Loading
  • Pinterest
  • Youtube
  • Facebook
  • Vimeo
Welcome to Cars of Dreams Museum
  • Home
  • About
  • Current Collection
  • Past Collection 1
    • Past Collection 2
  • Events
  • Contact
  • Menu Menu

1966 L72 Corvette Sting Ray
427/450 HP

This 1966 Corvette is an early production (first week of Oct 1965) A. O. Smith built L72 Roadster in milano maroon, with saddle leather interior, beige top, 4 speed, F41 special suspension, power windows, 411 positraction rear, AM-FM radio with power antenna and gold sidewall tires. The early production L72’s (approx. 1st 3 months) were rated at 450 hp.

Corvette owners who selected the new L72 427 Turbojet engine option were confused by a factory recall in late 1965 shortly after the 1966 model rolled out. The “engine modification” performed at the dealershop consisted of the application of a sticker on the air filter that read “Turbo jet 425 HP” – this was in place of the one that read, “Turbo jet 450 HP.”

No specific explanation for this adjustment exists, although at the time the engineers in the Corvette division were “coloring outside the lines” as far as GM’s anti-racing faction was concerned. 450 horsepower in a 3,300 pound car was quite a blatant violation to the anti-racing policy issued from the fourteenth floor at GM.

Lowering the horsepower rating was remarkably easy for the engineers, it was just a matter of fiddling a bit with the numbers. The L72 achieves it’s peak horsepower at 6400 RPM. Since the other engines in the lineup were not as freewheeling and were rated at a lower RPM, the engineers decided to take their readings at 5600 where the engine produced only 425 horsepower. The real chore proved to be ensuring that all printed documentation reflected the change. Numerous publications from the era show both 425hp and 450hp in the same literature.

Few people were fooled. The folks at Motor Trend offered this explanation. “One explanation for this curious state of affairs marking the rounds is that, since congressional safety inquisition, there has been a gentleman’s agreement not to advertise more than 425 horsepower. No official explanation has been offered, and Chevrolet’s sticking to the 425hp figure in its latest literature. A similar situation exists at Ford and Chrysler, too, whose high performance engines are believed capable of gross power ratings far in excess of the 425 hp they each claim.”

Car and Driver road testers reported that, “Chevrolet insists that there are only 425 horses in there and we’ll just have to take their word for it. Though we feel compelled to point out that these are 425 horses of a size and strength never before seen by man, horses as big as houses, with hooves as big as bushel baskets. When you have this many of those horses exerting their full force against the small of your back, you are profoundly impressed, and you will most likely lose all interest in counting anyway.” Second only to another member of the class of “66, the limited production 427 Shelby Cobra until 1990, the L72 Corvette has remained at the top of the fastest production cars of all time list for over 30 years. After being bumped in 1990 by it’s younger brother the ZR1 Corvette and again in 1997 by the Viper GTS, the L72 Corvette currently resides in fourth place.

This car has gone through a complete body off, nut and bolt restoration. The entire drivetrain and mechanicals were completely rebuilt. Car runs and drives like new!

© 2014 CarsofDreams.com
  • Pinterest
  • Youtube
  • Facebook
  • Vimeo
  • Home
  • About
  • Current Collection
  • Past Collection 1
  • Past Collection 2
  • Events
  • Contact
  • Sitemap
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

OKLearn more

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Google Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.

If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Other cookies

The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy
Accept settingsHide notification only