Five prototype Grand Sports were built before parent company GM got a whiff of what was cookin’ in the raceshop. Where Ferrari and Porsche relied on sculpted, flowing lines and the Shelby Cobras were voluptuous, the Corvette C2's angular lines on the Grand Sport were cut open for air pressure-relieving slats and other competition modifications. Every component was built to bring the fight to Ford, Ferrari, Porsche and any top-tier team thinking they’ve got a right to stand at the top of the podium. With Chevy Division head, Bunky Knudson giving his thumbs-up, Arkus-Duntov and his team would create an 1800lb racing-only monster, eventually christened the Corvette Grand Sport. Even worse, GM was officially sticking to a 1957 agreement banning direct factory involvement in racing. Shelby’s Cobras were winning everything in sight and Chevy’s Corvette challengers were just too heavy to make an impact.

Ford was rolling full bore in their “Total Performance” program. In 1962, Chevrolet’s Director of High Performance, Zora Arkus-Duntov, began a secret project called, The Lightweight. To understand just what a big deal the DP is for GM and endurance racing, we have to go back over 50 years… In three years, the DP’s have notched up 22 victories and are a constant threat in the IMSA/Tudor United SportsCar Championship. A buzzkill for the assembled GM suits, but better things were to come and come quickly. That first year the Daytona Prototypes finished 5 th and 8 th in the 24-hour Florida classic. It was designed and custom fabricated wholly as a race car, and built in a partnership between GM, Coyote Cars and GM’s de facto racing squad, Pratt and Miller Engineering. But class wins are class wins, and the Corvette DP is a different animal.

For years, the yellow factory stock-based C5 and C6 ‘Vettes had been winning in their classes and stamping a steel bowtie across road-racing in both the US and Europe. Sprayed the perfect shade of US Racing blue, it was the mid-engine V-8 pushrod Super ‘Vette that everyone had been hoping for, and speculating about, for decades. Three years ago, Chevrolet Racing pulled the sheet off of the Corvette Daytona Prototype, to a collective gasp that flowed from the Daytona Speedway across the internet and into the minds of everyone who laid eyes on it. Chevy Finally Gets Serious with Corvette Daytona Prototype

Daytona prototype