Prior to the third-generation Corvette, America?s sports car had seen frequent restyles and upgrades. In contrast, the ’68-82 cars saw only nose and tail revisions in ’73-74, and the addition of a glass fastback window in 1978. The slide into neglect didn’t end there. Having begun life offering a variety of powerful engines, by 1976, the poor C3s were suffering from deleterious power losses at the hands of the EPA and legislators in California, with further ignominy to come. On the track, none of that mattered, and John Greenwood?s maniacal, star-spangled take on the Corvette was winning races. And even when Greenwood’s cars weren’t winning races, they still looked and sounded more brutally violent than anything else on the track.
Thankfully, the C3 was designed in the 1960s, when a big-block engine was still an object Chevrolet considered an important thing for a sports car to carry on its option sheet. So even if the full-plastic ?Vettes were sucking the wind of their immediate predecessors and only offered neutered 350- and 305-cubic-inch V-8s, the modular nature of Chevrolet?s parts bin, as well as huge aftermarket support for blocks both small and big, made injecting a shot of testosterone into your wheezing machine as simple as spending some ducats and turning some wrenches.
Which is apparently what a previous owner of this 1976 Corvette did. Under that high, cowl-induction hood sits a 454-cubic-inch V-8. For a child of the late-’...