Callaway Corvettes at the 2024 Greenwich Concours and Beyond

As the Greenwich Concours continues to evolve, Corvette aficionados were treated to a special display of Callaway editions.   

One owner upgraded his car, at least to his mind, to surpass the prodigious performance of the revolutionary Sledgehammer.

Per former Chevy chief engineer Don Runkle, “the late Reeves Callaway came along at a time when emissions regulations and blended pump gas were smothering performance.”

 Reeves was a gifted engineer with a personality to match.  He prepared the “Sledgehammer" by building upon the RPO B2K twin turbo 350.  With adjustable boost, it was designed to put an end to the endless “how fast" articles in magazines.  For aerodynamics, Reeves hired Paul Deutschman, a brilliant designer from Montreal CN who worked on the Sledgehammer and all Callaway race cars thereafter.

In October 1988, John Linginfelter reached a record 254.76 mph on the 7.5-mile oval at the Ohio Proving Grounds.  He drove the Sledgehammer nearly one-thousand miles there and back on public highways from Old Lyme CT.

Along the lines of the Sledgehammer, Boris Said drove a ZR1 version in the IMSA Supercar series circa 1991-1995.

 A chance encounter with Ernst Woehr a race car builder from Leingarten Germany led to a partnership known as Callaway Competition that debuted their first chassis known as “Freida” in 1995 at Le Mans.

 Two more chassis raced in Europe and Le Mans, backed by the late driver Count Riccardo Giovanni "Rocky" Agusta.

The fenders on a more powerful fourth car were enlarged to cover fatter tires and appeared in 1997 at Daytona, Le Mans and the SCCA WC.

 All survive despite the near disaster in 2022 at the HSR Classic 24 but that’s another story.

 https://skiautosports.com/2022/11/05/video-save-of-the-century/

 The same for Callaway’s role in homologating the C6 Corvette for GT3 racing abroad; the revolutionary C7 GT3.R and a tribute to honor Reeves Sept 2023 at M1 Concours.

Photo credits: Lance Miller, Stephane Covoit, Patrick Durand, Callaway Cars, Kent Hussey, Jan Hyde