Missing ZL-1?

Kid Vette

Kid Vette

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I just noticed this pic in Dr. Peter J. Gimenez's book "Corvette Racing Legends, The Story of the L-88 Option Package".

thum_534a33a083eb073.jpg

The caption reads, "24 Hours of Le Mans 1970 pre-race in the pits. Henri Greder took delivery of a brand new ZL-1 Corvette from Zora Arkus-Duntov only weeks before the race. The 1969 model still retained its factory yellow paint and vinyl covering on the bolt-on hard top. Greder would codrive this ZL-1 Corvette with Jean-Pierre Rouget"

This apparently is not just referring to a ZL-1 engine but a ZL-1 model car. How come we never hear about this car? Anybody know what became of it?
 
Seem's I do remember this Corvette.
Let me ask Gib Hufstader about the car. I'm thinking it became a Greenwood car.
I'll also check with Corvetteregristry and get back. The minilites are a place in time to start.
Spice
 
work is slow and have nothing to do, soo, Did a bit of research, It's VIN no 194679-S-706401


http://c3registry.org/index.php?job=ShowCorvette&car_id=4244&uid=8261

first paragraph is in french so I'll try to translate the text that is related to this car.

Here's what mr Greder said about the car

I bought the car directly from Zora in 1969, it was a convertible with an automatic transmission. the convertible was not a deliberate choice, it was one of Zora's pool car so the price was unbeatable.
As a matter of fact, I was buying the cars and not GM France so it was always a matter of money same, thing with the Camaros .
Zora Duntov sent me this car with a ton of parts to make a race car out of it. This was done by my mecanics in my garage in de Gevilliers. Every years, Duntov would send me bunch of parts, engines, trannys diffs.
This Corvette was in constant evolution all of its racing life, that is until 75.
She was well maintained by Robert Sarrailh ( who is the current owner of the car), I was able to confirm it when I tried the car for 2 days in a meet at Clermont Ferrant last sept (2008)

Henry E. Greder about the ZL1:

The ZL1 block originaly didn't have steel sleeves. the pistons were directly in contact with the specially treated alu cylinder walls. this is why Zora didn't trust the engines. the newer blocks now have steel sleeves.
Just before the race in Pau au Tour Auto 70, one of my mecanics, while trying to clean up the engine bay, blew some compressed air on it. He blew some in the air intake of the Holley carb deforming a float.
He realized it right away but we didn't have enough time to fix it before the race.
The engine didn't run well for the race and we changed the carb afterward but the damages were already done.
A piston let go and destroyed the only ZL1 that I ever owned.
I never blamed the brave and really good mecanic for it because he surely didn't do it deliberately.
He was the first to be sorry.


Dont know where this enterview was taken but it was in January 3, 2009


Hope it was readable.
 
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Sounds like the ZL1 was a replacement engine for the car:

From the c3registry
Back to 1969. For the 24 Hours of Le Mans 1970, Zora Duntov send me one of his pool Corvette convertible with hardtop and all parts to built a better race car. VIN # 194679 -S – 706401 I prepared my new Corvette which was Yellow. I entered the new Corvette in the 24 Hours of Le Mans 1970 (race #2) and finish 10th overall. I raced th Tour de France Auto 1970 with a ZL1 engine that Zora had sent to me. Unfortunately this engine blow up due to a mechanic mistake. Then I entered it to the 1000 Kilometers of Paris held in Montlhéry track with my girlfriend Marie-Claude Beaumont as co-driver. We finished pretty well, I guess 2nd in GT class.
 
owner has this ZL-1 that is carring an L-88.

number's for the car and equipment are correct for a ZL1.
Car is located in calif. Correct place for a car being sent back from europe's LeMans, And the southern California hot rodder's of the time, Guldstrand and like.
Oh yes. another note. This car was yellow, and owner is about to paint it back to yellow. Also noted the car was a radio delete.

I hae a call to Gib Hufstader and waiting his return call. If anyone can give us the real scoop of this car, it's going to be Gib.
ALso went to see today Roger Judski who owns the real ZL-1 Yellow Coupe.
Roger as most people know, owns Rogers Corvette. There in his business, he houses 50 plus Corvettes of every year that are all pristeine Corvettes of every year, and all his Corvettes have extreme low, low miles.Less thatn 1,000 miles on any car. original to the bone. Roger's been doing this all his life, in fact he's been collecting, and selling for all his adult life as well as mine. We go back some 40+ years together.
I asked roger about the car, it was new to him. He feels only 2 people could answer this question of this car. 1 Zora, and 2 Gib Hufstader. If there is any truth to the car, it's HUGE, and it's HUGE dollars in the RACE CAR COLLECTORS. In the Bloomingtons Gold arena, it's not so at all. Just another Corvette one reeads about in the histroy book and you say to yourself, INTERESTING. But that's it.
 
Looks like it has the original Torq-Thrust "D"s on it. I'd give my left nut for a set of those! :gurney:

Edit: D'oh! Ebay ad says they're Ansens.
 
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ansens, torque thrust, they're period correct is how I see it. However, the minilites are available for the car today.
As I mentioned, this could well be the car. However, it may well not be .
As Roger was saying, more and more Corvette's are sold every year, the hype in corvette racing and race fan's are more and every year. And most of all more and more are found every year, due to this interest.
I'm not so hooked that the Lemans car might well still be owned and in it's orginal condition by it's last known owner. Could well be.
 
The beautiful Chevy powered BlueThunder March GTP's

I'm sure Red racer and a few other's remember these awesome March's. Don and Dale Wittington drove these machines. The one went on to win the championship GTP title.
Later the two brother's went on to Prision for selling dope. How they supported their racing lust. Sh** happens.
I however 3 year's ago got this sudden bug, What ever happened to the car's? I'd then as now kept saying to myself those cars have never been seen. No historical racing body know's, the car just up and disappeared.
Well it took me a 1 1/2 year to trace the car's down. And sure enough not only did the Blue Thunder Chevy GTP car appear, the orginal Buick Grand National LM GTP/GroupC car showed up as well. Sitting in as well all now refer to as BARN FIND out in Arizona. WITH ALL the spares for both car's.
Called a friend of mine and engineer who had worked with the car's when they raced, Tim Albright, of Albright race engineering, and passed along the info.
Timmy had buyer's for both car's. And for him, he got to restore the March's back to life. WHAT a blast.
 
Spice said:
I'm sure Red racer and a few other's remember these awesome March's. Don and Dale Wittington drove these machines. The one went on to win the championship GTP title.
Later the two brother's went on to Prision for selling dope. How they supported their racing lust. Sh** happens.
I however 3 year's ago got this sudden bug, What ever happened to the car's? I'd then as now kept saying to myself those cars have never been seen. No historical racing body know's, the car just up and disappeared.
Well it took me a 1 1/2 year to trace the car's down. And sure enough not only did the Blue Thunder Chevy GTP car appear, the orginal Buick Grand National LM GTP/GroupC car showed up as well. Sitting in as well all now refer to as BARN FIND out in Arizona. WITH ALL the spares for both car's.
Called a friend of mine and engineer who had worked with the car's when they raced, Tim Albright, of Albright race engineering, and passed along the info.
Timmy had buyer's for both car's. And for him, he got to restore the March's back to life. WHAT a blast.
Click to expand...

INteresting, parallel story of Modifications Unlimited in Kensington Maryland, mid 60's to early 70's.....owner brothers got into drugs, they used to build some crazy shit, even had a repair franchise for Ferrari, Lambo, some others....they built/modded vettes quite a bit too....

:suspicious:
 
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