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Reeves Callaway, founding father of Callaway Automobiles and a legend within the Corvette world, has died. Callaway Automobiles confirmed in an electronic mail that he handed on Tuesday after accidents sustained in a fall in his Newport Seashore, California, dwelling. He was 75.
Ely “Reeves” Callaway III was born in November 1947 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and raised in Darien, Connecticut. His father, Ely Callaway, based the Callaway golf firm, one of many world’s premier producers of golf golf equipment. He raced go-karts as a child and, in 1973, received the SCCA Method Vee championship. By 1976 he was an teacher on the Bob Bondurant College of Excessive-Efficiency Driving.
After his skilled racing profession did not pan out, he turned his consideration to modifying automobiles. His first product, a turbocharger package for the E21-generation BMW 320i, generated sufficient curiosity to guide Callaway to begin Callaway Automobiles from his storage in Previous Lyme, Connecticut, in 1977. Quickly he started providing efficiency kits for different automobiles.
“We do not name ourselves a tuner,” Callaway advised Highway & Observe in a 2017 interview. “A tuner takes an mixture of components that already exists, bolts them on the car, and calls it a customization. Every part we make is made particularly for the automobile. And we manufacture it ourselves.”
Shortly, his work attracted consideration from main automakers. Alfa Romeo was the primary, commissioning a turbocharger package for the GTV6 that debuted in 1983, then it was GM. Callaway developed a twin-turbo package for the Chevrolet Corvette, which grew to become obtainable by Chevy dealerships in 1987. On the time, a typical Corvette provided 240 horsepower; Callaway’s twin-turbo Corvette upped that to 382 horsepower, making it one of the vital highly effective automobiles on sale on the time.
The 254.76-mph Callaway Sledgehammer
Ever quicker Corvettes adopted, maybe probably the most well-known being the Sledgehammer, a C4 Corvette with low-drag aerodynamic bodywork and an 898-hp twin-turbo V-8. The Sledgehammer hit a high velocity of 254.76 mph and perpetually linked Reeves Callaway and the Chevrolet Corvette.
Whereas Callaway Automobiles labored with many different automakers, Aston Martin and Land Rover amongst them, its strongest affiliation was with the Corvette. Callaway additionally constructed Corvette race automobiles, beginning with the SuperNatural that made appearances at Le Mans in 1994 and 1995, ending 2nd and third in that yr’s GT2 subject, and culminating in a GT3 racing model of the C7 Corvette that also races globally to this present day. A notable latest spotlight was the C7 Corvette AeroWagen, which featured a physique package that turned the coupe into a trendy capturing brake. Right this moment, Callaway Automobiles’ choices include improve packages for a wide range of GM automobiles, together with a supercharger package for the brand new C8 Corvette.
“Because of Reeves’s 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,” stated his son Peter Callaway, Callaway Automobiles president, in a press release. “Dad’s ardour for making superbly designed and crafted machines may be seen in each mission, and we stay dedicated to executing to the best requirements, in true Callaway style. He was hardly ever discovered doing something aside from working in direction of the subsequent milestone for the corporate. He was a charismatic chief with a humorousness that we’ll all bear in mind by numerous ‘Reeves-isms.’ I really feel lucky to have grown up working with him and the corporate.”
He’s survived by 4 kids and two grandchildren.
Senior Reporter
A automobile fanatic since childhood, Chris Perkins is Highway & Observe’s engineering nerd and Porsche apologist. He joined the workers in 2016 and nobody has discovered a option to fireplace him since. He street-parks a Porsche Boxster in Brooklyn, New York, a lot to the horror of everybody who sees the automobile, not least the creator himself. He additionally insists he is not a convertible particular person, regardless of proudly owning three.
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