never drift into this arena, but since we're all over 21
and we're talking about CORVETTES
here, I thought this was cute. You can handle it.
To enjoy
this Vette Video, CLICK HERE.
Take note
of how our Corvette hero winces slightly at his dilemma. Setup
the sprinkler and take care of business, pal!
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A Corvette Used to
Sell Satellite Dish TV?
This
one is very funny with several great elements - the babe, the guy, the car, and... the bus!
To enjoy this Vette Video, CLICK HERE.
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The King Is Back! Is
that Elvis selling a Z06?!
All right, I'll admit it, I've been an
Elvis fan for a VERY long time.
But "that's all right Mama," this 45-second commercial for what looks
like a '08 Z06 is bound to get you...
"all shook up."
To enjoy this Vette Video, CLICK HERE.
(this video runs about 3 minutes and it's a rough cut. The actual
commercial is only 45-seconds long, the rest is... well, I'm not sure
why it was posted like this.)
Okay, all together now...
"Thank you...
Thankyouvurymuch."
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Let's Play, "Corvette Oddball!"
Quirky
Vette Factoids
(1979 Turbo Corvette Show Car)
Question: Did Chevy
ever seriously consider a turbocharged Corvette?
Answer:
I don't know how "serious" they really were, but there were a few
proposals, prototypes, show cars, and out sourced efforts. GM's
relationship with turbocharging goes all the way back to the '60s with
the Oldsmobile F-85 and the Corvair Monza Spyder. After some
engineering revisions and restyling, the '65 Corvair was actually a
pretty good car. But with the arrival of the '67 Camaro, and tons of
much deserved bad publicity, the Corvair went away after '69. (Those
early Corvairs were NOT good cars)
As interesting as a turbo Corvair might have looked on paper, it could
only run the 1/4-mile in 18-seconds, so performance hounds didn't look
twice at the car or that strange thing called a "turbocharger."
(Turbo Corvair)
It was Porsche that put turbocharging on the performance map in the
late '60s and early '70s with their 917 racers packing Porsche's
12-cylinder, 1,100-horsepower twin turbocharged engines. Porsche took
their hard learned lessons from the race track and applied what they
learned to the '75 911 Turbo with its distinctive "whale tail" rear
spoiler. Suddenly the word "turbo" was almost a household word. Remember how "turbocharged" became a
marketing word for anything that wanted to project a performance image?
As the years rolled on we saw lots of turbo cars, but no turbo
Corvette. When the '87 Buick Regal GNX
came out there were tons of speculation over the possibility of
Chevrolet dropping the turbo Buick V6 into the Corvette, (HORRORS!!!) even though GNX Buicks
were beating the pants off Corvettes at the drag strip. Besides, Chevy
had Reeves Callaway in the wings getting ready with his '88 Callaway Twin Turbo super Vettes.
In the late '70s at the height of the performance doldrums, a few
turbocharged Corvette prototypes were built and at least one Corvette
show car had a turbocharged V6 engine. At the time there were growing
concerns over fuel mileage and a move towards smaller, lighter engines
that used the turbo to make up for the lack of cubic-inches. To the
best of my knowledge, there were no published performance figures for
any of Chevy's turbo Corvette prototypes.
(1980 Duntov Turbo Corvette)
Before the '88 Callaway Twin Turbo came along, about as close as we got
to a turbo Corvette for public consumption was the 1980 Duntov Turbo Corvette Convertible.
After Duntov retired in '75, he kept very busy doing automotive
engineering consultant work. ACI (American Customs Industries)
contracted Zora to help out with their version of what a turbo Vette
should be.
Using the new front and rear fascia of the '80 Corvette, ASC came up
with a body kit that had fixed headlights, a louvered hood, IMSA-like
wide front and rear fenders, wide tires, and a wing on top of the
Corvette's already built in rear spoiler. Power came from a
turbocharged 350 or 305 engine. The car was officially blessed by Duntov with
the intention of only 200, limited edition cars to be built.
(1980 Duntov Turbo Corvette)
The only problem was that the car was expensive ($26,000 to $65,000 -
depending on options) and not that quick or fast. Even Duntov was discouraged by the lack of
performance. Only 86 cars were built over three years. Although
is was a nice car, as they say in Texas, it was "all hat and no cattle."
Then there was the Corvette GTP
racer from the late '80s. Two cars were built, one with a V8 and the
other with a turbo V6. These were interesting cars, but they were
actually Lola race cars wearing Chevrolet-styled body panels and the
Corvette name.
(1986-88 Turbo GTP Corvette racer)
The last documentation of a turbo Corvette from Chevrolet was from a
few years ago when the Corvette engineering team was in the early days
of developing the new ZR1. A
turbocharged mule car was built, but caught fire and burned to the
ground. (that must have been a sight! No YouTube video on that!)
