One of the draws of SEMA is that you know you are going to see some cool custom cars and in our opinion, one of the best custom vettes on display at this year’s show was Rod Saboury’s 1963 Split Window Corvette he calls ?Black Widow?. If Rod’s name rings a bell, it’s because Saboury was also the man behind the World’s fastest street Legal 1963 Corvette drag car which we featured just last month.

Rod had put his 1963 Corvette drag car for sale on eBay last month but the car has yet to sell despite several offers. Proclaiming that his racing days are over, Rod says his new project car ?Black Widow? was built to be a much ?easier? Corvette to cruise around than that drag Corvette.

Rod has always had a liking for mid-year Coupes going way back and in fact, 18 of the 20 custom cars he has built over his 40 year career have been Corvettes. So when he came across a 1963 basket case heaped upon a pallet at last year’s Corvettes at Carlisle, he knew he found the basis for his next show car build. FYI to you purists out there ? no split windows were harmed in the making of ?Black Widow?!

The split window body was mated to Legacy Innovation’s Legacy C2 RSE all-tube chassis. Powering the Corvette is a stock Supercharged LS9 crate engine and a custom hood was fabricated to show off the top of the 638 hp V8 engine. Rod mated the LS9 to a 6-speed Tremec manual transmission and a 9″ inch Ford rear end. Just because his racing days are over doesn’t mean Rod doesn’t want to fast and that’s what the Black Widow was meant to do.
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Saying that stock Corvette ZR1s are running the quarter mile in the 9′s, Rod says his goal with ?Black Widow? is to run a 8.90. ?That would be really cool to get this car into the eights?, he told us.

The build time for Black Widow took about 8 months and like all SEMA cars, this custom build went right down to the wire. The builders were planning on using the stock red for the exterior and a red interior. But after working out the design elements, they settled for a darker red color from BASF and that meant the stock red interior was no longer a match. With a week out from SEMA, Rod and his team took two days to swap out the complete red interior for a black interior from our friends at CorvetteAmerica.com.

Other features on ?Black Widow? include a Borla SS exhaust which exits the side of the Corvette in front of the doors, Wilwood brakes, a custom stereo system, custom interior gauges and a push-to-start ignition.

Rod said that after SEMA, they?ll take another two weeks to really finish the Corvette and get it ready to go driving. All said and done, ?Black Widow? took just over 8 months to build and total cost is ballparked at $200,000. Rod said the custom red/black Corvette isn’t for sale, but reminded us that he knows where a 6-second Split Window Corvette is for sale and says the owner is motivated to sell.

After the successful coming-out party at SEMA, we’re sure you’ll be hearing more about Rod and Tina Saboury’s 1963 Split Window ?Black Widow? Corvette.

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