You Can Own Don Yenko’s 1968 Corvette L88 ‘Showroom’ Racecar that Raced at Daytona and Sebring

It’s not often that a Corvette with a storied racing history like that of the No. 2 1968 Corvette Sunray-DX L88 is offered for sale to the public, but right now anyone can call up GT Motor Cars in Wallingford Connecticut and make an offer on this highly documented 1968 Corvette L88 racecar that was built and campaigned for the Sunday-DX racing team by Corvette Hall of Famer Don Yenko at Daytona and Sebring.

The Sunray-DX racing team was the brainchild of Ralph Morrison Jr, a public relations executive with Sunray-DX Petroleum in Oklahoma. Morrison wanted to showcase Sunray-DX products by going racing and so he reached out to Pennsylvania-based Chevrolet dealer Don Yenko, a successful road racer in his own right, and somebody who enjoyed a close relationship with Chevrolet and Corvette chief engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov.

Yenko had an order for a 1968 factory L-88 Corvette to race at the 1968 Daytona 24 Hours but as it wouldn’t arrive in time, he took a new Rally Red L71 427/435 street car for sale by his Canonsburg, PA. dealership and transformed the hardtop convertible into an L88 racer. Known as the “Showroom L88” because of its origins, the car was equipped with a factory L88 engine and a Muncie M-22 four-speed manual transmission, and it also included a racing-spec fuel cell and roll bar.

Sunray-DX would finish 1-2-3 in class at the 1968 Daytona 24-Hour race with the No.29 1968 L88 Showroom Racer driven by Yenko and Peter Revson coming in second to the 1967 L88 Corvette fielded by the team. Yenko then took the car to Sebring where it was renumbered to “2.” Yenko would recruit the famous Ferrari driver Pedro Rodriguez to share the driving duties in the L88, and the Sebring 12-Hour race was the only time Rodriguez would ever race a Corvette. The Showroom L88 set a new GT class lap record before having to retire on Lap 43 over suspension and rear-end issues. The car was also set to go to France as part of a two-car team for Sunray-DX at the 24 Hours of Le Mans but political unrest and a change of the race date to September ended this effort. Later that year Sunray-DX merged with Sunoco and as Sunoco had its own successful racing program fronted by Roger Penske, the Sunray-DX racing team was shuttered.

Although Sunray-DX was no more, Yenko kept the car as his personal racer and raced it on the east coast and midwest in various SCCA events and he won the SCCA Midwest Division title in 1968. Documentation shows the car was then sold to Roger Luebbe of New York who continued to race the car in the SCCA. He would sell it to Frank Joyce who campaigned the car throughout the 1970s and ’80s with the racing livery changed to navy blue with a green, yellow, and orange side stripe. The Corvette was then purchased and in 2008 it was restored back to the red, white and blue livery worn at Sebring along with the No.2.

This Sunray-DX racer is highly awarded with the car receiving the NCRS American Heritage Award representing the Corvette racing legacy and it required verification that the car and chassis raced were in fact raced back in the day. Helping in that verification were members of the original racing team. The 1968 Corvette was also inducted into the Bloomington Gold Special Collection.

The former race car is one of the most historically significant and well-verified Corvette race cars in existence. The new owner will receive a thick binder containing full ownership history, documentation that includes the NCRS Shipping Data Report, NCRS Award Verification Letter, and all the original paperwork from new that includes Sunray-DX correspondence.

The 1968 Corvette L88 “Showroom” racer would be the focal point of any collection, and it’s currently ready to participate in an HSR or Masters Endurance Legends racing event. Call GT Motor Cars at 203-528-0392 to inquire about this highly documented Corvette.

Source:
gtmotorcarsllc.com