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30 Years Ago, The Callaway Sledgehammer... Record Setting Corvette, and the video:
30 Years Ago, The Callaway Sledgehammer... Record Setting Corvette, and the video:
30 years ago today the #sledgehammer project departs the factory in Old Lyme and is driven to TRC in Ohio, where it would achieve the long-standing record of 254.76 mph. What’s in a name? Here’s an excerpt from the files:
“Das Ist Der Hammer”
Corvette was never on the European short list of favorite cars. Ferrari, Aston, Lamborghini, Alfa, and Mercedes, definitely. Corvette, not so much—until Callaway in 1988.
Europeans referred to the AMG Mercedes as “Der Hammer”, obviously implying the biggest/baddest #*@# in the room. However, after the European press drove the Callaway, one appeared on a German magazine cover with the headline—“Das Ist Der Hammer.” This was a not-so-subtle statement that Mercedes had just been displaced. And by a “normal” twin turbo 350 HP Callaway Corvette, at that.
Since the Germans nicknamed it “The Hammer”, Callaway wondered what it would be called if they built a really powerful one-off version. Maybe the Sledgehammer?
The strategy? Engineer a car with 1,500 HP capability and detune it to a “manageable” 900 HP. During a private test run, the Sledgehammer reached 254.76 mph.
Imagine covering the length of a football field every second with both the air conditioning and radio on. This accomplishment is a significantly important endorsement of Corvette’s platform engineering post-Duntov.”
Watch the recently-digitized version of the entire story of “The Genuine Article” on our YouTube channel.
You got that right. I've been thinking about this vid since I watched it last night. There are a few things that really stand out to me, upon greater reflection:
1. How dominant the C4 was during it's era. People forget. They compare it with today's cars, and forget what every other car was like, back then. I've said on these forums many times before that the C4 was much farther ahead -relative to it's competition- than it is today. It had more features, content and technology than almost any other car in the late 80's and that diminished w/the C5^, IMO. This video further exemplifies this point, to me. The Callawy "top gun" decimated the competition in the C&D test that was featured in the vid. The same year, R&T did a similar test (which didn't include any Corvettes), the RUF "Yellwbird" 911 went 211 mph. The Top Gun Callaway beat that by another 20 more mph. That is domination. What would happen if we ran that test today? I don't think the '19 ZR1 -or any tuner's variant thereof would even be a contender. It would be the Bugatti, The Hennessy Venom, and a couple others battling it out in the high 200's range. People look at the C4 and see an outdated "80's tech" car....but I say that in the 80's is was totally dominating and much farther ahead technologically, than it is today.
2. How "rough" and crude all those cars were....a reminder of what advanced electronic controls provide us, high tech cylinder heads and other attainable parts that we now have access to. None of the cars in that vid (except for the AMG Hammer) idled well, were refined or really streetable in any way. Some of them, I noticed, took 2-3 attempts to get the clutch fully engaged from a stop w/o stalling or lurching/bucking. That Camaro is almost a joke by today's standards; a 9L carbed big block stuffed in a basic F-body to run ~215 mph? Come on! But that's where things were "at", back then.
3. Reeves' ability to produce amazing products....with what resources? He started in his garage attached to his house! How did he accrue the financial power to produce the products that he did? It's amazing to me that he could grow the facilities, engineering/design staff, and product the way that was done. To me, it LOOKS like a recipe for a small company to go out of business, -yet it continually grew and developed more powerful and refined products. Amazing.
You got that right. I've been thinking about this vid since I watched it last night. There are a few things that really stand out to me, upon greater reflection:
2. How "rough" and crude all those cars were....a reminder of what advanced electronic controls provide us, high tech cylinder heads and other attainable parts that we now have access to. None of the cars in that vid (except for the AMG Hammer) idled well, were refined or really streetable in any way. Some of them, I noticed, took 2-3 attempts to get the clutch fully engaged from a stop w/o stalling or lurching/bucking. That Camaro is almost a joke by today's standards; a 9L carbed big block stuffed in a basic F-body to run ~215 mph? Come on! But that's where things were "at", back then.
.
This!
There is so much talk these days about the old school feeling of sports cars, analog cars etc. I think a lot of it is just nostalgia. People forget how bad it really was. We have come a long way. I was also shocked when I watched the video and heard them idle!
Great video and great story though. Callaway is awesome.
I have been interested in the Sledgehammer since I first saw it in a car magazine in 1989, when I was 16. I have seen the car in person twice. I still have that same magazine, and Reeves autographed it last year, when I saw the car at Carlisle. As crazy as this statement may sound...I can't believe the owner hasn't sold it yet for that asking price. If I win this 1.6 Billion dollar mega millions jackpot Tuesday, I will be contacting you guys Wednesday. The Sledgehammer is my unicorn ��
Thanks for the reply. So the whole car is an one off? I thought it was a speedster with the LM front and a roof. Meaning from the a-pillar and backwards it was like any of the other speedsters.
10-19-2018, 08:44 PM
30 Years Ago, The Callaway Sledgehammer... Record Setting Corvette, and the video:
