It’s a bit cliched to say, but have you ever thought a car looked fast, even when sat still? When we saw this Trans-Am Corvette C3 in the paddocks at Laguna Seca that’s exactly what we were thinking. Then we were given the onboard footage, and the ‘I bet this is stupidly fast’ theory was confirmed as fact. It is completely bonkers.
One of the many insane American cars at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, this C3 isn’t just fast but it holds a very special backstory. Having raced from 1981 onwards, in 1991 it raced for its final time in period before sitting in a barn in Minnesota for 28 years. It was then sent off to a scrapyard to be crushed, but someone noticed this didn’t look like any old Corvette, and it certainly wasn’t one that deserved to be pummelled into a tiny cube. So in 2019 it was restored and now it’s back on track, bodywork complete with the battle scars of more than 30 years ago – the current owner has restored it mechanically but left it entirely original, save for a bit of a wash.
We’ve written about cars fighting through the field before now in various series and at various tracks around the world, but riding along in a V8 Trans-Am monster, fighting other cars around a track as iconic as Laguna Seca, is absolute bliss.
Video
Onboard
C3
Corvette
Laguna Seca