While in Detroit a couple of weeks ago, I was invited to visit the unreal car collection of Ken Lingenfelter, owner of Lingenfelter Motor Sports. Now, I've seen car collections before, but I wasn't ready to be floored the way this one hit me. Maybe it's because Ken's tastes seem to run exactly like mine: He had one room filled with about 40 rare and desirable musclecars, including Yenkos, COPOs, SS Chevrolets, another room with over 40 Corvettes, from '53-present, and another room filled with exotics and other unusual machines. Everything from the legendary Ferrari F-40 and Enzo Ferrari to a Bugatti Veyron, a Saleen S7 Twin Turbo and a mid-’80s Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz. Yes, I know the Eldo is not exactly exotic, but it was to an Italian kid from Jersey City. What can I say?
The photo above is one of the Corvettes I saw, and it is one that I'd never even heard of. It's a ’54 GM Motorama car and featured a special exterior color (silver was never offered on first-gen Vettes (’53-55), a unique interior in silver and black with reptile print on the seats and a center console, a one-off chrome trim plate on the dash and other custom features (check out the headlight covers).
Ken also owns the '55 prototype mule Vette that was Zora Arkus-Duntov used to develop the suspension and engine parts needed to run 150 mph in the flying mile on Daytona Beach in a '56 Corvette. One of those parts was the now-legendary Duntov cam. Look for a web exclusive story on that car in a bit.