Purple Cannibals: The Story of Three Chevrolet Corvettes, Part 1

The relatively simple song The Purple People Eater, written by Sheb Wooley, was released to the people at the end of May 1958 and gained such popularity that, perhaps, no other pop song has seen. By searching for “Purple People Eater”, the search engine, in addition to the original song, can give you: various covers (including the recent 2018 Pegboard Nerds), a bunch of various toys (from plush and cute to ugly and plastic), postcards and just drawings (which have been drawn since the song was released and still), the movie (the second movie I know based on the song) and much, much more. For example, photos of pumpkins that fans of the song repaint purple on Halloween eve. Or a whole scattering of different cars of a characteristic color, called Purple Cannibals.

Sheb Wooley – The Purple People Eater

It is on the latter that I propose to stop, and I want to start with the earliest example: the first car, named the Purple Ogre, appeared back in ’58, the year the song was released – that spring, the very famous Nickey Chevrolet company decided to create its own racing team, and their car became the Chevrolet Corvette SR-2.

The SR-2 was a development of the SR-car idea that saved Chevrolet’s reputation in the sports car market. The fact is that the first Corvette was frankly bad compared to its competitors: it was in those years that Ford launched the Thunderbird model, which surpassed the Vette in all respects.: The Blue Oval offered customers a wide range of colors and options, including different transmissions and amenities such as mechanical or electric windows, electric seats-all with a V8 under the hood. At that time, Chevrolet was still equipped with a linear six, there were no side windows in principle, and there was only one transmission: a two-speed automatic Powerglide. Sales of the Corvette in 1955 totaled only 700 cars, while the number of Thunderbirds sold exceeded 16,000.

According to a certain number of people, the biggest problem with the Corvette, positioned as a sports car, was Chevrolet’s almost complete lack of any kind of sports history. These people included Zachary Duntov, a racing driver who won Le Mans 54th in his class and was also Chevrolet’s chief engineer, who knew firsthand that GM management simply did not know the difference between a passenger car and a sports car. Zachary literally saved the Corvette, explaining to the managers from the 54th year that stopping the production of a sports model meant literally surrendering to Henry Ford without a fight, that a really productive car needed a V8, and so on and so forth. And so, in 1955, Chevrolet finally got a V8, the legendary small block, the company’s first V8 since 1917. The debut version of the new engine went from the first sketches to production in just 15 weeks.

Having got his hands on the V8, Comrade Duntov personally undertook to raise Chevrolet’s image on the sports scene. Zachary squandered the engine to 5 liters and, despite the sluggish resistance of the engineers, knocked out a specially made camshaft from the company. All this was assembled into one whole under the hood of the Corvette 6901, behind the wheel of which Zachary set a speed record on the flying mile in Daytona: 242 kilometers per hour. A new record was set just a few days before the opening of the GM 56 Motor Show, which proved to be a tremendous success. The Corvette gained extremely little respect from the sports public, and the camshaft designed by Zachary was put into production, and until the end of the sixties, everyone knew that if you were building a sporty Chevy, then you couldn’t do without a Duntov camshaft.

A little earlier, Chevrolet started winning in NASCAR due to the fact that the second generation of the Bel Air also received a new V8 – and in view of all the successes of the new engine, GM management decided to take a swing at perhaps the biggest American race of that time: the 12 hours of Sebring. Duntov was against it: a major accident at Le Mans in 1955 convinced him that the Corvette was not ready. Chevrolet still lacked experience in big-time sports, Sebring was an extremely difficult track with a lot of invisible dangers, and while the new engine gave the car speed, no one really worked on developing a new, efficient braking system.

In response, GM management immediately ousted Zachary and replaced him with John Fitch, an experienced racer and, among other things, a direct participant in the 24 Hours of Le Mans 1955. After giving Fitch three factory Corvettes in addition to Duntov’s 6901, the managers sent John to prepare for the race. I’m not going to describe all the difficulties that Fitch went through before and during the race – you can make a movie about them no worse than the recent Ford Vs Ferrari. John himself later said that without a racing history to draw any conclusions from, literally every problem represented unknown territory.

“When we had a breakdown… we didn’t even know what could have caused it: whether the production was wrong, or just an unsuccessful spare part, an incorrectly selected lubricant, or we simply exceeded the permissible load. Our Corvette was sinking in the middle of the ocean, trying at the last minute to learn how to swim.”

