If you’ve been paying attention to our coverage of classic Corvettes, you might understand the attraction of Z06 C2s and how it was set up for racing by Chevrolet so you wouldn’t have to.  One of the 199 1963 Corvettes built with the Z06 package will be headed to Mecum’s Monterey auction on August 14-16.
To a consumer in a Chevrolet dealership, it was possible to order most of the Z06 performance enhancements separately, but the significance of the Z06 is that it was an integrated package. The first six were built for the top Corvette racers of the day, then five more batches were built throughout the model year; Chevrolet continually tweaked the package throughout the model year. Paul Reinhart’s Z06 was the sixth of the first-batch Corvettes built for racing. The Oakland, California Union 76 dealer had consecutive class wins at the Sebring 12 Hours in 1957 and was a dominant force in SCCA Pacific Coast B-Production racing, having won division championships in 1960 and 1961, so it was only natural that he’d be considered for the first batch of Z06s.
However, as great as the Z06 Corvette was, a new threat began appearing on the tracks: the Shelby Cobra. And then, before the situation could be rectified, General Motors pulled out of racing. Reinhart sold the Corvette at the end of the 1964 season, but in 1982 he began to search for a C2 to race in vintage events. He found one in the newspaper, checked it out, and discovered it was his old race car. He sold it in 2000, but it’s continued to be raced as God had intended Now, fresh from restoration, it is poised for the auction block and a new owner with pockets stuffed with greenbacks.
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