Zora Arkus-Duntov spent decades arguing that the Corvette’s engine belonged behind the driver. Chevrolet nodded, built concepts, and then spent another forty years selling cars with the V8 up front. In 2007 a designer and a fabricator in Spring Hill, Florida, got bored of waiting.
The donor was a 1963 split-window coupe — the one-year rear glass Corvette people treat as sacred. It was not numbers-matching, which is the only thing that makes the next sentence survivable. Mark Harlan drew a what-if Le Mans car, half Ford GT, half Duntov’s old argument. Phil Sommers at American Supercar built it.
The cabin moved forward two feet. The body went ten inches wider and three inches shorter. Sliding doors on poppers. Underneath: a custom ladder chassis, independent control arms, Penske Racing dampers and Baer six-piston brakes. The split-window hatch still opens. It just opens onto an engine.
That engine is a stroked aluminium-block LS1 from the Hot Rod Project Blueprint programme: 395 cubic inches, Lunati forged crank, electronic injection, 77mm Turbo Re-Source turbos, a liquid-cooled Race Aero intercooler and TiAL wastegates. Power goes to the rear wheels through a paddle-shifted Mendeola five-speed sequential transaxle. Nobody published a horsepower figure. Treat that as honesty, not a tease.
They took it to the 2007 SEMA Show and won Best GM Vehicle. Chevrolet’s own mid-engine Corvette, the C8, arrived as a 2020 model — thirteen years later. Duntov had retired in 1975. The factory got there in the end. A shop in Florida got there first.
On 22 August 2026 the car sold on Bring a Trailer for $65,500. That is C8 money for a one-off some commenters reckoned would cost four or five times that to reproduce now. About 4,300 miles on the digital odometer, black leather Cobra seats, Crow harnesses, AutoMeter clocks. Very 2007. Still a traffic-stopper.
Purists will say they murdered a split-window. They did. They also built the Corvette Duntov kept asking for, in a shop, without a board paper. Square Wheels Lodge No. 9966 is a lodge of people who actually use cars. This is one of those stories.
Spark: HotCars. Listing: Bring a Trailer (sold 22 August 2026, $65,500).