Callaway Automobiles introduced as we speak that founder Ely Reeves Callaway III handed away on Tuesday, July 11 at his dwelling in Newport Seashore, California. His reason behind loss of life is claimed to be “from accidents sustained after a fall.” He was 75.

The son of Ely Callaway Jr., the founding father of Callaway Golf, Reeves Callaway initially needed to turn into a race automobile driver. However when that didn’t work out, he turned a racing teacher on the Bob Bondurant racing college. Whereas working at Bondurant, he developed an aftermarket turbocharger package for the BMW 3 Collection and managed to get Automotive and Driver to assessment it.

Whereas he initially ran Callaway Automobiles out of his storage, the constructive assessment from Automotive and Driver led him to open Callaway Automobiles’ first headquarters close to the place he was residing in Previous Lyme, Connecticut. Over the following a number of a long time, he would go on to switch BMW, Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Land Rover, Mazda and Common Motors merchandise. However he’s arguably greatest identified for his work on a number of generations of Chevrolet Corvettes.

Callaway had an in depth relationship with GM, which allowed him to promote his automobiles by means of Chevrolet sellers. In 1989, a Callaway Twin Turbo Corvette, often called the Sledgehammer, made 880 hp and 772 lb-ft of torque. Within the palms of John Lingenfelter, it set a manufacturing top-speed document of 254.76 mph. That document would stand for 21 years when Bugatti managed to hit 267.85 mph within the Veyron Tremendous Sport.

From there, Callaway bought into racing however continued to switch Corvettes, together with fashions with customized our bodies such because the Callaway C12 and the C16. Callaway nonetheless modifies Corvettes as we speak, in addition to Camaros, Silverados, Suburbans, Tahoes, Sierras, Yukons and Escalades.

In an announcement, his son Peter Reeves Callaway stated:

Because of Reeves’ visionary entrepreneurial spirit, Callaway Automobiles will proceed to innovate and develop within the twenty first century, impressed by his distinctive, extraordinary imaginative and prescient, and by his private instance of integrity, resourcefulness, and management as our founder. Dad’s ardour for making fantastically designed and crafted machines will be seen in each undertaking, and we stay dedicated to executing to the very best requirements, in true Callaway trend. He was hardly ever discovered doing something aside from working in direction of the following milestone for the corporate. He was a charismatic chief with a humorousness that we are going to all keep in mind by means of numerous “Reeves-isms”. I really feel lucky to have grown up working with him and the corporate.