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Here's the story...
lllustrated Corvette Series No. 96 1995 GS90 Corvette
"The Curse of the Grand Sport Continues"
Dick
Guldstrand is a member of a very unique club. He is one of a dozen or
so men who actually worked on and raced one of the original 1963 Grand
Sport Corvettes. Designed to compete with the Shelby Cobra, only five
Grand Sports were secretly built by Zora Arkus-Duntov before the
big-wigs at GM caught wind of the plan to build and sell race cars. The
axe fell on the light weight racer and all five cars were sold to
privateers making the Grand Sport the ultimate "could-have-been"
Corvette. Many were touched by the Grand Sport, some more than others.
Dick Guldstrand never got over his Grand Sport experience.
"Goldie" went on to race many other Corvettes and eventually started a
business tuning competition Corvettes. As one of Chevrolet's back door
consultants, Guldstrand was very involved suspension development in the
early days of the C4. By the late '80s Guldstrand was offering an
enhanced version of the Corvette called the "GS80." The only problem in
Dick's mind was that the car just looked like a Corvette with
aftermarket wheels and tires. It was "Chevy's car" and he wanted
"Dick's car." When the ZR-1 was released, Goldie saw an opportunity to
bring back the Grand Sport...
Dick Guldstrand-style.
Called the "GS90", Dick's car would prove to be the most elaborate and
expensive specialty Corvette ever built. Guldstrand pitched the concept
of a radically restyled, hopped-up ZR-1 to his pals at Chevrolet. Dick
asked for 15 ZR-1s and a few million dollars. He got one car and a
blessing.
The GS90 is essentially a reskinned ZR-1 Corvette with a 475 horsepower
ZR-1 from D.K. Motorsports and a Guldstrand- modified suspension.
Styling of the car was a throwback to the 1963 Ferrari GTO and the only
stock Corvette body parts are the windshield and side windows.
The lines are bold and muscular with a few cues from the C2 Corvette.
Goldie threw every trick he knew into the GS90 from thicker anti-roll
bars to coil-over shocks replacing the stock mono-leaf sprint. Then he
capped it all off with 18-inch aluminum wheels from OZ in Italy and a
Nassau blue paint job with a single bold white racing stripe.
Performance was stunning with 0-to-60 in the low 4-second range and a
top speed of over 175mph.
The only problem was the price. The GS90 cost $134,500 over the price
of a $72,208 ZR-1, for a total of $206,208! As a result, only six GS90s
were built and sold.
Guldstrand was planning roadster, speedster, and lightweight versions
of the GS90 to be sold through Chevy dealers. But the Grand Sport
"curse" returned when the big-wigs at GM killed the deal. In the end,
Guldstrand made one more of "Dick's car" than the original five Grand
Sports.
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