MCACN 2011: The Corvette Class of 1971

Nov 28, 2011

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One of the marquee events of the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals was the Class of 1971 invitational display. This gathering celebrates muscle cars that turned 40 years old this year. Included among the Hemi ‘Cuda’s, Mustangs, and Chevelles were a batch of rare LS6 powered Corvettes. Check out all 2,125 horsepower in our exclusive photo gallery.

Chevrolet dropped the mighty 454ci LS6 engine on the automotive world for just one Corvette model year. For an additional $1,221 buyers got the thumping big block twisting out 475 ft-lbs of torque and 425 horsepower through its aluminum intake and cylinder heads. That’s just 5 less ponies and 51 more ft-lbs of torque than a 2011 base Corvette. The compression ratio was a relatively low 9:1 thanks to increasing attention on exhaust emissions and rising insurance premiums.

Just 188 total LS6 optioned Corvettes were born in 1971. That’s less than 1% of total production that year. The makes them more rare than the prized L88 Corvettes which had a 3 year production run. In the June 1971 issue of Car and Driver a LS6 Corvette with a M22 4 speed transmission and 3.36 rear gear cranked out a 0-60mph time of 5.3 seconds. After 12.7 seconds the speedometer was clicking past 100mph. It thundered through the quarter mile in 13.8 seconds at 104mph.

Only a handful of LS6 Corvettes show up at shows and auctions each year. At this year’s MCACN we were lucky enough to see 5 of them parked together in the Class of 1971 display. The collection was made up of 3 convertibles and 2 coupes covering 5 of the 10 colors available in 1971. They broke down as follows: