Chevrolet

Birth of a Legend: Corvette’s Trial by Fire at Sebring 1956

Under driver and team chief John Fitch, Smokey Yunick and Mauri Rose led the crew preparing four Corvettes for the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1956. The result, said Fitch, was “less than we had hoped but more than we deserved.”

Avatar photoKarl Ludvigsen

Editor’s Note: This feature was reproduced with permission from our sister site Stuttcars.com for our SCD members.

Ed Cole, Zora Duntov’s ultimate boss, was eager to race. He saw it as a way to gain the kudos needed to attract enthusiastic buyers to his Corvettes. After witnessing the preparations for speed runs at Daytona in 1956, Cole spun 180 degrees from indifference to eagerness to race his Corvette.
“I was not the driving force in ‘Let’s Go Racing’,” Zora recalled. “I was reluctantly pushed into it. Cole had seen the car doing 150 mph and he became very enthusiastic. ‘Let’s go to Sebring,’ he said. And I was terrified. It is one thing to make a speed run and another thing again to go racing with the Corvette of those years.”

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Karl Ludvigsen
Karl E. Ludvigsen is a journalist, author, and historian of the automotive industry and motorsports. Karl Ludvigsen is the author of the definitive history of Porsche. His Porsche history, Excellence was Expected, is considered to be a model of the researching and writing of the history of an auto company. Ludvigsen is an honorary member of the Vintage Sports Car Club of America and the Corvair Society of America. He is also a member of the council of the Historic Automobile Group.
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