Thursday 8th October 2015

Callaway launches stunning Corvette racer

The quest to find the toughest-looking race car in the world might be at an end...

---

The name Callaway means different things to different people. If you routinely wear terrible trousers and chase a small ball around a glorified park then you'll probably associate it most with the golf mega company. So award yourself some PH blokepoints if, instead, your first instinct on seeing it is to think of the U.S. tuning and racing firm with the same name, the one that's just introduced this stunning looking Corvette race GT3 race car.

America, f**k yeah and so on

Callaway began tuning BMWs in the U.S. in the 1970s, but it's most associated with the bristly Corvettes it has produced over the years. The German-based Callaway Competition racing team has now built what has to be the meanest looking of the lot, the new C7 GT3-R, which was launched this week at Hockenheim wearing this stealth fighter black livery.

The back end is particularly Batmobile, with a vast wing, a carbonfibre splitter and some very serious looking side vents built into the rear wheelarches.

The team says that the GT3-R will be racing next year in various GT3 series around the world - here's hoping they don't change the paint scheme. Power comes from a 600hp tuned version of the Chevrolet 6.2-litre V8 and heads to the back wheels through a six-speed X-Trac sequential box. Obviously we're not going to know if it's fast until it takes to the track against some proper rivals, but it certainly looks like it should be an absolute rocket.

 

 

[GroundEffect]

GT3 cars are odd beasts to me. You pose the rhetorical question if it will be fast or not...well, by the BoP rules, they will MAKE it fast.

I cannot really get my head around the whole BoP system and whether or not a car ever becomes uncompetitive; would an early 2000s DBRS9 for example be any slower than the latest V12 Vantage GT3 after it's been homologated via BoP?

Also, in race trim I highly doubt it'll produce 600BHP - BoP will pull that down significantly (for example, the BMW Z4 GT3 produces around 470-480PS and the highest power car, the SLS GT3 is around 530PS).

[rhinochopig]

Shame on you PH. You mention bloody golf clubs and yet fail to mention what Callaway is famous for.

The sledgehammer 254mph!!! back in the 80s!!!!

[loose cannon]

Ahh the insane sledgehammer It was also a top trumps winner if you had it in you pile

[burningdinos]

Holy mother of darkness, that looks positively evil. Maybe the racing strategy is to scare the s out of the rivals.

[loose cannon]

The latest corvette is quite sexual

[Krikkit]

GroundEffect said:

GT3 cars are odd beasts to me. You pose the rhetorical question if it will be fast or not...well, by the BoP rules, they will MAKE it fast.

I cannot really get my head around the whole BoP system and whether or not a car ever becomes uncompetitive; would an early 2000s DBRS9 for example be any slower than the latest V12 Vantage GT3 after it's been homologated via BoP?

Also, in race trim I highly doubt it'll produce 600BHP - BoP will pull that down significantly (for example, the BMW Z4 GT3 produces around 470-480PS and the highest power car, the SLS GT3 is around 530PS).

The BoP rules are a bit cloak and dagger, aren't they? In theory if you updated the DBRS9 to the latest safety standards there's no reason why it couldn't the BoP'd up to match the rest of the cars, after all the engines are capable of producing hundreds more horsepower than the restrictors allow.

[Arbs]

Pretty sure that stealthy black paint they refer to in the article is carbon fibre? Is it not?

[jamespink]

Arbs said:

Pretty sure that stealthy black paint they refer to in the article is carbon fibre? Is it not?

No, that's matt black ultra light carbon weave paint... Halfords

[jamespink]

I was thinking this site wants more Audi RS3 ads...

[qube_TA]

Brutal looking thing, could be from the next Mad Max!

[xxxscimitarxxx]

rhinochopig

''Shame on you PH. You mention bloody golf clubs and yet fail to mention what Callaway is famous for.

The sledgehammer 254mph!!! back in the 80s!!!!''

Couldnt agree more...a truly unsurpassed achievement all things being considered

[Dr JonboyG]

Krikkit said:

GroundEffect said:

GT3 cars are odd beasts to me. You pose the rhetorical question if it will be fast or not...well, by the BoP rules, they will MAKE it fast.

I cannot really get my head around the whole BoP system and whether or not a car ever becomes uncompetitive; would an early 2000s DBRS9 for example be any slower than the latest V12 Vantage GT3 after it's been homologated via BoP?

Also, in race trim I highly doubt it'll produce 600BHP - BoP will pull that down significantly (for example, the BMW Z4 GT3 produces around 470-480PS and the highest power car, the SLS GT3 is around 530PS).

The BoP rules are a bit cloak and dagger, aren't they? In theory if you updated the DBRS9 to the latest safety standards there's no reason why it couldn't the BoP'd up to match the rest of the cars, after all the engines are capable of producing hundreds more horsepower than the restrictors allow.

Agreed, it's all quite odd IMO. I think the biggest advantage the newer cars get over older machines is the sophistication of the driver aids—the whole point of GT3 cars is to be accessible to gentleman drivers—ie people with talent like us, as opposed to those who get paid to drive and have put in their 10,000 hours (assuming you buy into Gladwell's thing)—so they've got traction control and ABS and the rest of it, and I'm pretty sure those systems get improved year-on-year.

[williamp]

xxxscimitarxxx said:

rhinochopig

''Shame on you PH. You mention bloody golf clubs and yet fail to mention what Callaway is famous for.

The sledgehammer 254mph!!! back in the 80s!!!!''

Couldnt agree more...a truly unsurpassed achievement all things being considered

Ahhhh created it, an' Ah'ma shoked. SHOKED yer never mentioned the leaf spring...

[Fetchez la vache]

rhinochopig said:

Shame on you PH. You mention bloody golf clubs and yet fail to mention what Callaway is famous for.

Minnie the moocher?

[unsprung]

The Sledgehammer project is summarized in an interesting video.

The hair and musical soundtrack are amusingly of the 1980s. Reeves Callaway, himself, first appears at 2:20 in the video. Diet Coke in his hand -- an aspirational new drink at the time. And, improbably by today's standards, he is smoking a cigarette at 6:25.

At 8:00, see the late John Lingenfelter, a driver who founded the eponymous and highly regarded Lingenfelter Performance Engineering.

As in each country that has professional petrolheads, these men can be regarded as belonging to the cadre of "quiet giants" who simply pushed forward and got things done. No time for self aggrandizement or selfies. They were busy trying to transform what they knew, and what they didn't know, into something that worked.