HamadUP

Thats interesting. Please carry on and dont let that thread die.

70Donnybrooke

When I talked to the guy he told me the whole story. He said he bought an L-88 and found out that they were building this new type of engine. He then went to the dealer and found out he could order it and so he traded in the L-88 on it. He told me it took for ever to arrive because GM did not know if they should release it with the TH-400 in it. When finally arrived they took it for a ride around the block. He said it did not drive very different from the L-88. On the way back he thought he would really get on it. When he did it cracked like hell and took off. When they got back they found out that they had put a 2 inch exhaust on it and when he floored it, it cracked in half.

He did race it for years. When he stopped racing he put the car in the garage and let it sit. One year he wanted to take it to Corvettes at Carlisle. He tried to start it and it it would not crank. It turns out that a mouse climbed up the open exhaust. Found an open exhaust valve and made a nest in a cylinder. When he tried to start it he bent a rod.

Since by this time he knew that value of the car, he ordered a new engine to put in and rebuilt the original. And yes he still races it.

jr9170

HamadUP

interesting story, anybody got any videos for this car in action??

427-390

Warren,

Thanks for clarifying. I was reading the book "Corvette America's Sports Car" by Randy Leffingwell the other day and it shows the white ZL-1 coupe that was purchased by Jack Cheskaty for the sum of almost 10K in 1969. After he did some tweaks to the car, he was able get that beast down the 1/4 mile in 10.5 seconds @ 132 MPH. I have seen a B/W picture of the car in it's glory (The Predator) and always thought that this was a legit ZL-1. In that book, it also states that "Historian Anthony Young reports that Chevy built 154 ZL-1 engines of which 59 went into Camaros. A third complete car was builf for Zora Duntov as a development mule". So it looks like at least 3 were built and the White coupe may have had the engine changed out upon arrival at the dealership. That would account for 4 ZL-1 cars.

DZRick

It was actually 69, I assume it was a typo on your part.

Big Block 69

When Mr. Chetasky Bought the White Car as a new car, It had about 100 miles on it. Anything could have happened during that time. One Magazine guessed that "anything" did happen during that 100 miles and the car was updated to ZL1 status by the dealership. They would have passed the cost on to the new owner. That may be why the build sheet says L88 and the Price paid was for the ZL1.

427-390

No worries. Checked the book again, it says 59 Zl-1's for '69 Camaros. Typo on the publishers part maybe? By all accounts, I have read that there were 69 ZL-1's for '69 Camaros too, but who am I to argue with a GM historian?

TheSkunkWorks

My understanding is that there were some 69 '69 ZL1 Camaros built.

ETM

Is this the engine that dominated Can Am Racing in the late 60s?

TheSkunkWorks

That's the one, except some teams such as McLaren played around with different bore/stroke combos. Many of them had a set of these on top...





edit/correction - I failed to mention that Reynolds actually produced a good number of the aluminum (high-silicone / no cylinder liners) big blocks which wound up in Can-Am racers, including those of McLaren.

international blue

This set of (ZL-1) cars gets a bit tiresome, as people keep adding cars to the total (two) not understanding the basis for the two. That being ordered, invoiced, completed and sold.

THERE WERE TWO. THATS IT. The two cars we speak of were built stickered and sold to the "public" as it were. The coupe is the most verifiable, or at least has been verified for the longest time. The second car was an unknown, and weather or not it was a coupe or vert or whatever was a question.

The white car arrived in a heated marketplace and in the collection of a very prominent collector. It was essentially taken on faith by a lot of folks, and published a bunch of times. Instant authenticity?

The Orange car has been around for years, but "surfaced" after the white car's coming out party. The Orange Vert AUTOMATIC threw everyone, and most felt it was not real, after all both "real cars are M-22's...But the reality SEEMS to be that it was in fact the Orange car, built on the right week, that is the true second ZL-1.

As for the MULE...its a white 68, serial unknown that was modded. The second car, and others like BOTH Mako Sharks all ran ZL-1 powerplants...The fact is GM probably had them in at least 10 to 15 cars!

THERE are 2 invoiced ZL-1 cars. There are now many modded ZL-1 cars that are just as cool, but not as valuable...These are the ones you can drive!

Real I guess...


Oh and a couple of "Drivers"

jr9170

Blue,do you have any other pics of the ZL-1 driver with the Illinois plates?

jr9170

I remember reading somewhere on the forum that the white 68 Zora ZL-1 was found and being restored.Does anybody else remember this post?

international blue

This car was allegedly destroyed at the GM proving grounds. According to GM anyway.

