I'm baaaaaack!!!!!!!!

Finally made it to the Corvette Museum.

$10 entry to the tour. Worth it. Corvette Cafe with 60s diner style fare, reasonably priced. Corvette stuff gift shop. Semi parking in rear (no overnight).

Totally worth it for my fellow gearheads.

 

More pics in future but here's another one



Aerodynamic test mule from the early 70s. Better drag coefficient than current Stingrays

 

There is a video loop above a C6 display. It shows a driver cam of a development engineer driving a C6 Z06 at full chat, on the Nürburgring (14 mile road course in Germany). It has a G-meter display and a speed display as well as a graphic of the track and position indicator. As a former road racer, I watched with interest. The car routinely exceeds 1.5g in the tight corners and flirts with 2g several times (this is a street legal Z06 on US DOT legal tires). It accelerates at .75g or better and on the long straight it accelerates from 55mph to 175mph in under 10 seconds.

It was an early production model, taken there to see if they had to adjust any of the tooling (the car was disassembled and inspected after the high speed stress test). They determined no changes needed to be made and mass production began.

I'd say that one was put together pretty well.

 

Zora's personal 1974, with factory 454, fully optioned. Custom paint done for him when he bought it (originally green). The wheels he drove on in 1974 were prototypes and didn't appear on production cars for a couple more years.

Only Corvette the godfather of the Corvette ever owned.

 

Replica of a 1963 Grand Sport. Only 5 real ones in existence today. Each was hand built with unique bodywork (especially the hood) designed specifically for a certain track. I think this one was for Sebring. There's a couple of blue ones made for Le Mans

 

Engine bay from a 1974 survivor on loan from the car's owner. He did the work 40 years ago and it is unrestored.

I didn't bother with the car itself because it is hideous. But the engine bay is awesome.

Hand bent copper fuel lines. Rochester fuel injection.

 

Guldstrand GS90. One of three.

 

1983 Corvette. One of one.

The electronics (especially the dash) and some of the manufacturing processes weren't quite ready for production yet so the car's quality was horrible. The Corvette team lobbied hard and finally convinced GM not to introduce the car until the bugs could be ironed out. They had already built about 43 of them. Those cars were crushed and shredded while the line was retooled. This one got pushed into a dark corner and found its way into the garage of one of the engineers and from there to the collector who donated it to the museum where it will sit forever.

Those wheels didn't make it to production, thank goodness.