Twin Turbo Power: 1987 Callaway Corvette
Corvettes of the 80s tend to be somewhat forgettable; I will, however, make exceptions for the tuner editions, if you will. Greenwood, Callaway and others picked up where General Motors left off to make much-needed improvements to the Corvette, and Reeves Callaway took the middling out-of-the-box performance to another level. Find this one-of-188 Callaway cars here on eBay with a $30,000 Buy-It-Now and the option to submit a best offer.
Horsepower and torque numbers rose impressively with the Callaway system, pushing out numbers like 390 b.h.p. and 562 lb.-ft. of torque. The Callaway cars received numerous other enhancements in the name of performance, from gorgeous two-piece Work wheels to heavy-duty cooling upgrades to huge front disc brakes. The wheels were swapped on for weight savings; a larger radiator and power steering cooler ensured the Callaway could do track duty reliably from the comfort of an otherwise-stock Corvette interior.
That means leather bucket seats, AM/FM stereo cassette, 4/3 manual transmission and cool but not cold air conditioning await you in a car that could pull 190 m.p.h. back in the day. Not bad for a vehicle that simply required checking the B2K box at your local Chevy dealer and enjoying the peace of mind of a 12 month / 12,000 mile warranty. Per Road & Track’s review when it was introduced, Callaway’s work was high quality and didn’t do anything to disrupt the refinement that had been dialed into the Corvette’s chassis after years of subtle improvements.
Per that same article: “Twin Rotomaster turbos, with water-cooled bearings and integral wastegates, provide 10.0 psi of boost pressure to twin polished-aluminum air-to-air intercoolers.” Even more incredibly, the free-flow exhaust managed not to interfere with Chevrolet’s goal of achieving EPA certifications in all 50 states. Put simply, this low-mileage Callaway Corvette is an icon of the 80s and of Reeves Callaway’s brilliance when it came to hot-rodding Corvettes.
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Comments
It’s nice that it has a relatively factory look.. maybe it was later model Callaway editions that got the gaudy body work? .. Cool car.
I don’t think any of them got the gaudy body work from the factory. That wasn’t included in the package, which was primarily an engine package. I believe they offered optional wheels but that’s about it.
Callaway did offer body kits at the time, so some owners certainly added them.
For the money I’d rather have a driver C4 ZR1 and the only twin turbo C4 Vette I would consider even buying would be the “sledgehammer”.
There is only one Sledgehammer, was eventually sold for or five years ago. No others are considered at this time. Besides, a current Callaway has more horsepower and torque as well as purchasable high speed tires, not under the table set for the speed run then give them back.
The Sledgehammer has resided at the National Corvette Museum in KY for a couple decades man… It was even one of the cars that fell in the sink hole and GM has promised to restore.
Sledgehammer was not in the sink hole! The blue devil was. And the hammer was sold at auction in 2013
Wish I had bought one of the 13 1985 factory twin turbo vette GM made for testing, I was offered one for 50k no warranty. I wonder if anyone did buy one or if they were all crushed
And you get the much-loved Pac-Man instrument panel and 4+3 transmission!
How about some engine and interior pictures? Maybe you have to wait for the third song/dance (I apologize if you get the joke).
Go to eBay ad and scroll down, there are lots of them there. I was actually thinking the exact same thing until I did some more looking.
what a beauty! great color combo that classes the package up in an understated way, especially the wheels.
there were body-kit options for huge dollars on these but i prefer the stock look with just the badge & hood inlets giving it away.
there’s a lot of torques available on this thing & i bet turning the boost up a bit probably still rather have a C4 ZR1 but&/or custom tune program would open up a bunch more.
I remember when R&T did a road test of the Callaway TT.
IIRC it was somewhere special, maybe a long aircraft runway. I forget the magic number but it was around 200 MPH.
When you consider the low drag / low cross sectional area, the twin turbos on a big V8, and all those gears, it was no surprise….and pretty good for the 1980s.
Cool car if you live in the vicinity of Old Lyme, CT. Kind of like owning a first-generation ZR-1. Unless you are a master GM service tech best of luck with any engine issues.
1st gen zR1 was early 1970’s
With an engine 6,500 Chevy dealers could work on. Not so with the LT5
I wonder how much Mobile gave for the advertisment?
LT5’s aren’t so hard, just have to understand them. And it a person wanted to for about $400 and a MegaSquirt you can them into an LT1.
Nice car and I think superior to the ZR1 if you wanted to drive it. I’m not sure what parts and special tool availability is for the ZR1. With the exception of the turbos, this one appears to be mostly stock parts.
Take a look at the parts listed on the Callaway website. As stated above- Good luck to the buyer.
226 items, most of which you would not require for normal maintenance or repair. About the only things you’d really need are special hoses and such. I’ll stick with my first statement.
Thanks for taking the time to look. I was impressed by the $1400 intercooler. Of course there are two per car. I fail to understand the interest in these types of Corvettes when the same money will buy a 2015 base Corvette with 455 bhp and 460 lbs-ft of torque and a United States dealership network of 4200 + .
I know what you mean but the oldest saying in the car business is “there’s an ass for every seat”. To each his own. I’m perfectly happy with my 02 Z06.
I know what you mean but the oldest saying in the car business is “there’s an ass for every seat”. To each his own. I’m perfectly happy with my 02 Z06.
Agree. And I am very happy with my $5000 1984 Z-51, 4+3, semi-daily driver. When its worth $2500, I’ll give it to some kid interested in the Corvette hobby.
Interesting, 5or 6 yrs ago I was drooling over a Lingenfelter twin turbo set up for my 08 Z06 it was a beautiful setup and bumped the HP up to just over 1100 but the cost was damned near equal to the price of the car. Well a few years ago I was selling my Z06 and was looking at others for sale to get ideas on my asking price, well I found another Z06 just like mine with the Lingenfelter twin turbo setup that I was considering and the person selling that car was only asking like 10k more than I ended up selling my car for! Thank goodness I did not invest that 80k into mine then Lise 70k of that! I wonder if this Vette is going to be the same loser?
4+3 worst transmission GM ever put in a Ca car…..Someone in my area has a beautiful red 1 owner 19k miles ZR1 for $20k. I’d buy his car way before this one.
All the 4+3 was is a Super T-10 Warner 4 speed with an overdrive bolted to the back of it. Overdrive was available in gears 2, 3, and4. That’s how you get the”4+3”. Trans was made for GM by Doug Nash. Probably a little over complicated for the average driver but still a decent unit. Just another gimmick for fuel economy.
There was nothing at all complicated for the driver. Flipping the switch on the console was all you had to do.If you don’t like the 4+3 , don’t engage the switch. People talk about these flipping things like they are nuclear reactors. The biggest problem was an under-designed bearing that was changed out in the 1985 I believe Callaway used the 4+3 until 1989. He seems like a pretty smart guy, so maybe the 4+3 wasn’t so bad.
Frank, yours is a crossfire car. I always felt they got a bum rap. They weren’t necessarily race cars but great drivers. They sure were easy to care for and not as finicky as a port fuel. Really beat the hell out of a carburetor. And, you can’t beat the price. Pound for pound, one of the best bargains out there.