The '96 Grand Sport is arguably...
The '96 Grand Sport is arguably the most striking of the fourth-gen Corvettes. People tend to either love or loathe the design, but current auction prices suggest that the former response is the more common one.
The car pictured here is John Heinricy's '96 Grand Sport, which carries serial number 001 out of 1,000 units built. Until his 2008 retirement, Heinricy had a gearhead's dream job: He played with cars at General Motors for 38 years, ultimately landing the coveted job of Director of High Performance Vehicle Operations at GM's Performance Division. His last corporate contribution was developing the outstanding Cadillac CTS-V sedan. Heinricy has always been a serious performance guy and is responsible for fine-tuning such GM products as the Chevy Citation, Camaro, Cobalt, and Corvette; the Pontiac Firebird, GTO, G8, and Solstice; and the aforementioned Cadillac.
Besides being an exceptional engineer, Heinricy is also an accomplished racer. He started his racing career in 1984 behind the wheel of a Chevy Citation X-11. After securing his competition license later that year, he began racing a Morrison/Guldstrand showroom-stock Corvette. In 1989 he was nicknamed "Heinrocket" by fellow driver Leighton Reese, and the moniker stuck. Even in retirement, Heinricy remains an active test and race driver, racking up numerous SCCA production-car championships and sports-car-race wins in the U.S. and Europe. He's even set lap records at the Nordschleife (North Course) Nürburgring track in Germany driving Corvettes, Caddies, and Cobalts.
In 1992 Heinricy joined Dave McLellan as Assistant Chief Engineer for Corvette. One year later McLellan retired, and Heinricy began reporting to new Corvette supremo Dave Hill. Hill was working on the new C5, so responsibility for ending C4 production fell to Heinricy. Heinricy wanted to build a special commemorative C4 for the car's final year of production. Having won so many races in C4s, he was the perfect choice to build this special edition.
No matter where Heinricy races,...
No matter where Heinricy races, he ends up on the victory podium. Here, he shares a winning moment with co-driver Jurgen von Gartzen in Spa, Belgium. The two drove a Callaway Competition Z06.R GT3 to a Third Place finish at the legendary track in 2006.
Heinricy asked Corvette designer John Cafaro to sketch some design ideas for the car. Cafaro based his sketches on the '63 Corvette Grand Sport, since he and Heinricy were both fans of Zora Arkus-Duntov's five specially built, all-out racing Vettes. Cafaro researched various Grand Sport paint schemes, eventually selecting A.J. Foyt's 1964 Sebring entry. Foyt's car was painted dark blue with white stripes, and Cafaro recommended that the '96 version be fitted with a red interior. The team liked Cafaro's design, but the proposed interior color raised some eyebrows. It was decided that the car would be offered in a choice of a red or a black cabin treatment. (The team was right, as only 270 cars would be ordered with the former.) The new model was named "Grand Sport," in honor of the cars that inspired it.
Assistant Brand Manager Fred Gallasch felt the market could support 2,500 sales, but the Bowling Green Plant was unable to meet that production level due to the difficulty of applying the special white-striped paint scheme. It was decided to reduce production to 1,000 units (190 convertibles and 810 coupes). Heinricy received approval to number these cars with their own sequential VINs, a first-and, so far, a last-for Corvette.
Heinricy got permission to...
Heinricy got permission to apply the upcoming Grand Sport's paint style to two Morrison race cars for the 1995 season. One of the cars is shown here in the Daytona infield during the 1995 24-hour race, with Heinricy driving.
Work began on a tweaked LT1 engine, dubbed the LT4. Due to limited development time, it was only certified with the six-speed manual transmission, and it became the standard engine on all '96 manual Corvettes. The LT4 featured a new aluminum head design with 2.00-inch intake and 1.55-inch exhaust valves, a revised combustion-chamber shape, and a bump in compression from 10.4:1 to 10.8:1. The redline was raised to 6,300 rpm, requiring the installation of Crane roller rockers and hollow-stem valves (sodium filled on the exhaust side). The crankshaft was strengthened, and a more aggressive cam was installed. These changes produced a conservatively rated 330 hp at 5,800 rpm and 340 lb-ft of torque at 4,500 rpm.
Grand Sport coupes were fitted with 17x9.5-inch front and 17x11-inch rear ZR-1-style black wheels; convertibles got 17x9.5-inchers all around. (GM required that all cars be able to store both a flat tire and the wheel on which it was mounted. The convertible, with its tiny cargo area, had no room for the 11-inch rear rim.) Stick-on fender extensions from the Japanese-market export Corvette were fitted to all Grand Sport coupes to cover the bulging rear tires. Production began in the summer of 1995.