When you consider that GM built exactly five 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sports—and that the last time one came on the market, a $4.9 million bid wasn’t enough to take it home—the temptation to build a few on your own must have been overwhelming for Mongoose Motorsports. At least that’s the thinking at General Motors, which is suing Mongoose for trademark violations, claiming the company is building unauthorized Grand Sport replicas.
One thing’s for certain: There’s no way those knockoffs would be able to knock the king of the Corvettes off its throne.
The original Grand Sports were purpose-built racing machines, created under the leadership of Zora Arkus-Duntov, the acclaimed “father of the Corvette.” Arkus-Duntov was the man responsible for transforming the original Corvette from an under-powered roadster into a V8-packing rival to the Ford Thunderbird, and he didn’t want to stop there.
For the Chevy’s second generation, Arkus-Duntov envisioned a true sports car that would outperform the best European two-seaters of the day, and the 1963 Corvette delivered.
With its top engine, a fuel-injected. 327-cubic-inch V8 that made 360 horses and 352 lb-ft of torque, the Corvette blazed from 0-60 in under six seconds and hit a top speed of over 140 mph.
The second-gen ‘Vette more than held its own in terms of looks, too. With an amazing exterior developed under legendary GM designer Bill Mitchell, the car took its cues from both Mitchell’s GM-based (but not GM-backed) Stingray race car and a Mako shark he once caught while deep-sea fishing. And while the convertible version remained a hot seller, the ’63 coupe, which featured a unique split rear window and was the first fixed-roof Corvette, was especially striking.
But, again, Arkus-Duntov didn’t want to stop there; he wanted the Corvette to beat its competition on the racetrack as well as the road. Unfortunately, GM had officially banned factory support for motorsports programs in the late 1950s.
But Arkus-Duntov had a plan, and it started with building five prototype Corvette racers, known as the Grand Sports. And although they may have looked like the regular Corvette coupes of the time, the resemblance was only skin deep.
An aggressive weight-saving effort sliced some 1,200 lbs. off the production Corvette’s curb weight, allowing the Grand Sport to (barely) tip the scales at just under 2,000 lbs.—that’s about the same as today’s Smart cars. On the other hand, while the Grand Sport’s all-aluminum engine contributed to that weight loss, it also contributed a listed 485 hp to the car’s performance. Truth be told, however, the big 377-cubic-inch V8 has reportedly hit 550 horses on the dyno.
That combination, along with braking upgrades and the independent rear suspension first introduced on the ’63 production ‘Vette, looked ready to make the Grand Sport a dominating factor in the motorsports world. In fact, the cars ran away from their competition during early racing appearances.
There were just two stumbling blocks: First, to fully qualify for FIA racing, the Grand Sports’ preferred competition, a very similar model would have to be on sale to the public. The Arkus-Duntov strategy would satisfy that requirement by having Chevrolet manufacture 125 Grand Sport racers and sell them specifically to race drivers. It would then be those drivers, not anyone from GM, doing the racing.
The other problem was more serious. GM management soon found out what Arkus-Duntov was up to and put its corporate foot down—on the brake, not the gas pedal.
The Grand Sport racing program was disbanded, the five prototypes sold. Arkus-Duntov retired from GM in 1975, and passed away in 1996. Today, each of his beloved Grand Sports is in the hands of private collectors. On the rare occasion they go under the auction hammer, it’s for millions of dollars.
Of course, you can still get into a less-expensive version these days, but not from the the apparently trademark-infringing team at Mongoose. The only authorized Grand Sports replicas go for $189,000, and the only company that can sell them is called Duntov Motors.
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