Legendary Corvettes: 'Vettes Made Famous on Track and Screen

Chevrolet has never built an ordinary Corvette. Even the most mundane coupe draws a crowd everywhere it goes. But through victory at racetracks, exposure in film and television, or other notable achievements, a select few Corvettes have attained mythic status. Twenty of the most legendary Corvettes of all time—from the first Corvette ever built for the 1953 model year to the late first generation Corvettes used in the classic television series Route 66 to the five Grand Sport racers built by Zora Arkus Duntov, the Godfather of the Corvette, to the fifth generation Corvette raced by the father and son team of Dale Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt Jr. just before the elder Earnhardt’s tragic death—are featured in this book.

Randy Leffingwell wrote his first book, American Muscle, while on staff at the Los Angeles Times. The book examined Times’ publisher Otis Chandler’s muscle car collection. American Muscle, published in September 1990, jump-started a love of book creation that led Leffingwell to leave the Times in 1995. By then, he had authored Porsche Legends and six other books.

To date, Leffingwell has authored more than 60 titles. These include a dozen Porsche titles ranging from general overviews—Porsche 75 Years: Expect the Unexpected, and The Complete Book of Porsche 911—to deeper explorations in Porsche Turbo and Porsche 911: 50 Years. He regularly travels to Germany to continue his Porsche-history research, and he has interviewed more than 200 Porsche engineers, stylists, model makers, racers, and managers.

While Leffingwell has tackled other subjects, including John Deere tractors, Harley-Davidson, and West Coast lighthouses, he admits he is almost addicted to Porsche’s story. In addition to his book work, he is historical editor for 000 magazine and Porsche Panorama. And for the past decade, he has been researching and writing an encyclopedic history of Porsche’s motorsports endeavors.

Leffingwell lives near Santa Barbara, California.