Lola Corvette GTP
 

Way back before anyone had ever heard of Gary Pratt and Doug Fehan Rick Hendrick was the factory guy. Lola built 7 Corvettes and 4 of them were owned by Hendrick. They may have built a fifth out of spare parts but that's never been confirmed.

http://fast1.onesite.com/my.speedtv....3.jpg?v=163436

I was digging through my Lola material and ran across this old fax. An interesting part of Corvette history.

Richard Newton
Speed TV Blog

:cool:

Wow, great piece of history there! :thumbs:

Very cool, thanks for sharing. :cool:

They were 6 cylinder turbo charged best I remember. Doc Bundy drove one.

I have a picture of one that was in the Hendricks race shop museum. I'll try to dig it up.

I found it:

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/b...ndricksgtp.jpg

Very cool find! :cool:

I have seen
 

the other 3 in one of his (Hendrick shops/collections) Still wearing the racing colors. If I am not mistaken they took one out to the track for a play day. I barely fit in the one I sat in and I am 5'11" 195. Not sure who the car was set up for.

For some reason I thought it was running an 18 degree GTP motor, but I could be wrong.

:cool:

If you're on Facebook check out my link. Tom Christman seems to have a lot of original documentation on these cars.

Richard Newton
My Facebook Page

Here's an article about them:

GTP Vette History

Here's a video with the #52 racing:

Giddy Up!

I didn't realize that anyone was cloning these cars. They look pretty close except for the wheels. That ruins it. Anyone ever see one up close and personal?

Richard Newton

tire change :lol:

I've been up close and personal with one for about a week straight two years ago during OLOA.......That is a week that I will NEVER forget. We has some issues during the week due to the lack of testing and further development was needed...They also needed to get rid of the automatic A6 transmission that caused us much grief that week of racing.......Car could win OLOA outright with more testing and a manual transmission......It still would not be easy on the driver and passenger though for a week of street driving..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/america...ts/4838733947/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/america...ts/4838733681/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/america...ts/4838733825/

Got this with a project car. Called Falconer and he said this was one of the V-6 gtp motors, His last record showed it was sent to Katech for GM testing.Its pretty neat ...

The GTP was an amazing car. Very quick, but unfortunetly not very reliable. Besides Doc Bundy, South African Sarel Van Der Merwe was the other regular co-driver of the GTP. David Hobbs, Elliot Forbes-Robinson and Bobby Rahal, among others also drove the GTP.

I think that Corvette racer Kerry Hitt, of Advanced Composite Products and a Forum member, may have owned one of the first 2 Lola GTP Corvettes years ago, either the 710 or 711?

I have a very good book that was done on the Corvette GTP, a few years back. I also have a brochure that Chevrolet did in 84 or 85, and gave away at IMSA GTP races. Pictured below are some shots of the Chevrolet brochure and the Corvette GTP book.

On top is the Chevrolet brochure and below it is Alex Gabbard's excellent book on the Corvette GTP.

http://i562.photobucket.com/albums/s...V/DSC_7008.jpg

The brochure openned twice. This was on the inside, a rather interesting look at the GTP with the body panels removed.

http://i562.photobucket.com/albums/s...V/DSC_7011.jpg

The brochure also opened a second time to form the poster seen below. You can see on the left, an illustration of the V6 that John Bulba has. :thumbs:

http://i562.photobucket.com/albums/s...V/DSC_7010.jpg

I also have a limited edition print of a painting done by Lee Self, of the Corvette GTP winning at West Palm Beach, Fla. The print is signed by Rick Hendrick, Sarel Van Der Merwe and the artist.

I'll be in Ohio driving one next month...

I heard GM is giving Mongoose Motorsports grief over the Corvette licensing.

I hope Gary gets it worked out...be a shame to see GM put an entrepreneur out of business.

RaftRacer - I'll be installing an automatic in mine...but one that has been worked over by RPM Transmissions. I'm going to put paddle shifters in and make the trans a fully manual automatic (sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it?). Otherwise, I'd need to spend $20k on a sequential...I'd rather spend it elsewhere on the car (like a Katech-built 427).

The car that I drove had an RPM level ??? trans in it.......It was not what you want on a roadcourse. Long lazy shifts and over-temped early creating absolutely no control of transmission because of "protection mode". The bronze GTP had a 4L60E in it and was a much better roadrace gearbox if an automatic could be called that....They need the transaxle from a Ford GT.......

I see your point...wonder if they got with RPM and asked them if anything was wrong with the trans?

I've been talking to Mendeola...Gary has a Mendeola case there in the shop for fitment. All American made...good for up to 2000+ HP depending on the level you buy (of course, you'd be :crazy: to put that kind of power in that car).

The only problem is it would change the balance of the car with a transaxle. The engine/trans unit would be about 20" shorter...moving the engine back in the car by that amount. It would be a risky experiment (and one that would cost you $13k minimum for the Mendy) just to try it and see if it worked. Of course, if it did you would have LOTS of room in front of the engine to put a supercharger and the associated belt drives to make it work...;)

Gary said they were going to try it and weigh the car before/after to see what it does to the balance...they'll just need to add the weight of the internals of the transaxle to make it accurate.

I saw these cars race at the Miami GP and Palm Beach GP back in the day. I was" in the crew" for the Spirit of Miami Buick GTP car driven by Emerson Fittipaldi and Bobby Rahal.
They told me the Buicks had much more power [ pushing 1000 HP ] but the Chevy's were easier to drive and more fun on the street courses. Those were the days.........GM in GTP with 2 brands !! Actually 3 with occasional Oldsmobile power onboard.
Does anyone remember the wicked fast Chevy Intrepids ?? I believe they were the first prototypes with full downloadable telemetry. The Chapparels don't count...