1967 L-88 Corvette Drag Racer "In Memory of Astoria-Chas"

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Illustrated Corvette Series No. 129 - 1967 L-88 Corvette Drag Racer
"In Memory of Astoria-Chas"

From its earliest days, drag racing was the little guy’s motorsport. Shade-tree mechanics wrenched on their street cars during the week and competed at their local drag strip on the weekend. The tale of Charley Snyder’s “KO Motion” L88 ‘67 Corvette reads like the Buddy Holly story of drag racing.

During the late ’60s, Long Island, New York was a hotbed of musclecar activity. Motion Performance owner Joel Rosen had a sweet deal with the owners of the local Chevy dealer, Baldwin Chevrolet. Rosen was building brand-new Chevy Phase III supercars while his business partner and friend, Marty Schorr, then editor of CARS magazine, kept Chevy fans drooling with a continuous stream of articles about Motion’s street and strip activities. These were very exciting times for high performance street cars.

Charley “Chas” Snyder was a local guy who lived in Astoria, New York, just a few miles from Rosen’s operation. In February ‘67, the 19-year-old Snyder took delivery of a new Marlboro Maroon 427 Corvette roadster. He took the car straight to Rosen’s shop for some serious tweaking. It wasn’t long before Snyder’s Vette was winning races at both the local strip and the late-night street-racing scene on Connecting Highway in Queens.

Unfortunately, Rosen’s enhancements proved to be more than Duntov envisioned when designing the frame of the C2 Sting Ray. The twisted chassis was replaced with a new gusset-welded unit, and a fresh L88 427 engine was installed.

Shortly after the car was worked over, Snyder, by then 20, was drafted into the Army. His racing exploits now fell in between his Army duties. Rosen was putting every trick in the book into the KO Motion car and had it running solid low 11s. Snyder ultimately volunteered for Airborne Ranger training and was sent to Vietnam in the spring of ‘68. One month after his arrival, he was killed by a mortar round.

Needless to say, the Snyder family and his friends at Motion Performance were devastated. A year later, Rosen and driver John Mahler got permission from Chas’ mother, Grace, to continue racing the L88 Vette with the objectiv of winning the national record for Chas. When Rosen was ready for the AHRA record run, the L88 was chock-full of the hottest parts from Chevrolet and the after market. The L88 was balanced and blueprinted, and its bottom end was beefed up. Modified aluminum heads, a performance camshaft, an 850-cfm Holley double-pumper, Hooker headers, 4.88 rear gears, a Hurst shifter, and 10-inch slicks were added. With Bill Foster at the wheel, Snyder’s L88 took the AHRA A/Corvette national record with an 11.04 e.t. at 129 mph. The official listing in the record book reads, “In Memory of Astoria Chas.” Later, Mahler ran a 10.47 at a local track The car was then trailered to Snyder’s sister’s house, garaged, and covered for the next 31 years!

Long Island businessman Glen Spielberg was just eight years old when he first saw the KO Motion car and knew he just had to have it. After three decades, the Snyder family finally agreed to sell the car to Spielberg on the condition that he would not restore or modify it. Today, the car is as it was the last day it was raced. The Buddy Holly of Corvettes lives on.