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Chevrolet-Racing? reveals the inside story of Chevrolet's early surreptitious involvement in racing, from 1957-1970. This collector's classic tells the fascinating story of how, from 1957 to 1970, Chevrolet probably acquired more successes and more technical knowledge of high performance than any other company in the world. Ironically, they never built a complete, running, race-ready vehicle; nor were ever officially represented at a race, and they never claimed credit for any Chevy products in racing wins, or promoted them in advertising for all that time. How did they accomplish what they did? This book reveals the untold story. It all started in 1953 - not an extraordinarily significant year in automobile racing. That's when Chevrolet announced that the company was going into production with an all-American sports car called the Corvette. Chevrolet - Racing? tells how the company began actively developing, sponsoring, and racing its cars - until the 1957 Automobile Manufacturers Association's ban on manufacturer involvement in auto racing. The book goes on to describe how the underground program started, and for the next fourteen years, how Chevrolet was secretly developing, testing, and supporting the activities of some of the biggest names in motorsports. Covering Chevrolet's engineering developments as well as the struggle to keep their activities secret, this book reveals the program's major accomplishments, including: The behind-the-scenes research and development of significant technical advancements, including the Chevrolet aluminum small block engine, automatic racing transmissions, aluminum and fiberglass chassis development, overhead cam V-8 engines, and vacuum traction. Chevrolet's successful experiments with computer simulation of vehicle dynamics, computerized track simulation, real-time data telemetry, and driver performance recording - 28 years ago! The designs of 74 cars were engineered and developed during 1957-1970, including Chaparral Cars, Corvette SS, Trans-Am, Can-Am, Chevelle, Camaro, Corvair, plus many other prototypes that never made it into commercial production. Chevrolet's silent support and involvement with many big-name race driver designers and teams include: Roger Penske and Mark Donohue, Bruce McLaren, Smokey Yunick, Jim Hall and other semi-independent racing teams. |
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