Like earlier turbo Vettes, there were no published performance figures.
I don't know if they even had a chance to really wring the car out
before it caught fire. After the meltdown, the engineers decided on
using a mechanical supercharger hidden INSIDE the engine block. Pretty
slick!
As you can see, Chevy has been toying with turbo Corvettes for a long
time. Most of the early efforts involved using carburetors and not
mechanical fuel injection, as Porsche did. And there was always the
dreaded "turbo lag" issue. Turbo cars
had to be well into their power range in order to provide dazzling
performance. Otherwise, the driver had to wait for the turbo to
spool up, then scoot. But with the introduction of electronic fuel
injection and computerized engine management systems, all those old
quirky turbo issues are a thing of the past.
But now that GM has figured out how to stuff a supercharger inside a V8
engine, I doubt that we'll ever see a factory-built turbo Corvette. Odds are that we will see other GM cars
with "built inside" superchargers. But then again, you never
know!
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Got a "Corvette Oddball" factoid that you'd like to share?
Zip me off an e-mail at, lightoak@comcast.net and I'll include it in a future
newsletter.
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Here's
What's New at our
Corvette Gear eBay Store!!!
Ten NEW Collectible Die-Cast Corvettes!
Die-cast cars
are the perfect gift for big boys and girls that still love toy cars.
Here's a list of the 10 new die-cast cars we're offering in the Corvette Gear eBay store!
1. 1986 Indy 500 Pace Car Corvette
2. 2005 Callaway Carlisle Corvette
3. 1962 Roman Red Corvette
4. 1962 Fawn beige Corvette
5. 1986 Nassau Blue Convertible Corvette
6. "Big John" Mazmanian's '61 Drag Racing Corvette
7. 1969 Cortez Silver 427 Corvette with side-pipes
8. 1996 Grand Sport Corvette Convertible
9. 2007 Bloomington Gold Z06 Corvette
10. 1995 Indy 500 Pace Car Corvette
Check out our entire assortment of 19
Corvette die-cast cars HERE. Below is a small
sampling.
************************************************************************
MotorheadGear.com
Update...
Last month month we told you that we
teamed up with website development company, SolidCactus.com to help us
build a state of the art Yahoo store.
We're making good progress and are on track to have the new Yahoo store
open by September or sooner.
MotorheadGear.com will
have over 625 Corvette, Muscle Car, Nostalgia Drag Racing, Sports Car,
and Vintage Car art prints available. Plus, die-cast cars, DVDs, CDs,
jackets, shirts, caps, steel GM car emblems, vintage signs, neon car
signs, and much more.
Here's what our new banner looks like...
We'll have more to
share next month.
************************************************************************
Here's the eBay Corvette
Gear main store address...
http://stores.ebay.com/Corvette-Gear
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Room-temp From the Rumor Mill:
Rumors
Gone Wrong
Hindsight is 20/20,
right?
I have a huge
collection of car magazines, with some going back to the mid-50s. Car
mags have been having fun with car rumors almost since the beginning
and definitely since the muscle cars days when manufacturers figured
out that car enthusiasts drool all over teaser stories about what's
coming up just around the corner. "Spy
photos" are fun too. Sometimes they're WAY OFF and other times,
spot on. That's why they're fun!
In July '07 Popular Mechanics Magazine
published the article, "New
Corvette Fact vs. Fiction: Top Five Rumors Debunked." And true
to form, some of the info was right on, other details were off. To
check out the article, CLICK HERE.
Here's what I
found to be interesting about the piece.
Take a good look at the spy photo. First off, it's pretty clear and
sharp, but look closely. It's
definitely one of the ZR1 mule cars. Take note of the covered
front fender vents, the black roof section, the rear spoiler, and the
blacked out wheels. The PM article said nothing about those details. They didn't say, "Is that carbon fiber on
the roof or just paint?" And they didn't mention the subtle
full-width rear spoiler either. (Come
on guys! I pointed out the carbon fiber roof from watching a cell phone
video of a ZR1 mule out on the road. CLICK HERE
to see the video)
They got the transmission detail wrong - thankfully! But they hit the
bull's eye on the enclosed supercharger and the top-mounted
intercooler. The speculated production figures were off, but the
estimated price was close enough. And
we're all VERY happy that the Z06 wasn't canceled.
If you hear of
something juicy, e-mail me at: lightoak@comcast.net
Stay tuned!
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Coming Up In The Illustrated Corvette
Series
Here's
what's coming up in the series for the next few months in Vette
Magazine on the very last page...
No.
137- The '08 Indy 500 Pace Cars
(July 2008)
No.
137 - The 'First 427 '66 Corvette & the '09 427 Special
(August 2008)
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Thanks for being there. Enjoy your Summer and play safe. Back
to the drawing board for me!
See ya next month.
Scott
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