[VIDEO] Throwback Thursday: First 1963 Corvette Z06s Delivered to Now Famous Racers

It’s time again for Thowback Thursday where we feature vintage photos and videos of Corvettes. This video comes to us from Pratt Miller Motorsports twitter account who has been diving into the various racing archives to find some great historical footage to share with us. This video is said to come from Dave MacDonald’s website.

The redesigned 1963 Corvette went on sale in the 1962, and one of the things that Zora Arkus-Duntov and his engineers put together was a “special performance package” designated RPO Z06. The Z06s were all fuelie 327 V8s with heavy duty components such as its rock crusher Muncie transmission, beefier suspension, and special finned drum brakes, and they were designed for one purpose: racing.

Only 199 of these Z06s were completed during the model year, and Zora made sure that the first of them went to “customers” for racing. The video below shows three of these racers, Bob MacDonald, Bob Bondurant, and Jerry Grant “taking delivery” of these new Fuelie Z06 Split Window Coupes at the St. Louis Corvette factory. The three drivers, along with Bob MacDonald’s wife would caravan the three cars back to California where they would be featured in their first race at Riverside, CA in October 1962. A fourth car was also provided to Mickey Thompson and all four cars would race at Riverside.

One of the reasons that Riverside was such a pivotal race for the ’63 Corvette Z06s is that it was their first outing against the Shelby Cobras. The Sting Rays would have some issues and three of the four cars were forced to retire during the race. The Shelbys would have their own issues as well, and it was the final Z06 driven by Doug Hooper who would prevail and earn the “XP” Class win.

This famous photo by Dave Friedman shows the starting grid for the three Corvette Z06s driven by MacDonald (00), Bondurant, and Grant. Riverside featured a running start by the drivers, and the racing archives said that MacDonald was so fast that he was the first to leave the grid and opened up a huge lead before having to stop and fix a loose distributor wire on the engine.

This race was also featured all the legendary names we know today: Bob MacDonald, Bob Bondurant, Jerry Grant, Ken Miles, Dick Guldstrand, Bill Thomas, Bill Krause, Bruce McLaren, and Carroll Shelby just to name a few. Zora was also at the track to support the Corvette Sting Ray’s first race.

You can check out more about the first Z06 race at Riverside at DaveMacDonald.net

Source:
davemacdonald.net

Related:
[PIC] Throwback Thursday: Classic Corvettes Drifting at the Track
[PIC] Throwback Thursday: Zora with a Couple of 1971 Corvettes
[PICS] Throwback Thursday: Wanting the New Corvette and Not Being Able to Buy It

Subscribe Now: