The Corvette Grand Sport: The Legendary Racer That Never Was
The Corvette Grand Sport is one of the most iconic names in American motorsport history. It conjures up images of a sleek blue-and-white sports car with red fender stripes, roaring down the track with a thunderous V8 engine. But did you know that the original Grand Sport was a secret project that was almost killed by GM executives before it even saw the light of day? A Rebel with a Cause The father of the Corvette, Zora Arkus-Duntov was a man with a vision. He wanted to make the Corvette more than just a powerful and beautiful American muscle car. Arkus-Duntov had a passion for racing and wanted to make the Corvette a world-class competitor on the international stage. He was inspired by the success of Caroll Shelby’s Cobra, a lightweight roadster with a powerful Ford V8 engine that dominated the GT class in the early 1960s. Arkus-Duntov decided to create his own version of the Cobra, using the new C2 Corvette Sting Ray as the basis. He secretly developed a race car that he called “...