Donut Media Covers the Story of the Original Corvette Grand Sport

Zora Arkus-Duntov’s Cobra-killing Corvette survived for a while, despite GM’s best efforts to make it go away.

By now, most Corvette fans are intimately familiar with the story of the original Grand Sport. The brainchild of Zora Arkus-Duntov, the C2 Grand Sport came about from a desire to take down Ford and the Shelby Cobra on the race track. Arkus-Duntov planned on building 125 street-legal examples to satisfy homologation rules. There was just one problem, of course. Boring GM big wigs found out about this secret program and killed it after just five examples were built.

Today, the original Corvette Grand Sport is a revered slice of “what could have been.” And that alone makes this video from Donut Media worth a watch. Well, that and the rapid fire comedy that host James Pumphrey always belts out with perfection. Thus, Pumphrey is able to cover the entire history of the Grand Sport and how it came to be in just over 15 minutes. And the video packs plenty of historical clips, to boot.

“Zora had a red-hot desire to go win the Le Mans GT class with his Corvette,” Pumphrey said. “But his plump, overweight Chevy was no match for the Cobra.” At the time, GM held 53% of the market, and antitrust laws tied their hands in regards to building a factory race car. So Arkus-Duntov went a bit under the radar, securing “unofficial” help from Bunkie Knudsen to produce a lightweight Corvette.

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The mastermind quickly got to work and successfully redesigned the C2 Corvette into a Cobra-eating monster. All seemed to be going to plan, until GM brass found out about the project. “They sent Zora a message to shut it down,” said Pumphrey. “And he did. At least, that’s what he told them. Not only was he told to shut it down, he was told to destroy them.”

Instead of following orders, Arkus-Duntov sent three of the cars out to race. The other two were whisked away to a secret storage area. He then ignored yet another request from GM to cease and desist, instead modifying the cars to make them better. And they went on to experience some solid success, despite any sort of proper support and development. Eventually, Arkus-Duntov was forced to kill his dream. So today the original Corvette Grand Sport just leaves us wondering – what could have been?

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