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Sunday, March 27, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Brent Jarvis's 1965 Chevy Corvette's - Maxed Out !!
One’s for show but will go,... and the other is all for go.For decades, HOT ROD has preached the sermon get out and drive your junk and has created several events to promote that agenda. While we can totally respect AMBR- and Ridler-level show cars and the amount of time, talent, and money that go into them, how many of us can really relate to that kind of detail without the enjoyment of sliding behind the wheel, slamming open the butterflies, and spraying an obscene quantity of rubber on the quarter-panels?
Brent Jarvis, owner of Performance Restorations in Mundelein, Illinois,is one of us. A lifetime addiction to speed led him initially down the dragstrip as one of the early competitors in HOT ROD’s Fastest Street Car Shootout in the mid-’90s. We featured his very cool, low-8-second, Pro Street ’59 Corvette back in the Apr. ’96 issue after having seen and photographed the car at one of the FSCs at Memphis Motorsports Park. (He still owns that car, and it’s in the low 7s today.) His quote to us back then was, If it looks fast, it better be fast. A few years ago he contacted us and said he was building another Vette, this one a midyear model, and he asked if we wanted to feature it. It looked all the part of a full-on show car, but remembering that statement, we couldn’t resist taunting him: Sure, we’ll feature the car, but only if you’ll put it on a track and drive it in anger.
That car had killer suspension and a ton of power, but like so many of the showy Pro Touring cars back then, we doubted it would perform to the level of its equipment. We were wrong. Brent not only took us up on the dare but he also beat on the car for a full day on a road course. And it was fast. The testdriver, GM engineer and Pro Touring hero Mark Stielow, was even impressed at its out-of-the-box goodness.
When Brent called again a few months ago and told us about two more Corvettes he was doing, set up for the road course, with one more show than race but both fully capable of either, we had to see them. The red car (named Maxed Out) was found on RacingJunk.com as an abandoned road race car with fender flares and all. Brent picked it up to build another track car, but after going through the whole Performance Restoration redo, the car looked so good he decided to chrome it up and take it to some indoor shows. All the parts are there to cut some serious lap times, but the summer of 2010 saw the car hit the ISCA circuit. However, Brent assures us that once the trophies are collected (many of which already have been), the car gets sticky tires and will see track time. It has already lost its road course virginity, though not in a hard-core way; while being displayed in the House of Kolors booth at the ’10 SEMA show, it was chosen to compete in the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational the Saturday after the show. Brent drove the ’65 on the mandatory 60ish-mile cruise, but having never been on Pahrump, Nevada’s Spring Mountain Motorsports track before and with the car not totally sorted out for that kind of action, he took it pretty easy. Knowing his history and attitude toward cars, though, we have no doubt this pretty piece will see plenty of track time.
Once the direction changed on the red car, the blue car became the hard-core road racer. Brent bought it as a Pro Touring street car but got rid of the street part of it. This Vette still has some custom touches and excellent attention to detail, but it sees door-to-door action in an outlaw vintage racing class all summer long. It has even won a race. It is street legal, but Brent has it set up to be competitive, so it doesn’t see many road miles now.
Both cars have big-blocks and stick transmissions, as every Corvette should, and both are also fully ’caged and suspended to be legal, safe, and fast on the road course. The blue car has the least radical parts, since Brent races it on the vintage racing circuit where rules limit what you can do. The red car is more radical, makes 200 more horsepower, and has more chrome and detailing than 99 percent of the angel-hair parkers you’ve ever seen. The underside is just as clean, which should make any potential off-track situation a little bit of a nervous affair for Brent.
There is plenty of room for show-only hot rods in the hot rodding universe there always has been but Brent Jarvis’ series of fast Corvettes shows how you can have your pretty cake and eat it too.
Brent Jarvis, owner of Performance Restorations in Mundelein, Illinois,is one of us. A lifetime addiction to speed led him initially down the dragstrip as one of the early competitors in HOT ROD’s Fastest Street Car Shootout in the mid-’90s. We featured his very cool, low-8-second, Pro Street ’59 Corvette back in the Apr. ’96 issue after having seen and photographed the car at one of the FSCs at Memphis Motorsports Park. (He still owns that car, and it’s in the low 7s today.) His quote to us back then was, If it looks fast, it better be fast. A few years ago he contacted us and said he was building another Vette, this one a midyear model, and he asked if we wanted to feature it. It looked all the part of a full-on show car, but remembering that statement, we couldn’t resist taunting him: Sure, we’ll feature the car, but only if you’ll put it on a track and drive it in anger.
That car had killer suspension and a ton of power, but like so many of the showy Pro Touring cars back then, we doubted it would perform to the level of its equipment. We were wrong. Brent not only took us up on the dare but he also beat on the car for a full day on a road course. And it was fast. The testdriver, GM engineer and Pro Touring hero Mark Stielow, was even impressed at its out-of-the-box goodness.
