Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport
In the early ’60s, Chevrolet was successful in motorsports. With Zora Arkus Duntov and Ed Cole as head engineers for Corvette, the racing version of the Corvette Stingray was a logical next step in its development. Back in the day, Ford sponsored the Shelby Cobra, which was dominant at the race tracks. And the Corvette team wanted to beat it of course. So Zora and his team prepared five Grand Sport Corvettes with modified bodies, special suspensions, and fully-loaded race engines. The Grand Sport Corvette had over 550 HP and was capable of brutal performance. The Corvette team had big plans and entered the Grand Sport Corvettes in several races (via Motor Trend).
They received promising results until the decision came from the top of General Motors to stop all racing activities. For some reason, GM decided to stop investing in all forms of racing in early 1963. This killed the fantastic Grand Sport program before it could prove its worth. This made the Corvette Grand Sport one of the greatest “what if” stories of the racing world. All five cars survived and are accounted for today.