"Leave the Gun; Take The Cannoli"... [PIC]

 For Harley Earl, it was "Leave the Jag; take the Mercedes". By 1955, felt Corvette needed a winning race car to help bolster Corvette sale which were being torched by Ford's new Thunderbird. So Earl bought a Jaguar D-Type, brought it to GM's Research Studio and told the boys to convert it to left hand drive, install the Corvette V8 and build a body with Corvette styling cues. The engineers ran into so many problems they had to ditch the project. The only plus about that project was that it captured the interest of Zora Duntov who wanted in. Earl then bought a '55 Mercedes 300SL and reworked the chassis and frame to accommodate the 310 HP solid lifter 283 V8 and a Duntov designed rear suspension with inboard brakes. The new body, first of fiberglass, actually had a bit of that Jaguar look about it. This project, XP-64, was named the Corvette SS. This was the mule car with the chassis and body used as a template for second, full spec car with a magnesium body. Drivers preferred the fiberglass mule car because of its insulating properties as the super conducting magnesium scorched them with engine heat. Three other chassis were built (one became the Stingray) but were never built. all development on these cars took place at Dontov's "skunkworks" facility. The car's debut was to be at the 1957 Sebring event. Dontov had signed both Juan Manuel Fangio and Carroll Shelby as drivers but both backed out of their contracts Team manager John Fitch and Piero Tauffi took the reins at the last minute. Fitch only went 23 laps with coil, overheating and improper assembly issues. Parts were swapped from the mule to the SS but in the end the SS was a DNF. Right after Sebring, the Automotive Manufacturers Association voted to ban racing for all its members... and that was the end of the Corvette SS as a race car.

  I saw this car at the Indy 500 museum and I thought it looked cool as hell. That bullet shape headrest looks like it should be shooting flames out its rear.

The model is by AUTOart.