Sooner or later those of us who were mechanic's back then got to do their time with The Corvette. Whether we worked on them, had one or worked at a dealership the vette touched our lives. Over the decades I've had my flirtatious with the car. Drag raced them, worked on them, helped to show them at car shows even a show in Honolulu and man you should have seen the collection there...thanks for compiling this piece of Penske vette history. Very important, and very well presented.
I got to see the blue version many years ago when the corvette shop a block away from our shop, was reconditioning it for Penske to drive around a race track one last time before it was supposed to land in some museum. He brought it to our shop to set the alignment. Some of my observations if memory serves: Really thin fiber glass! I thought I would crack it if I leaned on it. It also had these big fat fabric straps looped under each rear drive shafts to limit suspension travel if it unloaded through a turn or dip at track speeds. Also, each suspension part had a large serial# stenciled on. I heard many months later that the clutch let go before Roger made it one lap.
Just sold family's 427 block, crank, L88 heads, and a vintage tunnel ram, after having them in storage for 24+ years. The renewed interest in restoration of 1960's muscle/road race cars back to spec. is really running up the prices nowadays.
‘67, or at least that’s when it was made available to the public. Makes complete sense that Chevrolet would give them a test run in a race car before making them available though.
The first "heavy duty 427" was built in mid '65. It was essentially the engine that would become known as the "L88", having 12.5 to 1 compression, high rise aluminum intake, high flowing heads... although they were made of cast iron at first. One of the early prototypes was actually snuck out of the factory in a stock '65 Corvette and installed into one of the '63 Grand Sport racers, but I don't recall which one. By the time the '66 models were introduced, the "heavy duty 427" could be ordered through parts departments at certain dealers, but they weren't advertised, so only racers like Penske knew about them. During the '66 model year, they could be ordered in a Corvette, essentially factory built, through the "COPO" program. They would pull an almost complete '66 Corvette from the assembly line and the engineers would swap the stock 427s with the "heavy duty 427s", then they'd send the cars straight to the racers. That's how the featured car in this video came to be. Around this time, they started using the closed chamber aluminum heads, though I'm not sure which heads this car has. In the late summer of '66, GM lifted its ban on factory supported racing for the '67 model year in order for the Camaros and Firebirds to compete with Mustangs in the Trans Am competitions, so the "heavy duty 427" was offered as a regular production option (RPO L88) in the Corvette that year. The HD 427s installed in '67 L88 Corvettes used the aluminum heads, but they were painted orange along with the block and valve covers. In mid '68 the L88 camshaft got more lift and duration, and the aluminum heads weren't painted. In mid '69 they switched to open chamber aluminum heads and again gave the cam more lift and duration. Also in mid '69 the new ZL1 package was introduced, which used an aluminum block as well as the new open chamber aluminum heads and the latest L88 cam. After the '69 model year, the L88 and ZL1 options were discontinued, but racers could still order L88 engines through dealership parts departments. Since the late '70s, the engines have changed over the years, but last I knew the same basic "L88" 427 could still be ordered from GM.
@@livewire2759 thats a lot of history there! Thanks for the info. By the way my big block Nova has a pair of those closed chamber, rectangle port, big valve L88 heads. Discovered this recently while checking the casting numbers.
@@livewire2759 That's a great copy and paste but there are flaws in it, mainly about the GS, every one of them were fit with a 377CI small block, I have the original FIA data sheet for them, 1-5 were all small blocked when they left after Zora OK'd them. Smokey Yunick, Bill Jenkins and Mickey Thompson were the ones playing around with big block Corvettes, as a matter of fact Yunick still had some experimental big blocks in his shop and he would talk your ear off if you asked about them. Thompson put 427's in the 63 ZO6 Tankers and ran them in Daytona. Jenkins left GM when they pulled the plug in 63 and went on his own in 66 and ended up going with SBC's and set the class record at Nationals in Indy in 66, beating hemi's, he lost on a red light but ran faster than Stahls 426 and with his 327 Nova. I guess you had to be there to experience it and know what really happened. The car in the video is a replica in looks, nothing else, it's been made over by today's standards.
@@ericjohnson8482 Copy and paste huh... LOL It was mostly from memory, so I expected a few flaws. I'm well aware that the Grand Sports were all small block cars originally, but they were still experimented with even after GM's racing ban. One of them was given a "mystery motor", the Mark II 427, in '63 at the same time the SS Impalas were racing them. That engine was pulled and the 377 was reinstalled. Then in '65, the new Mark IV 427 was experimented with, one was put in a GS, tested for a short period of time, then again the 377 was reinstalled. Now, I'll admit, I could be remembering wrong, maybe it wasn't a GS that the L88 was first tested in, I'll have to research that again. I'm also aware that Thompson, Yunick and Jenkins were playing around with big block Corvettes, but it also may have been one of Penske's Z06s that first got the L88 in '65... like I said, I'll have to look it up again.
I was wondering that as well. Considering that Penske modified the body in lots of other ways, maybe they installed the '65 grille because they thought it would flow better... ?
Sadly from 2030 on all combustion cars including classics will be banned from public streets in entire EU and Scandinavia :-( In Germany the Green Peoples Party gave order to shorten fuel supply from 2025 on by reducing all conventional fuel stations to only one state operated central gas station per city or county. Now they even want to slow down all the gas pumps from 20 litre per minute to 2 litre per minute...From 2027 on in the EU certain car spare parts will be banned too....as exhaust systems, turbo chargers and even some engine and gearbox oils...California and New York will do the same from 2027 on.... So no investments should be done in oil burning cars any longer....They even created a new kind of crime here, called emissions and smoke crime. Called Bundesabgasbespaßungsverordnung in German.... :-(///
