Callaway Cars Gets It Own Special Exhibit at the Corvette Museum

The Corvette Museum is celebrating 35 years of Callaway Cars churning out faster versions of America’s sports car.

It may seem hard to believe, but Callaway Cars has been building and selling some of the coolest, fastest Corvettes on the planetfor 35 years now. However, the company actually got its big break back in 1977, when Reeves Callaway was wrenching on BMW 3-Series models in his own garage. He soon developed a turbocharger for the long-running model that was picked up by Car & Driver, and the rest, as they say, is history. Now, that 35 years of rich history is begin celebrated with a new exhibit at the National Corvette Museum dubbed “Callaway Corvettes: 35 Years of Making Fast Faster.”

Following his successful dabbling in the world of BMW, Callaway began working on making a variety of other models more powerful, including the Alfa Romeo GTV6, a twin-turbocharged machine that caught the eye of General Motors brass at the time, as it was tinkering around with the idea of turbocharging the Corvette. After exhausting its own efforts at such a build, Corvette chief engineer Dave McLellan enlisted Callaway Cars to come up with a prototype for the automaker.

The resulting powertrain option was introduced in June 1986 under Regular Production Option (RPO) B2K, churning out an impressive 345 horsepower and 465 pound-feet of torque. Available through select Chevy dealers, the Callaway powertrain continues to hold the distinction of being the only engine package for the Corvette produced outside of GM to hold an RPO code. Between 1987 and 1991, 510 of these special Corvettes were built in total.

From there, Callaway Cars continued to blossom after finding its calling in the Corvette. It continued to develop and evolve its offerings, eventually conjuring up the legendary AeroBody, which debuted on the Callaway Sledgehammer Corvette that wound up hitting a top speed of 254.76 miles-per-hour, setting a record that would stand for a quarter-century. Countless other iconic builds would follow, including the Speedster, SuperNatural, and the company’s own ground-up creation, the C12, to name a few.

Today, Callaway Cars continues to churn out performance parts and turnkey versions of the Corvette, producing an ultra-limited C8, as well as supercharger kits for the mid-engine version of the legendary sports car. Those that are interested in reliving this history can now do so at the Corvette Museum via this special exhibit, which contains a host of the company’s creations and is set to run through February 2023.

Photos: Corvette Museum

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