The need to instantly deal with all problems literally on the move evolved into the creation of a new rapid response system in the Chevrolet engineering department. And since Sebring’s rules prohibited the use of anything that was not freely available, the necessary parts had to be immediately available at dealers – and this situation led to the creation of a new spare parts distribution system. In the end, three of the four cars presented at the race reached the finish line, and one of them, the 6901, took first place in its class. And it was a real victory, even though the 6901 was almost the only car in its class – there was only one registered competitor, and he drove for the Chevrolet team. But in a race where only 24 of the 59 starting cars reached the finish line, being one of those who survived the entire 12 hours is already a serious achievement. And with Chevrolet being the only all-American car on the track, GM’s reputation as a sports car manufacturer skyrocketed in an instant.

On this positive note, Chevrolet began building the SR-2. The first SR was still too experimental a car to continue racing in it. In addition, the son of GM Vice President Harley Earl, Jerry Earl, suddenly announced that he would race a Ferrari 250 MM, but the caring father, of course, understood that Ferrari was an unacceptable choice. Therefore, it was urgently necessary to build a new car that exceeded 250 MM in all respects. The car was reassembled in a hurry, in a few weeks, but during the development process they managed to take into account all the mistakes and weaknesses of the first four SRS – it was not difficult, since the chassis remained the same.

An order from the engineering department for an experimental garage and store, dated June 1, ’56, described many improvements to the chassis – all of which became an option for buyers the following year. The improvements included more elastic springs and lateral stability stabilizers, larger shock absorbers, Bendix Cerametalix linings in the brake drums, wider wheels and DPS.

A little later, against the background of the construction of the second SR-2, the exhaust system, radiator, and transmission underwent additional changes…There was little left of the original car by the Sebring 57th: the standard 265 with two carburettors on a three-speed transmission was replaced with a new engine with a Rochester Ramjet injection system, which at that time was a prototype, to which a four-speed gearbox was attached. The famous mechanic Smokey Unique worked on a fresh engine, which drained the engine from 4.6 to 5.5 liters, and the low fin was replaced with a high one, inside which a 136-and-a-half-liter fuel tank was placed, allowing the car to visit pit stops less often. Overall, everything was going well: Jerry Earl drove a Chevrolet, and Zachary Duntov began to seriously think about winning Le Mans in a Corvette. Another prototype was built called XP-64, which, together with the SR-2, performed at Sebring, and then… And then the AMA suddenly decided to ban factories from maintaining and supporting racing teams.

That is why one of the three SR-2s fell into the hands of racer Jim Jeffords, who was sponsored by the already mentioned Nickey Chevrolet. Many people say that at the time of Jim’s purchase of the SR-2, the car was already painted purple for some reason and did not have to be repainted. Anyway, the first performance took place even before the release of the famous song – it is known that SR-2 returned to Sebring in the 58th year, on March 22nd, this time without reaching the finish line.

But despite the technical problems, it was the SR-2 that became the first of the three Purple Cannibals, whose series of victories became legendary. After the finish, the cars were often sorted out one by one – it became routine, but each time there was nothing to complain about: the cars were completely legal. Chevrolet itself played a significant role in this: although the plant could not officially support racing teams, a number of lucky people quietly received the company’s support. Nickey was just one of those teams: all the parts had a factory number and were listed in catalogs and manuals. Another thing is that not everyone would have been able to buy some of these parts, but, obviously, no one caught Chevrolet by the hand – and most likely, many simply turned a blind eye to it.

However, at the end of the year, the SR-2 was sold to another racer, Bud Gates. Perhaps, by the 59th year, the 56th car simply began to become obsolete. Nevertheless, the first Purple Ogre continued to race for a long time: it is known that in the 62nd year its owner was Vernon Kispert, who used the SR-2 as a dragster, renaming it the Terror of Terre Haute. At some point, the SR-2 was repainted red, and in ’86 it was bought by Rich Mason, who restored it, repainted it blue, and raced it in vintage racing for almost three decades.

The first SR-2 still exists today: it is noteworthy that despite its rich racing history, it has never been crashed – a real rarity for actively used racing cars. Terror Terre Haute continues to change colors, parts, and owners, but is still alive and well, remaining the center of attention at many auto shows.

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