When Brent called again a few months ago and told us about two more Corvettes he was doing, set up for the road course, with one more show than race but both fully capable of either, we had to see them. The red car (named Maxed Out) was found on RacingJunk.com as an abandoned road race car with fender flares and all. Brent picked it up to build another track car, but after going through the whole Performance Restoration redo, the car looked so good he decided to chrome it up and take it to some indoor shows. All the parts are there to cut some serious lap times, but the summer of 2010 saw the car hit the ISCA circuit. However, Brent assures us that once the trophies are collected (many of which already have been), the car gets sticky tires and will see track time. It has already lost its road course virginity, though not in a hard-core way; while being displayed in the House of Kolors booth at the ’10 SEMA show, it was chosen to compete in the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational the Saturday after the show. Brent drove the ’65 on the mandatory 60ish-mile cruise, but having never been on Pahrump, Nevada’s Spring Mountain Motorsports track before and with the car not totally sorted out for that kind of action, he took it pretty easy. Knowing his history and attitude toward cars, though, we have no doubt this pretty piece will see plenty of track time.
Once the direction changed on the red car, the blue car became the hard-core road racer. Brent bought it as a Pro Touring street car but got rid of the street part of it. This Vette still has some custom touches and excellent attention to detail, but it sees door-to-door action in an outlaw vintage racing class all summer long. It has even won a race. It is street legal, but Brent has it set up to be competitive, so it doesn’t see many road miles now.
Both cars have big-blocks and stick transmissions, as every Corvette should, and both are also fully ’caged and suspended to be legal, safe, and fast on the road course. The blue car has the least radical parts, since Brent races it on the vintage racing circuit where rules limit what you can do. The red car is more radical, makes 200 more horsepower, and has more chrome and detailing than 99 percent of the angel-hair parkers you’ve ever seen. The underside is just as clean, which should make any potential off-track situation a little bit of a nervous affair for Brent.
There is plenty of room for show-only hot rods in the hot rodding universe there always has been but Brent Jarvis’ series of fast Corvettes shows how you can have your pretty cake and eat it too.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Carroll Shelby's Column: "The Legend"
Nothing beats loving what you do in life...
I love what I do. Why else would I be doing it at 85 when it’s a full-time job tough enough to wear-out somebody half my age? Maybe it had to do with growing up in Texas then having to prove myself in all those early races I drove where the cars, most of them short on horse power, were only as good as how fast they could be run into a corner and whipped out again for the next straight.
That’s what racing sport cars in the early 1950s was and it gave me what I could take away from it to go on and do other things.
It wasn’t just cars that lit the fire in me to win. All the people in my life that I’ve known and loved have given me the strength to go for the top. So many of them will remain priceless friendships that are always with me and stay in my mind every day. I couldn’t ask for anything better than that.
In 1956, around the time I was winning a bunch of races in John Edgar’s 410 Ferrari, I met a wonderful man from Albuquerque named Dick Hall who, like John, was an out-and-out enthusiast. I’d been talking of having a dealership in Dallas, and with Dick’s financial backing we opened Carroll Shelby Motors there, from which a lot of very good things came and awakened the eyes of Texas to sport car racing.
What happened was — I went to England to talk to Brian Lister and I bought ten Lister chassis. Instead of the Jaguar engine, in my opinion underpowed at the time, we put in Chevrolet V8s and the Lister-Chevys turned out to be very, very successful.
At the same time we took on the distributorship for Maserati, and I ordered five 2-liter Maseratis with 2.5-litre engines, five 4.5-litre Maseratis, and a couple of 3-litres, as well as starting a Firestone tire distributorship. I was up to my ears in it all and having the time of my life.
Things were rocking along well when Dick Hall developed a terrible eye problem that eventually caused him to lose his sight. Dick said his younger brother, Jim, had just graduated from Cal-Tech with honors and was interested in coming into the business. Their father was a wealthy oilman who’d been killed in an accident, and Dick had the responsibility of settling the estate. So Jim came into the business and immediately got very involved as a driver and had the resources to be a car owner, and that was the initiation of Jim Hall and probably the start of where the Chaparral came from. I’d had connections with Ed Cole, the president of General Motors, and I began building those three Scaglietti Corvettes that, when Ed told me to pull out of it, went to Gary Laughlin and to Jim Hall, and I sold mine to a doctor in Houston.
In 1959, after winning Le Mans, I decided to think about making my own race cars. I looked around Texas and didn’t see any opportunity, so I reckoned that the only place to do it was California where Lance Reventlow had been successful with his Scarab.
I moved there and took on the Goodyear distributorship and, after we got my Cobras going and were winning races, I became a Ford man. This left things open at General Motors and Hap Sharp and Jim Hall went over to General Motors and put their deal together to build the GM-powered Chaparral. Both of those cars, Chaparral and Cobra, stemmed from my relationship with Dick Hall and Hap Sharp.
