CorvetteChief.com Corvette Podcast

Zora Arkus-Duntov, the Corvette SS and The 12 Hours of Sebring, 1957

After Zora drove a 1956 Corvette at 150 mph on the sand beach at Daytona Florida, his Chief Engineer, Ed Cole, wanted him to take the Corvette racing. After a fitful first start in the 1956 Sebring 12 Hour race, Zora showed up the following year with the car he really wanted to go racing with, the Corvette SS. Sebring was a race that attracted the world’s best race drivers and the manufacturers who sold their cars based on their racing success. The white test “mule” for the SS was a sensation in practice. Juan Manuel Fangio was faster in it than the previous year’s lap record. As you will see in this video it was also driven in practice by Sterling Moss. The late arriving Corvette SS is also featured with its eventual drivers, John Fitch (Corvette Hall of Fame) and Piero Taruffi. A total lack of testing before the race plagued the SS and led to its early withdrawl. Zora’s plan to race the SS in the Le Mans 24 Hour race that June was dashed when GM agreed to the Automobile Manufacturers Association (AMA) ban on racing.

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Dick Guldstrand races. Even at 80 he still races. He first started racing Corvettes in the late ‘50s when Zora began Chevrolet’s clandestine support of Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) racing. All these years Dick has been a friend of the Corvette and has enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with the marquis. We built them and he jazzes them up for his customers all over the world. Dick is a proud member of the Corvette Hall of Fame.

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Dave Ferguson is one of the National Corvette Restorers Society (NCRS) judges for his favorite Corvettes the ‘53 through ’57 models. Dave was imprinted with a love for the Corvette in high school. Two careers later he is back. Along the way he enjoyed careers as a fighter pilot, as a test pilot and as head of flight operations for the Lockheed Skunk Works where he flew the U2, A12, F117A and had first flight in the YF22.

Please have a listen and be sure to leave a comment and let Dave know what you think.

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