Robert Kerian
Great Machines: Automobiles: Revamped ’Vette
June 1, 2007
Many ascents to significant achievement start with small boys of intense curiosity and mechanical intuition, taking things apart, tinkering with the bits and wondering how and why.
A half-century ago, those questions in the mind of five-year-old Reeves Callaway were: Why doesn’t mom let me have a motorcycle, and how can I put this lawn mower engine onto my tricycle? Which he did, and it ran.
"For a moment," recalls Callaway.
Now the boy is a man, still curious, still mechanically intuitive, and at a peak of the career that has seen Callaway do with and for Chevrolet and its Corvette, pretty much what Carroll Shelby reengineered for Ford and its Mustang. He has raced, as a driver and car owner, hard and well: from an SCCA championship to 24-hour enduros at Le Mans and Daytona. Callaway Cars—once only of Old Lyme, Conn., now expanded to Irvine, Calif., and Leingarten, Germany—built the Sledgehammer, a biturbo Corvette that set and still holds the world speed record for street cars at 254.76 mph.
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The C16’s front grille may resemble a Ferrari
275 GTB, but rear angles evoke the 599 GTB Fiorano. (Click image to enlarge)Callaway’s forte has long been turbo-charging and supercharging to make good automobiles greater and faster—including several generations of Corvettes, the Callaway Edition Range Rovers, all manner of BMWs and Alfa Romeos, engines for Holden of Australia, and racing motors for Aston Martin. Now comes the Callaway C16, with that designation commemorating the 16th major engineering project in the 30-year history of the little company that certainly has.
As with most Callaway vehicles in the past two decades, the C16 transcends
being simply a power-improved Corvette, and has evolved into a major mechanical
redesign, certainly a visual renaissance of the original. The body work is
newer, smoother, still with the Corvette’s bulk and primary dimensions, but
showing just enough traces of Ferrari (the grille and flying buttress C-pillars)
and of Aston Martin (the rear end) to add new refinement, with the sculpting
performed by Canadian Paul Deutschman, who has been shaping Callaway cars for 20
years. Power emanates from an Eaton supercharged 6.0-liter V-8 good for 560 hp.
With a dumpster full of options, from oversized valves, through Callaway cams to
re-machined cylinder heads, junior becomes a very serious, 616-hp coupe. And,
with a manual transmission and drag radials, it can break 60 mph from rest in
3.3 seconds and top out at 206 mph.
A supercharged V-8 develops up to 616
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The C16, available from select GM dealers or directly from
Callaway, starts at $120,000 but can be easily optioned up to $190,000 by such
mechanical treats as a $7,600 Le Mans brake package or a $6,000 suspension
system. As for optional creature comforts, there are Recaro seats, a $24,300
Deutschleder package of interior suede and leathers, and an $8,800 five piece
Schedoni luggage set—fitted to the trunk, of course, and sporting the VIN number
of your C16.
An hour at the wheel of the C16, rumbling into the California hills inland from Laguna Beach is an exercise in the purest formula of motoring—enormous power to intimidate all other road users, a silhouette to attract the same number of double-takes as a Ferrari F430 Spider, and the refreshment of light, positive, smooth ride and handling with none of the crudeness of production Corvettes. Could be the Callaway suspension that brings new civilization to the whole, but more likely it is the ultra-light tire and wheel package featuring magnesium wheels with carbon fiber rims.
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