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Yenko was a Chevrolet dealer in Pittsburgh. He was famous for modifying Camaros...etc.....but as for Corvette, he never marketed modified high performance Corvettes. So......he sold Corvettes, making them Yenko Corvettes, but nothing special. My 77 had a Yenko badge on the back....nothing special then, just a Corvette dealer selling a production car.
Well said. I had a 69 Camaro years ago. So I am familiar with Yenko Camaro's. Never heard of it associated with Corvette's.
You have a 4 speed Corvette. That's a good one! What more do you need!
Don Yenko started out racing Corvettes in the 57 and continued to race them through the early 70's (he was supposed to co-drive with John Greenwood and Dick Smothers in the 72 LeMans 24 Hour but broke his leg mountain biking and missed the race).
The first Yenko Sports Car was the 65 "Yenko Stinger" modified Corvair that was offered in both street and road racing versions. When the Camaro came out in 67 he initially started out modifying 67 Z/28's for road racing selling them under the name "Yenko Stormer", but I think he only found two buyers. Shortly after he started dropping 427's into 67 Camaro's and the first Yenko Camaro was born, though he first sold them as the "Yenko Super Camaro". He continued to sell 427 powered Yenko Camaros in 68 and 69. In 69 he also built 427 powered Yenko Chevelle's and in 70 built LT-1 powered Nova's called the "Yenko Duece". In 71 Yenko sold a handful of turbo charged Vega's called the "Yenko Turbo-Stinger", and in 1980 he revived his car building business when he introduced the "Yenko Turbo-Z", a turbocharged 80 Z28, but he program died after about 20 cars were sold.
He sold race parts for Corvettes (and Camaro's) and built many road racing Corvettes and Camaro's for customers throughout the 60's and 70's, but he never built a modified, street going "Yenko Corvette".
Like so many racers (and other performers), Don Yenko died in a private plane crash around 87-88. Rumor has it that Don's first race car, a 57 Corvette, is part of a private car collection in South Jersey?
Welcome to the Forum! How about some pictures of your Corvette?
The car on that invoice is the SR2 that Bill Tower owns. It's the 2nd of the three (or four, I think there's some debate?) SR2's built, but I don't really know the full history to it. Either way, it's not Yenko's first race car.
Yenko started out racing a 57 Corvette in 1957, in SCCA B Production. In 61 he switched to a 61 Corvette and won the SCCA BP National Championship with it. In 63 he raced a Daytona Blue 63 Z06 tanker, the Meister Brauser Scarab and the white Grady Davis Z06. Sometime during 63-64 Yenko started racing what I've seen described as a "light weight" 57 he built and successfully raced in BP against newer Corvettes and GT-350's. In the pictures I've seen of the car it has a stock body, not the extended nose and driver fairing found on SR2 number 2, but it may be the same car since the SCCA wouldn't have permitted that bodywork in the production classes?
There's been a 70 ZR1 Corvette for sale on and off for a few years that's been advertised as a "Yenko Corvette", but as far as I know it's just a stock ZR1 that happened to be sold by Yenko. To my knowledge it wasn't modified by Yenko in anyway.
There was a book out a few years ago about Yenko that both Donna Mae Mims (Corvette Racer and manager at Yenko) and Yenko's long time crew chief Warren Dernoshek (I think that's the correct spelling) contributed too. I've met Warren a few times, as well as his son Logan, who vintage races an original 66 Yenko Stinger. I first met them at Indy 6 or 7 years ago when we were paddocked by them at the Indy Vintage races. I must say it was quite fascinating talking about Don Yenko, Yenko cars and racing with Yenko's former crew chief!
I'm sure they got stories that only a hand full of people could relate. Both Yenko and Roger Penske rank up there with any Corvette people who put them on the racing map in the early days.
I am well aware of them. I have seen a fair share of real ones. what I am saying is they were regular chevy dealer and their bread and butter was selling normal chevy cars and trucks. the high-performance cars most likely took 5% of their sale numbers.
Last edited by Nowhere Man; Jun 11, 2023 at 04:55 PM.
I am well aware of them. I have seen a fair share of real ones. what I am saying is they were regular chevy dealer and their bread and butter was selling normal chevy cars and trucks. the high-performance cars most likely took 5% of their sell numbers.
Right! I didn't mean to muddy the main point of this thread. While Yenko Stingers are notable today, they were still a small percentage of the Yenko dealership's Corvair sales.
Special "Yenko" Corvettes were exactly 0% of Yenko's car sales. They only sold stock Corvettes as-delivered from GM.
My 77 is a Yenko Corvette......bought and lived in Pittsburgh area all its life so far....I am third owner. But.....it means nothing. When I bought the car, it had one of those chrome dealer emblems on the rear bumper.......I sold it on Ebay for like $50......!!
Yenko was a Chevrolet dealer in Pittsburgh. He was famous for modifying Camaros...etc.....but as for Corvette, he never marketed modified high performance Corvettes. So......he sold Corvettes, making them Yenko Corvettes, but nothing special. My 77 had a Yenko badge on the back....nothing special then, just a Corvette dealer selling a production car.
Thanks....I watched a YouTube video where a dealership had a car that looked identical to mine and the salesman was making the point that it was special because it was a (yenko) corvette. The only 'badging' it has was a yenko sticker on the back window. Anyway, that is why I was curious.
