- A bit of Corvette royalty will quickly be provided to the general public
- The automobile is taken into account the primary purpose-built Basic Motors race automobile
- It’s being offloaded by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, and is estimated to promote for between $5 million and $7 million
Some of the important Corvettes in historical past shall be auctioned off this February.
A part of an RM Sotheby’s sale working Feb. 27-28 in Coral Gables, Florida, the 1957 Chevrolet Corvette SS Venture XP-64 is billed because the first purpose-built Basic Motors race automobile. It additionally marked milestone within the growth of the Corvette into a real efficiency automobile.
Whereas Corvettes had raced earlier than—netting a category win on the 1956 12 Hours of Sebring—Corvette chief engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov and GM design boss Harley Earl needed a bespoke racing model to higher compete towards the then-dominant European automakers on the monitor.
Earl went as far as to buy a Jaguar D-Kind and suggest racing it with a Chevy engine to model boss Ed Cole and different executives. That gave Arkus-Duntov a gap to suggest a clean-sheet, all-GM design, and Cole authorized it beneath the codename Venture XP-64. Publicly, the automobile was known as a Corvette SS, for Tremendous Sport—one of many earliest makes use of of that now-familiar moniker.
Zora Arkus-Duntov
Two vehicles have been really constructed: a completely completed model and a rougher growth mule. Neither had a lot in frequent with a manufacturing Corvette of the interval.
They have been constructed round a light-weight chrome-moly tubular body that allegedly weighed simply 180 kilos, with magnesium bodywork that stretched then-current Corvette styling cues across the wants of aerodynamics and packaging. These measures contributed to a claimed dry weight of 1,850 kilos, practically 1,000 kilos lower than a Corvette highway automobile of the time.
1957 Chevrolet Corvette SS Venture XP-64
Energy got here from a 283-cubic-inch V-8 that featured an experimental fuel-injection system in-period, paving the best way for gasoline injection in later Corvette highway vehicles. An aluminum 4-speed guide transmission, weighing simply 65 kilos, despatched the engine’s output of about 300 hp to the rear wheels.
Unbiased suspension was used up entrance, with a De Dion setup on the rear to cut back unsprung weight. Vacuum-assisted drum brakes have been used entrance and rear, with the rear brakes mounted inboard.
1957 Chevrolet Corvette SS Venture XP-64
The XP-64 made its competitors debut on the 1957 12 Hours of Sebring, pushed by John Fitch and Piero Taruffi, however retired with mechanical issues after simply 23 laps. Updates, together with a doable change from magnesium to fiberglass bodywork like road-going Corvettes, have been reportedly deliberate forward of an try on the 24 Hours of Le Mans. However a voluntary suspension of factory-backed racing efforts introduced by GM and different main U.S. automakers on June 6, 1957, put an finish to that.
That marked the top of Venture XP-64, however it had nonetheless made an impression. Arkus-Duntov’s affect would proceed to develop, making certain that the Corvette would stay in manufacturing as a correct sports activities automobile as a substitute of morphing right into a extra luxurious tourer like its interval rival, the Ford Thunderbird.
1957 Chevrolet Corvette SS Venture XP-64
In the meantime, the mule chassis languished earlier than being reused for the Venture XP-87 Stingray Racer idea that previewed the styling of the C2 Corvette. The automobile up for public sale was utilized by GM for promotional functions earlier than being given to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.
Anticipated to promote for $5 million-$7 million, the Corvette SS is one in every of a number of high-profile vehicles being auctioned off because the museum seems to be to extra tightly focus its assortment on Indy-related vehicles. Some which have already offered embody a Ferrari 250 LM that gained the 1965 24 Hours of Le Mans and an ultra-rare 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 pushed by Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss. A Ford GT40 Mk II that was entered within the 1966 Le Mans race will even go beneath the hammer on the upcoming Florida public sale.
