Corvette Model Gallery
HEINZ & JOHNSON CORVETTE
Until the recent dominance of the C5-R Corvette in international GT racing, the Heinz & Johnson Team could previously lay claim to being the most successful Corvette racers on the world stage with a grand-slam of the big three GT endurance races in 1972. Racing with the controversial Confederate Flag livery, Heinz & Johnson won the GT class at both Daytona and Sebring. To contest LeMans, Heinz & Johnston joined up with the North American Racing Team usually just referred to by it initials. NART was Luigi Chinetti's USA based Ferrari racing team which was very experienced racing at LeMans. Apparently Leo Mehl the racing director of Goodyear wanted an American at LeMans and said he would pull Ferrari's worldwide Goodyear sponsorship unless NART gave up one of its entry slots. Chinetti relented but insisted the Corvette wear a NART/Ferrari badge and the same livery as the Ferrais entered. As a driver Luigi Chinetti won LeMans in 1934 in an Alfa and in 1949 won almost single-handed in a Ferrari. In 1972 NART entered three 365 GTB/4 Daytonas, one Dino 246 and the Heinz & Johnston Corvette which was the GTS over 5000cc class to finish and fifteenth overall. One of their Daytonas was sixth overall second in GTS under 5000cc driven by Sam Posey and Tony Adamowicz while the race was won by a Matra driven by Henri Pescarolo and Graham Hill. To learn more about this car, see Corvette Fever June 1992 http://www.corvettearchive.com/images/1972/CFJune92/lemans_l88.jpg
The model
Phil Dauphinee built this incredible 1/32 scale racing Corvette to replicate the Heinz & Johnson winner of the the 1972 Daytona and Sebring races.
Box stock from the Hornby 1/32 kit
The same body used on the Scalextric slot car.
If you would like to contact Phil on this model his e-mail address is: pdauphinee@shaw.ca
Page updated 01/02/05