ZR-1, the history and the facts.

[ZR1cliff]

A thread to show a brief guide to the history of the Corvette ZR-1 featuring the characters behind the making of the ZR-1 plus interesting facts. One of the initial key Characters in early vette tuning and racing was Zora Arkus-Duntov who joined GM in 1953.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zora_Arkus-Duntov

Please feel free to add or correct.

Edited by ZR1cliff on Monday 21st July 16:57

[ZR1cliff]

More on Duntov http://corvetteactioncenter.com/history/zora.html



Another inspirational character on early vette tuning and racing was Dick Guildstrand.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://imag...

Edited by ZR1cliff on Monday 21st July 16:57

[ZR1cliff]

In 1969 the Ultra rare ZL-1 surfaced with only 2 cars being sold to the public. By all accounts these cars were monsters and were easily capable of running in the 11's.
http://www.autofacts.ca/classics/FAPC/ZL1Corvette....

The Daytona Yellow ZL-1


The Can-Am White ZL-1


http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www....


In 1970 the first ZR-1 is produced, ZR being short for " Zora's Racers ".

http://www.vettefinders.com/index.cfm//fuseaction/...

http://www.rogerscorvette.com/specs/70.htm

[ZR1cliff]

1970 LT-1 ZR-1



Taken from an article,
" This Is A LT-1 ZR-1 Corvette.

In 1970, There Were 17,316 Corvettes Built, And Only 25 Of These Were ZR-1's.

The ZR-1 Was Equipped With All Of The Heavy Duty Racing

Equipment That Was Previously Available Only In

The L-88 Corvettes Of 1967, '68 And '69.

The Only other Corvettes To Receive This Special Group Of Heavy

Duty Racing Equipment In A Package Were The ZR-2's In 1971.

The 1970 Corvette Had An LT-1 Engine, Suffix CTV-1970.

This Was A 370 HP Turbofire 350 V8. It Has A J-56 Heavy Duty

Brake Package With Dual Pin Front Brake Calipers (Power).

Also F-41 Heavy Duty Suspension Package And A M22 Rockcrusher

Transmission. Large Aluminum Radiator With Expansion Tank.

No Other LT-1 Has An Expansion Tank.

It Has A Steel Fan Shroud. Radio Delete. No Antenna hole Drilled In The Fenders.

The ZR-1 Are The Rarest Small Block Known.

The ZR-1 Are About Five Times More Rare Than L-88 Cars.

The ZR-1 Could Not Be Ordered With Any Of The Creature Comforts,

Air Conditioning, Power Steering, ETC. "

Edited by ZR1cliff on Monday 21st July 17:21

[malc350]

Fascinating stuff Cliff, even though I've digested some of that in the past while reading about Corvettes, it's great to rekindle the interest and read some more in depth stuff like you've shown in the links.

Can you believe the period photo of that '69 Stingray, just makes you want one. What an amazing looking car.

And imagine what one would have looked like over here in 1969 when Joe Public was lucky to own a Cortina...!!

Malc

[franv8]

Like a space ship I should think Malc!

I think in the main most Corvettes when they have come out have been a bit 'sci-fi'

I was reading one of the PH reviews of the Honda S2000, and someone was on about 'when are they going to do fighter pilot HUD on cars' - and thought of its appearance on the Vette in '99, this post was 2003...

It's getting harder perhaps now to come out with an 'extreme' looking car, perhaps things like the Mazda Funai concept and the pictures rumoured to be a Corvette transformer are intriguing, although the latter I haven't made my mind up as to whether that, in itself, is a 'retro C3' look.

Thanks Cliff for your summary - I always get confused as to which RPO (e.g. ZR1, ZL1, Z06) comes from which original era/car. Keep em coming!

[ZR1cliff]

You're welcome lads, I've been patiently trying to work out in which direction the next lead on this thread heads without jumping too far ahead, thanks to you guys I think we've found it. Interesting you mention the Z06 Fran, looking through the history of all these "Z's" it's interesting to see the Z06 surfaced around 1963.

http://www.the-mcies-corvette.com/History%201963%2...

http://www.z06vette.com/63.php



Street trim



Race trim.



Even a convertible

[ZR1cliff]

malc350 said:

Fascinating stuff Cliff, even though I've digested some of that in the past while reading about Corvettes, it's great to rekindle the interest and read some more in depth stuff like you've shown in the links.

Can you believe the period photo of that '69 Stingray, just makes you want one. What an amazing looking car.

And imagine what one would have looked like over here in 1969 when Joe Public was lucky to own a Cortina...!!

Malc

Malc, It was something that intially attracted me first to American cars then to the corvette. Back in the sixties all cars seemd to be bulbously rounded with grey, green or dark colours. The only light coloured ones that seemed to be around back then were the cream Ford prefects.





Most family owned cars were much like the old Morris 1100 above, comfortable and purposeful but with no real catch your eye style. If you were lucky you might see the odd Classic capri, and if you were really lucky you might glimpse a Jag or a roller, but then they were few and far between. So to see a 60's corvette was . I didn't know they existed.
I remember my first sighting back in the mid 60's, I was in the back seat of my dad's Morris 1100 driving up the A30 just outside Winchester, heading North under the "Spitfire Bridge", when my dad said look at this coming up the road behind us. I turned to see what I know now as a red C2 shape vette burbling past. Even at such a young age I was aware of American style due to building models of second world war planes and always thinking the Yanks had better uniforms than us so to see the red vette passing was akin to watching a colourful cartoon character float by. You could say it's left an impression.

Edited by ZR1cliff on Sunday 27th July 16:47