The All-American Corvette

America has always had a love affair with the Corvette.
Over the years, the passion has grown to such a level that even now,
there is a museum dedicated to this fabulous automobile. Back in the 70's,
the Corvette was nicknamed:"America's Star-Spangled Sports Car".
With the 4th of July occurring this month, it would only be appropriate
to reminisce over the "star-studded" Corvettes of the 70's.

If you're a dedicated Corvette fan, and you hear the words:
Stars and Stripes, the first name that comes to mind is John Greenwood.
John expressed his patriotism by painting his racing Corvette
with an American Flag theme. His racer received a huge amount
of attention wherever it was raced, and John's popularity skyrocketed.

After winning the 1971 12 Hours of Sebring with co-driver Dick Smothers ( of the Smothers Brothers fame), in a ZL-1 powered Corvette, he was approached by the B F Goodrich tire company. BFG was releasing a new line of high performanceradial tires called the Radial T/A, and they wanted everyone to know about it.

So they agreed to give John a major sponsorship, only if John would runall of his races on the new Radial T/A's!! He did and was quite successful!! John's "Stars and Stripes" paint scheme changed slightly for the 1972 season with the BFG sponsorship, but was still highly recognizable.

BFG's market share of performance radial tires for Corvettes during the 70's was around 65%. This was quite an accomplishment for a brand new entry into the performance tire arena!!

1973 was the last year that John Greenwood raced his Corvettes with the near-stock body panels. His paint scheme changed again, but that didn't change his winning ways!

John no longer had his BFG deal, and would soon switch back to Goodyears
as he went on to develop even wider fender flares, cross-ram fuel injections
for his 8 liter ZL-1 all aluminum engines, and ground effects for battle
against Europe's newly dominating Porsches and BMW's.

We will have the complete story of John Greenwoods Wild Fendered Corvettes
in our Racing book which will be in print soon! So please check with us
periodically and we will post the information on this website!

Thanks John!

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