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John Greenwood made just 43 street legal cars and only 2 examples of this 1981 Greenwood GTO Corvette. Darth Vadar would approve.
Amelia Island sits just off the coast of sunny Florida, and for the last 21 years, this top-tier vacation resort hosts one of the most prestigious auto shows in the world, drawing cars and crowds from all around the globe.
For 2016, the Amelia Island Concours D’Elegnace Car Show paid tribute to the late John Greenwood and his legacy of Corvette racing machines and modified street cars.
RIP John Greenwood. Thanks for the Corvette memories.
If you aren’t familiar with John Greenwood, think of him as the grandaddy of Corvette tuners with most modern Chevy performance houses owing him a nod.
His extensive racing history includes running at 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring and the 24 Hours of Le Mans and was a big auto racing celebrity back in the 70’s.
Greenwood loved C3s and made some of the fastest ever produced with one of cars reaching 238 mph on the back straight at Daytona.
Sadly, John passed away on July 7th, 2015 making this show a tad bittersweet. What a better way to celebrate John’s life than a with a tribute at a one of the most prestigious car shows in the world.
Authentic Greenwood modified Corvettes from as far as France and Switzerland showed up for a reunion of sorts. Even our home grown Chevy performance hero Ken Lingenfelter dusted off his rare 1981 Greenwood GTO and let it bask in the Florida sunshine.
A lot of wide body, winged, Corvette racing muscle on the grass.
We recently caught up with Lingenfelter via a telephone interview and he gave Corvette Online the backstory on how he came to be the shepherd of one of only two 1981 Greenwood GTO street cars ever produced.
Wide body and aerodynamics actually worked.
Aside from running one of the baddest automotive performance modification companies in the world, Mr. Lingenfelter is also curator of the Lingenfelter Auto Collection in Brighton, Michigan. He told us the collection features a mix of, “30% exotics, 30% muscle cars and 40% Corvettes.” Now, that’s our kind of math.
Lingenfelter said when this Greenwood ‘Vette became available at “a Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale a couple of years ago,” he had to have it. With 4000 miles on the clock, it was equipped with a turbocharged 450 hp, 350 V8, 4-speed manual transmission and a restoration by the Nabor Brothers out of Texas.
As we talked I mentioned the juxtaposition of brutal 70’s racing Corvettes occupying the same grass with delicate, high brow classics that usually spring up like weeds on Amelia Island in March. Lingenfelter agreed it was quite a contrast, but good fun.
He also admitted he’s drawn to cars that are “so ugly, they’re cool…”
Not a Greenwood, but a body kit from Eckler Industries back in the day, you can almost hear 'Sweet Emotion' wafting out of the speakers...
From there, we touched on the inevitable. For years, C3’s with wide body panels (whether real Greenwood cars or Eckler body kits) were the equivalent of automotive bellbottoms. Cool in their day, but sadly, dismissed long ago as relics from a supposedly style challenged era.
Sometimes it takes a couple of decades for old school cool to come around again. An excellent example of these fickle fashion cycles, is this Greenwood GTO won it’s class at Amelia, chosen by a panel of 25 young folks from Hagerty Insurance’s Youth Judging.
Hagerty Insurance Youth Judging Program was in full force.
These kids have no disco-era baggage to color their experience. They have no memory of “Boogie Nights,” “Saturday Night Fever” or Jimmy Carter. They just see a beautiful black missile that looks unlike anything they see on the road today, much less the lozenge shaped cars parked in their parents garage.
What a better way to remember John Greenwood and to keep his memory alive than to introduce him and his legacy to a brand new audience.
Last but not least, Lingenfelter confided with us that he was a secret Les Dunham fan and he recently restored a rare Caballista Corvette. He said his friends thought he should “seek counseling…”
We say don’t change a thing, Ken. Keep lending a helping hand and rescuing cool, forgotten old ‘Vettes.
Behold the Cabillista by Les Dunham. An unlikely union of Corvette and Eldorado, now restored back to new by Lingenfelter.
