article on re-creation C3 LT2 drag/test Lightweight Corvette

[JoeC]

Great article by Martyn Schorr on the re-creation of the C3 LT2 drag/test Lightweight Corvette

this was the 10 sec Corvette test car shown at the 1969 and 1970 press previews

includes pictures of possible Yenko Deuce Nova prototype

http://carguychronicles.com/2020/01/...ight-corvette/

[Keith Seymore]

I had some (minimal) involvement in the re-creation; my role was to get Dave Miller hooked up with some of the other engineers who had been present for the Long Lead.

When I first started at Milford (1986) my officemate, John M, was the fleet coordinator for light duty trucks. He was well connected and quite charismatic, and had been there for that event.

In the mid 1980's John had rediscovered the engine which had been on display at the show, both as a visual reference but also as a backup engine in case something happened to an engine in one of the cars. It was (also) an all aluminum solid lifter 454.

After some horse trading he was able to wrangle the storage tag away from the engine's "owner" in exchange for the use of a Suburban for the weekend.

We had a white 1985 shortbox stepside pickup with, at that time, an LS7 engine in it, as sort of an under the table team building/morale booster toy. The aluminum motor eventually found its way into our little pickup. We had it going 10.70's before we were done, running tune/test at Martin, Milan and Stanton, and local Super Chevy events.

Dave interviewed John in his home but I fear he may have gotten more of a sly "...I have no idea what you are talking about..." kind of response.

K

[Keith Seymore]

Couple more articles from when the re-creation was first completed:

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/a...=top-news&_r=0

https://www.motortrend.com/news/1969...e-lt-2-review/

[dykstra]

Very cool!!

[Dave Rifkin]

I saw a recreation of that car at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green; would that have been the same car or are there more than one recreation of this Corvette?

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by Dave Rifkin

I saw a recreation of that car at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green; would that have been the same car or are there more than one recreation of this Corvette?

This is the only "sanctioned" re-creation that I am aware of.

To give you an idea of the level of detail they went into: the original donor vehicle was yellow (or white, maybe) and painted orange over that.

When they sourced a vehicle for the re-creation they found a car the same color as the original and painted it orange, in the same way.

K

[olredalert]

----Many of us saw the recreation at MCACN. At the time I didn't quite understand exactly what the car was supposed to be. I thought it was simply a modified L88 which wouldn't have been a bad thing. This thread has answered all the questions I had back when I looked the car over. A really great working tribute! Congrats to all the people who together managed to recreate this iconic Corvette......Bill S

[markjohnson]

I’ve always been nuts about the original test car and love the excellent re-creation! I spent a whole bunch of time around it at the MCACN show and there’s just so many cool little things about it but the Holley 4500 bulging out of the air cleaner baseplate and 180-degree headers really ring my bell. Now I’ve had some brutally fast cars along with a sense of self-preservation but 6-grand neutral dropping that Rat motor with so many u-joints in close proximity would tend to make me a bit nervous.

[EZ Nova]

NEAT, I like this....

One question, what is this "small diameter 11-inch Chevy II torque converter giving a higher 4,000 rpm stall speed" that they keep mentioning??? I've heard of the old Vega stall's being around 3500.

[Tracker1]

Originally Posted by keith seymore

i had some (minimal) involvement in the re-creation; my role was to get dave miller hooked up with some of the other engineers who had been present for the long lead.

When i first started at milford (1986) my officemate, john m, was the fleet coordinator for light duty trucks. He was well connected and quite charismatic, and had been there for that event.

In the mid 1980's john had rediscovered the engine which had been on display at the show, both as a visual reference but also as a backup engine in case something happened to an engine in one of the cars. It was (also) an all aluminum solid lifter 454.

After some horse trading he was able to wrangle the storage tag away from the engine's "owner" in exchange for the use of a suburban for the weekend.

We had a white 1985 shortbox stepside pickup with, at that time, an ls7 engine in it, as sort of an under the table team building/morale booster toy. The aluminum motor eventually found its way into our little pickup. We had it going 10.70's before we were done, running tune/test at martin, milan and stanton, and local super chevy events.

Dave interviewed john in his home but i fear he may have gotten more of a sly "...i have no idea what you are talking about..." kind of response.

K

i remember reading that!! So cool you were involved!

Werner knows his stuff, that's for sure. oldredalert this orange car was in the works when you went down to look at the Daytona yellow 1970 LS7 Convertible for me at his place. Surprised he didn't bring it up. He spent a lot of time on it, but it was probably at a different shop.