Fifty Years of the Corvette Grand Sport

The full story of the Corvette Grand Sport spans almost a century of automotive history. The author played an important part of it for sixty of those years. In 1953 Chevrolet introduced the first Corvette, and shortly thereafter, Zora Duntov joined Chevrolet and quickly became a leader of this new brand. By 1957, Duntov had established Chevrolet's performance image, but GM's brass abruptly cut GM's racing and the marketing of high-performance cars. Despite official policy, in 1963 a new generation Corvette emerged with Zora Duntov its chief architect. Duntov supplied private teams with the hardware to promote the new Corvette in road racing, but Carroll Shelby had just introduced the Ford-powered Cobra, which was a thousand pounds lighter than the Corvette and easily dominated. Duntov countered by building special lightweight Corvettes for racing called Grand Sports. Duntov's team built five of a planned 125 cars before the GM board ordered production halted. Duntov retained two cars and shipped three to Texas oilman John Mecom, who resold them to fellow Texas racers Delmo Johnson and Jim Hall, and the author, Alan Sevadjian. The new owners continued to race their Grand Sports until they were no longer competitive. During the next forty years, Alan built and raced Corvettes. In 2004, Alan built a clone of the Grand Sport he owned and raced in the 60s. Since Chevrolet owned the trademarked name "Grand Sport," Alan called his new car a "Duntov Lightweight," and trademarked that name. This did not go unnoticed by the lawyers at General Motors, but instead of suing Alan for trademark infringement, in 2009, they offered Alan a GM license to continue the original production run of 125 cars. For ten years Alan built and raced his newly minted Corvette Grand Sports. The story of this car and its reincarnation is captured in this book with more than 450 pictures that span ninety-six years of automotive history.

The full story of the Corvette Grand Sport told in this book reaches almost 100 years of automotive history. The author played an important part of it for sixty of those years. In 1953 Chevrolet introduced the Corvette to make inroads with the youth market that had been favoring Ford. Shortly thereafter, Zora Duntov joined Chevrolet and quickly became a leader of its fledgling performance push. By 1957 the Chevrolet division had closed the gap to Ford with younger consumers, but GM's brass abruptly cut GM's involvement in racing and dialed back the marketing of high-performance cars. Despite official policy, in 1963 a new generation Corvette emerged with Zora Duntov as its chief architect. Duntov supplied private teams with the hardware to continue Corvette domination in road racing, but Carroll Shelby had just introduced the Ford-powered Cobra. The Cobra was a thousand pounds lighter than the new Corvette and easily dominated. Duntov countered by putting together a team to build special lightweight Corvettes that would weigh even less than the Cobras. They were called Grand Sports, and Duntov's team built five of a planned 125 cars before the GM board ordered production halted and the cars destroyed. Duntov hid two cars and shipped three to Texas oilman John Mecom, who resold them to fellow Texas racers Delmo Johnson and Jim Hall, and the author, Alan Sevadjian. The new owners continued to race their Grand Sports until they were no longer competitive. During the next forty years, Alan built and raced Corvettes. In 2004, he was approached by a local businessman who asked him to make a clone of the Grand Sport Alan owned and raced in the 60s. Since Chevrolet owned the trademarked name "Grand Sport," Alan called his new car a "Duntov Lightweight," and trademarked that name. This did not go unnoticed by the lawyers at General Motors, but fortunately for Alan, the head of the GM legal team was a racing fan who had met Alan and thought it wise to introduce the Grand Sport to a new generation. Instead of suing Alan for trademark infringement, he offered Alan a GM license to continue the original production run of 125 cars. For ten years Alan built and raced the continuation Corvette Grand Sports. The story of this car and its reincarnation is captured in this book with more than 450 pictures that span ninety-six years of automotive history.

Alan Sevadjian has spent a long career as a builder and driver of race cars, dating back to his teenage years racing one of the famed Corvette Grand Sports. An avid reader with a combination of hands-on experience and longevity, it's perhaps inevitable that he has become a motorsports historian. Racing is involved to a great extent throughout the history of the world's largest automobile manufacturers. Henry Ford gained his first notoriety only after winning a race in a car he had built himself. In the years immediately preceding the outbreak of the second world war, the German government used Auto Union and Mercedes Benz to demonstrate German engineering to the world by dominating Formula One. After the war, servicemen returning from the European theatre brought back an interest in smaller higher performance cars, which spawned an intense post-war competition among American automakers for a share of this emerging market. U.S. military airfields were used as temporary racetracks, and racing surged in popularity. Eventually the big three American auto makers got on the racing bandwagon, and in the case of Chevrolet, the Grand Sport was born. This is Alan's second book on the Grand Sport, a program begun by Corvette godfather Zora Duntov under the nose of his superiors at Chevrolet, which had banned racing as a matter of corporate policy. Created in part to retaliate against Carroll Shelby's Cobra upstaging the brand-new 1963 split window Corvette, the program ran from 1962-1963, with a planned production run of 125 cars. Unfortunately, only five cars were finished before the General Motors Board of Directors killed the program. Not quite beaten yet, Duntov defied an order to destroy the cars, instead farming them out to privateer race teams. Alan became one of those privateers, owning and racing GS003 during the mid-sixties. He could not have foreseen that forty-six years later, Chevrolet would ask him to restart production of this car. In the intervening decades, Alan's company built and raced cars out of his shop in Dallas, Texas, expanding on the lessons learned as a teenager behind the wheel of a Grand Sport. The races in the sixties would turn out to be just the opening act – fifty years later, when new blood at General Motors decided it was time to relight that candle, they gave the match to Alan.