I’d always wanted to build my own — just driving race cars was not my top priority. If it had been, I’d have probably driven for Enzo Ferrari when he asked me to several times, but instead I choose to stay with John Wyer because it was always peace and contentment in the Aston Martin team, whereas at Ferrari it was, well, a little difficult at times. Sometimes the difficulties turned fatal.
What Dick Hall financed never made any significant money, but it almost certainly initiated what turned out to be the Chaparral and the Cobra. I want to give Dick Hall this credit no else ever has.
Unfortunately we lost Dick years ago, but what a wonderful friend he was.
All of the rest of this story is history. But I thought you might want to know where the Chaparral came from, and where the Cobra came from, a long time ago.
I still spend some time in California, some time in Texas, and a lot of time in Las Vegas building the Shelby Mustangs. We just signed a new five-year contact, and I’m looking forward to a lot of affordable new performance cars in our relationship with Ford. Like I’ve said, I love doing this ..................
I love what I do. Why else would I be doing it at 85 when it’s a full-time job tough enough to wear-out somebody half my age? Maybe it had to do with growing up in Texas then having to prove myself in all those early races I drove where the cars, most of them short on horse power, were only as good as how fast they could be run into a corner and whipped out again for the next straight.
That’s what racing sport cars in the early 1950s was and it gave me what I could take away from it to go on and do other things.
It wasn’t just cars that lit the fire in me to win. All the people in my life that I’ve known and loved have given me the strength to go for the top. So many of them will remain priceless friendships that are always with me and stay in my mind every day. I couldn’t ask for anything better than that.
In 1956, around the time I was winning a bunch of races in John Edgar’s 410 Ferrari, I met a wonderful man from Albuquerque named Dick Hall who, like John, was an out-and-out enthusiast. I’d been talking of having a dealership in Dallas, and with Dick’s financial backing we opened Carroll Shelby Motors there, from which a lot of very good things came and awakened the eyes of Texas to sport car racing.
What happened was — I went to England to talk to Brian Lister and I bought ten Lister chassis. Instead of the Jaguar engine, in my opinion underpowed at the time, we put in Chevrolet V8s and the Lister-Chevys turned out to be very, very successful.
At the same time we took on the distributorship for Maserati, and I ordered five 2-liter Maseratis with 2.5-litre engines, five 4.5-litre Maseratis, and a couple of 3-litres, as well as starting a Firestone tire distributorship. I was up to my ears in it all and having the time of my life.
Things were rocking along well when Dick Hall developed a terrible eye problem that eventually caused him to lose his sight. Dick said his younger brother, Jim, had just graduated from Cal-Tech with honors and was interested in coming into the business. Their father was a wealthy oilman who’d been killed in an accident, and Dick had the responsibility of settling the estate. So Jim came into the business and immediately got very involved as a driver and had the resources to be a car owner, and that was the initiation of Jim Hall and probably the start of where the Chaparral came from. I’d had connections with Ed Cole, the president of General Motors, and I began building those three Scaglietti Corvettes that, when Ed told me to pull out of it, went to Gary Laughlin and to Jim Hall, and I sold mine to a doctor in Houston.
In 1959, after winning Le Mans, I decided to think about making my own race cars. I looked around Texas and didn’t see any opportunity, so I reckoned that the only place to do it was California where Lance Reventlow had been successful with his Scarab.
I moved there and took on the Goodyear distributorship and, after we got my Cobras going and were winning races, I became a Ford man. This left things open at General Motors and Hap Sharp and Jim Hall went over to General Motors and put their deal together to build the GM-powered Chaparral. Both of those cars, Chaparral and Cobra, stemmed from my relationship with Dick Hall and Hap Sharp.
I’d always wanted to build my own — just driving race cars was not my top priority. If it had been, I’d have probably driven for Enzo Ferrari when he asked me to several times, but instead I choose to stay with John Wyer because it was always peace and contentment in the Aston Martin team, whereas at Ferrari it was, well, a little difficult at times. Sometimes the difficulties turned fatal.
What Dick Hall financed never made any significant money, but it almost certainly initiated what turned out to be the Chaparral and the Cobra. I want to give Dick Hall this credit no else ever has.
Unfortunately we lost Dick years ago, but what a wonderful friend he was.
All of the rest of this story is history. But I thought you might want to know where the Chaparral came from, and where the Cobra came from, a long time ago.
I still spend some time in California, some time in Texas, and a lot of time in Las Vegas building the Shelby Mustangs. We just signed a new five-year contact, and I’m looking forward to a lot of affordable new performance cars in our relationship with Ford. Like I’ve said, I love doing this ..................
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Bryan Fuller's 1961 Chevrolet "The Impaler"
Bryan Fuller's latest creation is a 1961 Chevrolet called the "Impaler," a car featuring a heavy aircraft influence in it's design and execution. A Hilborn injected ZZ572 powers the sled, and every panel has been massaged in some way. Check out the aluminum fabrication in the interior!
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