Happy 100th Birthday, Zora!
December 25, 2009 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the celebrated “Godfather of the Corvette”, Zora Arkus-Duntov. He was born in Belgium in 1909 and spent his spirited youth racing motorcycles and cars that he bought with earned money. He graduated in 1934 from the Institute of Charlottenburg and quickly began writing tech articles and engineering papers for the German auto enthusiast publication Auto, Motor Und Sport. He married Elfi Wolff in 1939 and joined the French Air Force. Upon France’s surrender during WWII, Zora somehow obtained exit visas from the Spanish consulate for his wife, brother, parents and himself. They soon settled in New York, whereupon Zora and his brother set up Ardun (a combination of the Arkus-Duntov surnames), a military and automotive performance parts manufacturer. At its height, Ardun rivaled the legendary Offenhauser brand’s strength and reputation.
In 1953, Zora attended the GM “Motorama” traveling design study exhibition while it was in New York. It was here that he observed the Corvette prototype. Impressed with its design but underwhelmed by the 6-cylinder workaday powerplant, Zora fired off a technical letter to GM Chief Engineer Ed Cole and essentially talked his way into an engineering job with the company. After orchestrating the introduction of a small-block V8 option for the Corvette in 1955, he took the new car to Daytona Beach and recorded a 150 MPH flying mile on the sand. And from then on, the Corvette became a sports car to be reckoned with. Among his other innovations during the late 50′s were the Duntov high-lift camshaft and fuel injection for the Corvette.
When the Midyear Corvettes debuted in 1963, Zora envisioned a factory-backed racing effort to battle Ferrari, Porsche, Mercedes, Maserati and Shelby on the racetrack and in the showroom. He got as far as producing five 550HP Grand Sport Corvettes before GM’s ban on competition promptly put an end to his dream. The remaining original Grand Sports are among the most highly coveted Corvettes in history.
Zora “retired” from GM in 1975 but maintained his presence at countless Corvette-related events, including the rollout of the 1,000,000th Corvette in 1992. Zora lived in Grosse Pointe Woods, MI during his tenure with GM and retirement, and passed away in 1996.
Leave a Reply