The 1956 SR-2 Corvette…well played, Brian and Justin. It’s very hard to knock a Corvette that had the backing of Zora Arkus-Duntov and Harley Earl…wait a minute. Something sounds familiar about that, I wonder what it could be? Oh, yeah, that’s right: those two names are attached to Corvettes everywhere! That’s Genesis for the General’s sports car, so while the SR-2 is unique in that it’s got the racing background and the stinger-shaped aero piece behind the driver’s helmet, in the end it’s a factory race car.

Now, if you wanted to really stand out from the crowd in the late 1950s, your gaze turned to Italy, where the coach builders of the day were knocking out some absolutely drop-dead-sexy shapes. Carroll Shelby had been fascinated with the idea of melding American V8 performance with a European GT for years prior to the AC Cobra’s creation. Add to this mix two gentlemen: Gary Laughlin, a Texas oil man and gentleman racer who had just broken the crank in his Ferrari, and Peter Coltrin, an automotive journalist who had connections in Italy. After Shelby and Laughlin finished putting together the basic layout of the program, Coltrin got Laughlin in touch with Sergio Scaglietti, who agreed to do the bodywork on the cars, and Ed Cole, who discreetly pulled three Corvette chassis off the St. Louis lines before they received Corvette bodywork. The three rolling chassis (one fuelie four-speed and two dual-quad automatics) were shipped to Italy, where Scaglietti’s crew adapted the bodywork of the Ferrari 250 “Tour de France” to the larger Corvette platform in secret. Had Enzo Ferrari learned that one of his most trusted coach shops was using a Ferrari body on a Chevrolet, you could bet that the screaming would be heard all the way in Detroit.

Unfortunately, the timing couldn’t have been worse. One car was completed and returned to Laughlin in 1960, and he was unhappy with the fit and finish of the car. Then the other shoe fell: higher-ups inside GM had heard about the project and had informed Cole that the program was to be terminated immediately. Cole contacted Shelby late that night to inform him of the circumstances: GM was cutting their racing and performance in the light of the Automobile Manufacturing Association’s “gentlemen’s agreement” racing ban and was facing pressure from the U.S. Government, and in no way was an Italian-bodied Corvette going to see the light of day in that kind of environment. Only the three cars were made, with the two unfinished cars being sent back to the U.S. Jim Hall ended up with the second car, and after Shelby refused the third, it was sold off.