1973 Motion Maco Corvette

This is our 3rd Corvette. It is a 1973 Corvette with the Motion Performance Maco body kit.

History

The following is the history of my Mako Shark II replica.

Carmon Peterson of Corvette Ltd. Sales in NC bought the Mako Shark II kit from Motion Performance. The kit consisted of the one-piece tilt front-end, the one-piece rear end (all the way back from the rear of the doors), grill & headlight components, and racing-style gas cap.

Carmon modified the hood so that the headlights where recessed and mounted in a more standard position (the kit had them installed in the lower grill area). He also raised the hood scoop three inches. The slots for the louvers had to be cut out---Carmon said that if he had to do that portion over again he would have made it so the back window louver area was hinged at the top allowing access to the rear window. The tail light portion of the rear-end was a blank panel, leaving the style of tail lights up to the builder. Carmon decided to install the tail lights of a 1969 Firebird. The positioning of the gas filler was also optional, some builders would put it on the left side like in the real Mako Shark II, but Carmon decided to place it in the center.

The donor car was a 1973 Corvette. The interior was out of a wrecked 1980 Corvette. The engine is a 1970 Corvette 350 built as the 1970 LT-1. The heads have since been replaced with L-82 heads in order to lower the compression ratio so the engine could run on pump gas.

The car was painted black lacquer, with all the trim parts also blacked out. The car was pinstriped in burgundy.

The car was sold by Star Carter Motors Inc of SC to Raymond Groomes of North Augusta on 10/9/1985. The odometer read 11,375.

The first time I saw the car it was covered in a thick layer of dust. I asked Raymond if he could wash it up so that we could see what it really looked like. I was disappointed when I inspected the car. The black lacquer was spider-webbed with many stress cracks. The body also had a few cracks in the fiberglass. There were a number of ripples in the body. I ended up telling Raymond that we wouldn't take it after all. The very next day I called Raymond back and said that I would go ahead and buy it. These are the pictures I took the day we inspected the car.

I bought the car from Raymond on 10/25/1997. The odometer read 14,080.

On 2/13/98 I brought the car to David McClearen of Fiberglass Specialties for the car to be stripped, resurfaced and painted. On 5/7/98 the completed car was picked up.

It's kind of silly, but one of the things I like the most about the car is the side pipes. I have always wanted a car with side pipes---the sound is WONDERFUL!

Pictures

Click on a picture to see the larger version.

These are pictures taken at a local car show, and then in a field near our house. This is when the car still had its black laquer paint and pin striping.

This is when Jan & Genie Holley and Arlene & I drove up to Athens for a day.

Back in black.

Hood hinges had been broken since before Sno-Cap 38th Anniversary (the last time the Mako was out to "play").

Reconditioned 454. Dyno'd. 540.1 foot lbs torqe @ 3900 rpm. Horsepower is 457.2 @ 4900 rpm

LT-1 out...

Plans

The current plan is to finish detailing & rebuilding the "engine compartment" or front-end, and put it back together.

Status

The following table outlines the work that I've done or stuff I have purchased for the car. Started tracking status with this table on 2004/08/20.

   David     djunod

All Content on this page is Copyright © 1997 - 2005 David N. Junod