It would however make a great car to replicate...

international blue

From Vette...stories and pics Paul Zazarine

It isn't often I get the chance to photograph a Corvette twice, but this isn't just any Corvette. Seventeen years ago, I shot this LeMans Blue '69 roadster for another publication, and at that time the question arose if the car was a real ZL1 Corvette. The owner made no claims that it was, but much of the car's configuration was right enough to be either an L88 or maybe-just maybe-a 585hp ZL1.

For those unacquainted, the saga of the ZL1 Corvette reads like a Tom Clancy novel. The ZL1 was a midyear engine release for the '69 Corvette and was slated to replace the legendary L88. It boasted a beefier, all-aluminum block; stouter connecting rods; and open-chamber heads that flowed better than the L88's. The ZL1 was also lighter, weighing about the same as the L46 small-block. And it was expensive. The ZL1 option cost $4,718.35, while a '69 Corvette coupe cost $4,781.00.



The ZL1 option also required a handful of mandatory options-the F41 Special Front and Rear Suspension ($36.90), G81 Positraction rear axle ($46.35), J56 Special Heavy Duty Brakes ($384.45), and K66 Transistorized Ignition ($81.10)-raising the total price of the ZL1 package to $5,267.15. And that was on top of the Corvette's base sticker, so if no other options were ordered, the tab for a ZL1 Vette was a hefty $10,048.15. Radio and air conditioning were not available with the ZL1 engine.



With that nosebleed price tag, not many ZL1s were produced. Records from the Tonawanda engine plant revealed 94 ZL1 engines with Corvette prefixes were built-80 coded for use with manual transmissions and 14 for use with automatics. It's acknowledged among Corvette historians that the majority of these engines were sold to racers, but a few went over dealers' parts counters to private parties. Although two ZL1s were sold to the public, only one has provenance and pedigree (read: documentation). The other has never been fully documented.



Before these engineering cars were retired, both Popular Hot Rodding and Road & Track magazines got their editorial mitts on one. PHR was able to run an 11.0 at 129.45 mph in the quarter-mile. R&T took the 2,945-pound ZL1 and recorded 0-60-mph acceleration in 4.0 seconds, while the quarter-mile was over in a short 12.1 at 116 mph. These were mind-boggling speeds and took the standard Corvette chassis and brake systems beyond their design limits. Unfortunately, all this Saturn-rocket stuff was quickly over. Duntov and his staff knew the ZL1 would have to be cut in 1970 to meet stringent new EPA guidelines. But it was glorious while it was around.



There are also a handful of ZL1-equipped '69 Corvettes in the hands of the Chevrolet Engineering Department, including one once piloted by Chief Engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov. The story goes that these cars were used as performance testbeds for driveline and suspension upgrades. What happened to them remains a mystery, although it's believed the engines were yanked, the production big-blocks reinstalled, and the cars put up for sale. And where did the ZL1 engines go?



Our feature Corvette is now in the hands of Rick Treworgy, of Punta Gorda, Florida. Rick's owned the car since 2001, and he's researched the car's provenance. He believes it started life as a big-block, perhaps an L88, especially since it was minus the radio straight from the factory. Some of the numbers on the Corvette and the ZL1 look tantalizingly close, but no cigar.

The owner of record in the mid-'70s purchased the '69 in baskets, and the Holy Grail of Corvette restorers-the tank sticker-was long gone. The tank sticker is a copy of the build manifest and contains information about the car, including the options and accessories as equipped from St. Louis. With it, you have full documentation. Without it, well, you have supposition. Like the yellow ZL1 that belongs to Roger Judski, Rick's car has the black stripe that runs the width of the headlamp panel and up along the rise of the front fenders. It's been there since the car was restored in the '70s. Also still fitted on the roadster is the RPO C07 Auxiliary Hardtop.



Rick isn't hung up on the '69 roadster's mysterious past and how it ended up with the most exotic and most powerful production engine Chevrolet ever sold to the public. All he knows is that it's one hell of a car to drive. The restoration done years ago has held up well, with the only visible change being the replacement of the Western turbine wheels for a correct set of Rally road wheels. One thing that hasn't changed is the curiosity that surrounds this car. Did it start life as an L88? As I wrote in 1989, only Chevrolet knows for sure.

Dr L-88

Man that injection setup is way cool!!!

Got any other neat weird stuff like that?

ETM

Driving those cars without fan shrouds must have been alot of fun back in the day.Especially in traffic.

international blue

Not designed for traffic, in fact the reason they were delivered without was to push buyers to the L-71 or L-89. These were the highest listed horsepower cars for a reason....

ETM

yeah they were pure race cars.

Race cars dont need fan shrouds,radios and heaters.