One of the cars was clocked at a hair-raising 236 mph down the back straight at Daytona during qualifying in 1975!
From there, it’s a masterclass in playing catch-up.
By the mid-1970s the Corvette, like the rest of the automotive world, found itself hamstrung by emissions regulations, fuel economy concerns and other factors that led to a steep decline in performance over just a few short years. The last three series – the Turbo GT, Daytona and GTO – all used turbocharged small block engines. Jalopnik contributor with a love for everything sketchy and eclectic. The Greenwood team’s wide body approach continues to see use in race car designs today. “I bought a 1968 Corvette and the first night I put an L88 into it,” Greenwood said. “I was one of the first to fit one of the early 427s. “I was kind of driving my parents crazy; I built the engines in the basement or the den and then carried them up through the house,” he recalled. All rights reserved.
While he had proven to be a force to be reckoned with on the street, Greenwood had yet to apply his talents the realm of proper motorsport.
Image: Hemmings, When Greenwood returned for the 1969 season after spending some time dialing in his suspension setup and engine tune, the results that year proved to be quite different. Sales of C4, C5, C6 Corvette aerobody kits. Take care! However, Greenwood’s introduction to wheel to wheel racing didn’t go as swimmingly as one might have expected. They named it the widebody. 1975 served as a low point for Chevrolet’s sports car, with the standard 350 V8 offering just 165 horsepower. One day, his wife came across an ad in the grocery store for a parking lot autocross competition and dared Greenwood to enter. We'll send you the most interesting Street Muscle articles, news, car features, and videos every week. Take caution! Though the cars were outgunned by the competition – due in part to the fact that they were contractually obligated to run BFG street radials while the rest of the field used race slicks – clocking 215 mph down the Mulsanne Straight proved that the Greenwood cars were indeed fast. ”. “In the next two years, I won the SCCA A-Production National Championships back-to-back. Greenwood’s victories in the SCCA would attract some attention to the fledgling race team. Images: RM Sotheby's.
You know that a lot of the equation was the big engines. He obliged. With the help of Corvette engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov and Randy Wittine from the GM design studio they devised a new body design that could accommodate the massive race slicks Greenwood wanted to use while integrating functional aero into the expanded bodywork. Images: RM Sotheby's. Indeed the Malaise Era was rough for the Corvette, and high performance at large. In an era when the Corvette was at its lowest, two brothers from Detroit named John and Burt Greenwood sought to take on the racing world with the Chevrolet’s sports car, and managed to alter Corvette race car design for the better in the process. With giant bulging fender flares, tires like steam rollers, and a roar that could wake the dead, this slice of 1970s Americana is not for the easily queasy. “I did a lot of racing that year and I started setting records,” Greenwood explained. After stints in the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring, the team would take on Le Mans in 1972 and again in 1973.
Though their performance was a far cry from their race car counterparts, the Greenwood C3 street cars brought some of the visual drama of the Greenwood racers to the streets of America and are considered collectors’ items today. SEMA 2020: Turn One Introduces Type II Steering Pump, SEMA 2020: Tuning Your Late-Model Muscle With SCT, Heidts New Four-Link Wide-Tire Mini Tub Kits For Early, Outer Sail Panel Connector To Roof Brace For ’70-’74 ‘Cuda From, Strapping Your Race Car Or Hot Rod To A Trailer Just Got, Bringing The Show To You: PRI Embarks On Cross-Country Road, Burnout Rivals: The Sequel To Cleetus McFarland’s Freedom, Jay Leno to be Inducted in the Automotive Hall of, SEMA 2020: Performance Distributors LS And Pentastar SOS, SEMA 2020: The Single Cab Short Bed Truck GM Never, At Speed With The 2020 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray And The New, Vengeance Racing And Huron Speed Team Up For An Epic ZL1, PRI 2019: Bill Mitchell Products Aluminum Blocks Beef-Up, PRI 2019: CP-Carrillo Debuts Two New Connecting Rod, PRI 2019: Melling’s New High-Volume, High-Pressure Oil, Josh Stahl’s Reviva Renews A Resurgence Of LS Swap, By Design: Sean Smith Builds A Brand On Muscle Car, How Ken Lingenfelter’s Love for Corvettes Benefits So, High-Performance Racing Fasteners: How ARP Fasteners Are, Brenspeed Shows Off Five GT350 Builds in the Works, Schwartz Performance Talks G-Machine Chassis, How Exactly Does Dual-Fuel Work on a Gen 3, Quick Six with Flaming River: Manual Steering Pros and, Rare Rides: The 1969 Chevrolet Camaro COPO, ED-OP: Is The Evolution Of Building Horsepower A Good, figures approaching half a million dollars in recent auctions, SEMA 2020: SCAT Offers LS S-Series Crankshafts, SEMA 2020: Turn One Introduces Type II Steering Pump Upgrade, SEMA 2020: Tuning Your Late-Model Muscle With SCT Performance, SEMA 2020: Heidts Has Your New C10 Suspension Ready For You, Redline Motorsports Puts Corvette C8 ARH Headers To The Test, Ridetech Street Grip Suspension System for ’68-’82 C2 & C3 Corvettes, Taming The Powerband Of A ProCharged LSX376 With FAST Intake Runners. But for those with the means, pivoting from street performance to officially-sanctioned racing offered an alternative where serious capability still ruled the day. Zora Arkus-Duntov and engineer Gib Hufstader had been providing technical assistance to Corvette racing efforts on the sly for years at this point, and when Greenwood’s team shut down the heavily favored Owens Corning team (who had gone undefeated in the previous 22 races, a record at the time) at 1970 A-Production championship race at Road Atlanta, Zora and his crew took notice.
The Greenwood Corvette brought the heat to the motorsport world at large, capturing the IMSA title that year, the Trans Am championship the following season, and securing numerous pole position qualifying runs and track records along the way. Considering the value of not only the car he’s driving, but those around him, he chooses lines and the appropriate gear quite well. Build your own custom newsletter with the content you love from LSX Magazine, directly to your inbox, absolutely FREE! Though their performance was a far cry from their race car counterparts, the Greenwood C3 street cars brought some of the visual drama of the Greenwood racers to the streets of America and are considered collectors’ items today.
While the production-based Corvette had been choked to within an inch of its life by 1976, the rules that constrained street car design did not apply to IMSA racers.
“I won everything,” he quipped. Though the cars were outgunned by the competition – due in part to the fact that they were contractually obligated to run BFG street radials while the rest of the field used race slicks – clocking 215 mph down the Mulsanne Straight proved that the Greenwood cars were indeed fast. Greenwood had a new strategy for the 1974 season.
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Images: Russo and Steele. A few years later when the C3 debuted, John was immediately enamored and picked up a T-top coupe. You can see in the video below that even a pro racer like Taylor can have issues with a vintage racer like this. John Greenwood was a guy who liked going fast. All rights reserved. They named it the widebody.
The Le Mans and Daytona-winning all-American has raced modern beasts with big V8s, but none quite so unruly as the old-school Greenwood ‘Vette. The Greenwood Corvette brought the heat to the motorsport world at large, capturing the IMSA title that year, the Trans Am championship the following season, and securing numerous pole position qualifying runs and track records along the way.