Customer Reviews

Chevrolet Racing: 14 Years of Raucous Silence! 1957-1970

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A great book for every Chevrolet racing fan. Full of secret items and true stories of Chevrolet's behind the scenes involvement in racing when the AMA ban on manufacturer involvement was in place. Plenty of amusing characters from the early days of racing. Highly recommended.

Chevrolet ----Racing? Fourteen Years of Raucous Silence! 1957-1970*Revised Edition 2000Isbn#0-7680-0529-9*Excellent*

I have the Revised Edition,Year 2000,Published by SAE([...],Society of Automotive Engineers) Of this Great Classic.(originally published in 1972) A Must for Corvette and Chevy Fans. The pictures featured in the book are all black and white,except the cover on the 2000-revised edition.316 pages, the Introduction is new,but the revised book has been untouched from the original(except the new hardcover dustjacket and intro). It covers only from 1957-1970, by Paul Von Valkenburgh an Insider who worked for Chevrolet R&D. You will read in detail of Chevrolet Research and Development cars that could have destroyed Ford,Their GT40,Cobra etc.had it not been for GM Suits who had to kill a good thing. About Chevrolet supporting directly and indirectly through the backdoor despite the 1957 AMA Racing ban. Makes one wonder what could have been!

This book was originally written in 1972. Paul Van Valkenburgh was an R&D Engineer at Chevrolet during the 60's when Chevrolet quietly supported Chaparral of JIM HALL, PENSKE Corvettes and GRAND SPORT Specials, SMOKEY YUNICK and NASCAR. When first released, JOHN DeLOREAN, then General Manager of Chevrolet asked "WHO IS THIS GUY? .......DID WE REALLY DO ALL THIS STUFF?"

The stories are hard to believe, and read very much like a WW2 story of how we won the War. The engineering and technology was so far advanced at the time, that today some 40 years later race teams are amazed that General Motors had the SMART people working for them. Race fans will note that the book is often historically quaint, but very accurate.

I have had the priveledge of knowing well people like racers DICK GULDSTRAND, DOUG HOOPER, JOE FREITAS, JIM JEFFORDS, JACK KNAB and engineers ZORA DUNTOV, GIB HUFFSTADER, KEN KAYSER, FRANZ ESTEREICHER and others who were there racing or supporting Chevrolet products during this time, and Paul's stories match the 'real deal'.

This is MUST READ if you are interested in the History of Chevrolet Racing.

JIM GESSNER
CORVETTE HISTORIAN

I first heard about this book several years ago and how good it was. Unfortunately it was out of print. I bought the book as soon as I saw it was in print again and it's as good as I was told; and not just for Chevy fans, but any car racing fan. The work with Jim Hall was especially interesting.