1963 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport Comes to Project Motor Racing

June 11, 2026

The Vette That Was Meant to Never be Seen

The 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport is not a car you’re even meant to know about. See, back in the early ’60s, the Corvette had it all; the brand recognition, the V8 swagger, the legacy.

Unfortunately, it was also spending its weekends getting the snot punched out of it by the new Shelby Cobras.

By ’63, Zora Arkus-Duntov—two-time Le Mans class winner and the man now known as the “Father of the Corvette”—had had enough. He knew exactly what the problem was: the Corvette was simply too heavy. Actually, he knew both the problem and the solution. Design a lighter, meaner Corvette. Build enough of them to go GT racing. And get some revenge on the upstarts at Shelby.

The plan was ambitious because he needed to build no fewer than 125 lightweight Grand Sports to satisfy homologation requirements.

Simple plan. Unfortunately, there was a small snag.

GM management and corporate’s policy preventing direct factory racing support, going back to the 1957 Automobile Manufacturers Association agreement, when major US manufacturers agreed to stop officially backing works programmes.

Zora Arkus-Duntov had built precisely five Grand Sports built—three coupes and two roadsters—when GM management came down hard and shut down production.

That was meant to be the end of it. Instead, the decision created an icon.

An Icon is Born

Shutting down the production programme was not the same as getting rid of the five cars that made it out alive. And in the hands of Zora’s allies and well-connected privateers, they started to find their way onto racetracks.

Like when Dick Thompson scored the Grand Sport’s first win at Watkins Glen on 24th August 1963, driving chassis 004.

And then came Nassau.

Back in the ’50s and ’60s, the Bahamas held one of the biggest sports-car events outside Europe and the US championship scenes. For manufacturers and privateers, Nassau had become a kind of unofficial heavyweight fight venue: Cobras, Corvettes, Ferraris, Jaguars, Porsches—everybody turned up because it was prestigious, international, and the politics were a little more relaxed than back home.

Corvette duly brought the Grand Sport with a new, all-aluminium 377 cubic-inch V8. And for one glorious, noisy, politically inconvenient afternoon, Roger Penske turned the Vette into instant folklore.

Front engine. Rear drive. Big V8. Tiny production run. Huge grudge.

The Grand Sport in Project Motor Racing is not a perfect car. But it has personality.

Get it right, and the Grand Sport is all noise, bite, rotation, and vengeance.

Get it wrong, and it will remind you that “lightweight Corvette with way too much engine” was never designed as a wellness product.

The 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport will forever be the Corvette that got away. Now you get to fulfil its destiny.

Yours to drive as part of the GT Icons Pack coming to Project Motor Racing June 23rd. Enjoy.

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