There were some pretty fancy cars because a whole bunch of road racers showed up with trailered cars, but I won again. While he had proven to be a force to be reckoned with on the street, Greenwood had yet to apply his talents the realm of proper motorsport. They named it the widebody. History doesn’t often fondly recall the 1970s when it comes to automotive performance. Now with adequate grip on tap, the Corvette could effectively use all 750 horsepower that the modified L88 had to offer, and the integrated aerodynamics of the wide body package kept the car planted to the ground and stable at high speeds. So, I figured that since I could win, this wasn’t a bad deal.”, Greenwood decided that this whole motorsport thing was worth a closer look, so he headed to Waterford Hills race track and enrolled in a road racing driver’s school. A few years later tube frame chassis designs would show up on the scene and the departure from production-based race cars was underway.

Indeed the Malaise Era was rough for the Corvette, and high performance at large. Image: RM Sotheby’s. “I was kind of driving my parents crazy; I built the engines in the basement or the den and then carried them up through the house,” he recalled. Like many other performance icons of the era, the Corvette suffered tremendously from these changes, seeing a shift from big-blocks dishing out well in excess of 400 horsepower to anemic 350s barely able to doll out 165 hp as standard issue just five years later. It also goes without saying that through all of this I had full support from my brother Burt and I also had a good back-up driver in Jim Greendyke. It’s all crossed up and inches from serious harm at all times. Listen to those 7,000 RPM gear runs shatter your ossicles, and flutter your heart. Images: Russo and Steele. With BF Goodrich backing, the Greenwood team was able to bring their Corvettes to the international stage of motorsport, and after competing in endurance races like the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring, the team would take on Le Mans in 1972 and 1973. But for those with the means, pivoting from street performance to officially-sanctioned racing offered an alternative where serious capability still ruled the day.

Considering the value of not only the car he’s driving, but those around him, he chooses lines and the appropriate gear quite well.

Images: RM Sotheby's. He would be among the first to shoehorn one of GM’s most potent power plants into it.

After a disappointing 1968 season, Greenwood went back into the garage and focused on setting up the car around his driving style. Do not get too close to the raucous beast that is this 1976 IMSA-spec Greenwood-built C3 Corvette race car. Images: Greenwood Corvettes.

But for a brief moment during a low point in production Corvette performance, John Greenwood and his team helped elevate the sports car’s status not only in motorsport but in the eyes of the world at large while simultaneously introducing a new innovative approach to race car design that is still in use to this day. Over the few years that the widebody was campaigned, Greenwood produced a handful of customer race cars configured in similar fashion to the cars the team was using.

This is the car that appeared in many major Corvette magazines and books, and is the most widely publicized Corvette ever made by Greenwood. Though the cars were outgunned by the competition – due in part to the fact that they were contractually obligated to run BFG street radials while the rest of the field used race slicks – clocking 215 mph down the Mulsanne Straight proved that the Greenwood cars were indeed fast.

“I did a lot of racing that year and I started setting records,” Greenwood explained. “I was kind of driving my parents crazy; I built the engines in the basement or the den and then carried them up through the house,” he recalled. And definitely don’t let it anywhere near small children. I guess this was also the same time that I formed my engine building company, Auto Research Engineering (ARE).”, Greenwood’s eventual success in SCCA racing would help him secure a major sponsorship deal with BF Goodrich. “I bought a 1968 Corvette and the first night I put an L88 into it,” Greenwood said. “The guys instructing me did things differently than I was used to and I seemed to go backwards. This thing has none of the docile sensibilities you’d find in a modern racer. “I bought a 1968 Corvette and the first night I put an L88 into it,” Greenwood said. Zora Arkus-Duntov and engineer Gib Hufstader had been providing technical assistance to Corvette racing efforts on the sly for years at this point, and when Greenwood’s team shut down the heavily favored Owens Corning team (who had gone undefeated in the previous 22 races, a record at the time) at 1970 A-Production championship race at Road Atlanta, Zora and his crew took notice. “I was one of the first to fit one of the early 427s.

In an era when the Corvette was at its lowest, two brothers from Detroit named John and Burt Greenwood sought to take on the racing world with the Chevrolet’s sports car, and managed to alter Corvette race car design for the better in the process. ”.

John Greenwood was a guy who liked going fast. From there, it’s a masterclass in playing catch-up. His return to the track for 1969 would prove to be a very different story than that of the previous year, and he would take home the SCCA A-Production National championships back-to-back for the next two seasons. “I won everything,” he quipped. It was obvious that the car was a better platform.”, Though Greenwood had proven himself to be very competitive out on street and at local autocross events, his transition into officially-sanctioned road racing didn’t go as smoothly as one might have expected. One of the cars was clocked at a hair-raising 236 mph down the back straight at Daytona during qualifying in 1975! Images: Greenwood Corvettes. Greenwood's struggle for traction with the BF Goodrich radials had set him down a path to find ways to put the warmed-over L88 427's prodigious power to the ground.

Images: RM Sotheby's. The last three series – the Turbo GT, Daytona and GTO – all used turbocharged small block engines.

Image: Hemmings, When Greenwood returned for the 1969 season after spending some time dialing in his suspension setup and engine tune, the results that year proved to be quite different. He went to Duntov with his idea for a wild new body design that could accommodate the massive rubber the Corvette would need in order to effectively put the power to the ground, and with the help of Randy Wittine from the GM design studio they put together some sketches and eventually a mockup of the new car. He obliged. “In the next two years, I won the SCCA A-Production National Championships back-to-back. The Greenwood Corvette brought the heat to the motorsport world at large, capturing the IMSA title that year, the Trans Am championship the following season, and securing numerous pole position qualifying runs and track records along the way. Though they weren't packing the brutal performance of the modified L88 427s used in the race cars, Greenwood did produce a small batch of widebody-style street cars on a made-to-order basis between 1975 and 1981. The Greenwood Corvette brought the heat to the motorsport world at large, capturing the IMSA title that year, the Trans Am championship the following season, and securing numerous pole position qualifying runs and track records along the way. Greenwood had a new strategy for the 1974 season. Gaze in awe as a professional wrangler saws at the steering wheel to keep the damned beast in line.

Though the cars were outgunned by the competition – due in part to the fact that they were contractually obligated to run BFG street radials while the rest of the field used race slicks – clocking 215 mph down the Mulsanne Straight proved that the Greenwood cars were indeed fast. So did some big-name sponsors, and when the Greenwood team inked a deal with BF Goodrich it gave them a chance to compete on the world stage in the FIA’s endurance racing classes. One day, his wife came across an ad in the grocery store for a parking lot autocross competition and dared Greenwood to enter. It’s a true joy to watch from beginning to end. Though their performance was a far cry from their race car counterparts, the Greenwood C3 street cars brought some of the visual drama of the Greenwood racers to the streets of America and are considered collectors’ items today. There were women in Fiats beating me. The Greenwood Corvette brought the heat to the motorsport world at large, capturing the IMSA title that year, the Trans Am championship the following season, and securing numerous pole position qualifying runs and track records along the way. Now with adequate grip on tap, the Corvette could effectively use all 750 horsepower that the modified L88 had to offer, and the integrated aerodynamics of the wide body package kept the car planted to the ground and stable at high speeds.

While he had proven to be a force to be reckoned with on the street, Greenwood had yet to apply his talents the realm of proper motorsport.

.

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