Corvette C5R-011
Corvette Racing as a concept, was something Zora-Arkus Duntov embraced and encouraged since the 1950’s. However, it took until 1996 for GM to officially create Corvette Racing as the factory race team. In 1996 Herb Fishel, then director of GM racing, established Corvette Racing under the leadership of the charismatic Doug Fehan. Doug was program manager for the Oldsmobile Aurora IMSA GTO program. Pratt & Miller engineered those cars, so it was no surprise Doug approached them when GM was launching the Corvette Racing program.
Gary Pratt and Jim Miller formed Pratt & Miller in 1989. The engineer and the businessman made a perfect pairing. Doug Fehan approached Gary Pratt and said “We [GM] want to race this car [Corvette]. You tell us where it will be competitive, you test it, you prove to us – in private – that it can win. Do all that and we will make funds available to campaign it over multiple years.” Never in their wildest dreams would Gary or Doug imagine the “multiple years” would stretch to 20 years and counting.
The C5-R test mule started life as a humble, regular production 1997 C5 Corvette and it completed more than 4,000 miles in the hands of test drivers, principally Ron Fellows and Chris Kneifel. The test mule led to the development of C5R-001 by Pratt & Miller, the first of only 11 Corvette C5-Rs ever built.
Chevrolet debuted the new C5-R at the November 1998 Specialty Equipment Manufacturer’s Association (SEMA) Show in Las Vegas. The car debuted with a 6.0-liter V8 mated to a Hewland 5-speed racing transmission. In 2004, Xtrac replaced Hewland as gearbox provider, and from late-2000, cars ran with a 7.0-liter engine developed by Katech. The stock C5 front and rear subframes and the hydroformed frame rails were used in the construction of the early C5-R chassis.
January 1999 saw the race-debut of the first two C5-R chassis at the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona. The cars competed in selective races during the inaugural American Le Mans Series in 1999. Corvette Racing ran either one or two cars, depending on the event. The first overall win could have come at the 2000 edition of the 24 Hours of Daytona, when the #3 Corvette finished Second overall and Second in the GTO Class behind the #91 Dodge Viper. Corvette Racing attended the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France in 2000 for the first time, and both cars finished the race and were classified Third and Fourth in their class. Le Mans was the final race for both the C5R-001 and C5R-002 chassis.
Jumping to 2004, to the final season for the C5-R; in 2005 it would be succeeded by the C6-R. Chassis 010 and 011 were completely dominant, winning all ten races they contested. They took a 1-2 finish at Le Mans, won Sebring, won Petit Le Mans, and finished another First and Second eight times during the season. It was in many ways the perfect season.
The car you see here is C5R-011, the last build C5-R. It gave Corvette Racing it’s final win for the C5 series, and the driver’s title of that years ALMS championship. It came in on 2nd place at Le Mans 2004, behind it’s sister car chassis 010. But won in it’s turn the 12 hours of Sebring.
Sold in 2005 to Belgium based GLPK team, it went on to race hard in FIA GT, BelCar and FFSA. We bought the car in 2010, and raced it in Supercar Challenge before starting a hard earned full restoration. Every system got rebuild or renewed, all linings got replaced, full suspension rebuild, engine, drivetrain, fuel system, complete new original body, and so on and on. The car is now in immaculate state, 24h race ready, and not been raced since.
The car is accompanied by a huge spareparts package, full spare body, fresh rebuild spare engine, wheels and many more. Feel free to contact us for more information.
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