uring Corvette’s early
years, as a result of his rac-
ing at Le Mans, Zora Arkus-
Duntov got the lion’s share
of media attention. Credit
also goes to three-time Indy 500 winner
and automotive engineer Mauri Rose who
helped develop the first Corvette chassis
on the shop floor as they were being hand-
built in Flint, Michigan. Rose and Duntov
were friends, but Rose wasn’t impressed
with Duntov’s driving and used to say,
“Zora couldn’t drive a nail with a hammer.”
But by the late 1950s, Duntov was the face
of Corvette racing.
We have pointed out that Duntov’s suc-
cessor, Dave McLellan owned and appreci-
ated sports cars and that Dave Hill raced a
Lotus Super 7 in SCCA competition. What
most Corvette fans don’t know is that while
Tom Wallace had the shortest tenure of
all of the Corvette chiefs (2 years and 10
months), he raced SCCA A/Sedan class
cars in the early ’70s and was profession-
ally racing IMSA cars in the late ’70s and
early ’80s. Wallace raced the 24 Hours of
Daytona, the 12 Hours of Sebring, and won
at Talladega. Why didn’t Wallace continue
professional racing? Because it was inter-
fering with his day job at Buick.
Wallace was a typical car-crazy kid
growing up in the ’50s and ’60s. His dad
had an Opel Cadet that he kept running
with help from a parts donor car. Before
Wallace had his driver’s license he bought
a ’55 Chevy, replaced the stock three-speed
transmission with a four-speed, rebuilt the
engine and added dual-quads. After get-
ting his license, he had the quickest car in
high school and rarely lost a drag race.
Thanks to his excellent grades,
Wallace went to General Motors Institute
after securing a sponsor to become an60 VETTE 19.09BY SCOTT TEETERS (^) I PHOTOGRAPHY & GRAPHICS BY THE AUTHOR & GM ARCHIVES
THE ILLUSTRATED CORVETTE
Designer Series No. 267
Corvette Chief Tom Wallace,
Racer Chief Engineer
automotive engineer. Wallace wanted to
get into Chevrolet, but there were no open-
ings so he opted for Buick. One of his first
projects was the design and development
of the Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR)
valve that siphons off a small amount of
exhaust gas and returns it back into the
intake charge. This results in lower nitro-
gen oxide (NOx) emissions.
Wallace graduated in 1970 just as the
muscle car era peaked and was end-
ing. Performance was being phased
out and emissions, fuel mileage and
safety were Detroit’s new mission.
Lloyd Reuss, Buick’s chief engineer, was
aware of Wallace’s interest in racing and
asked him to research adding a turbo-
charger to their old V-6 engine. Wallace
reported that it could be done and Reuss
instructed him to install a turbo on a
Buick Century to pace the 1976 Indy 500.
As part of a three-man team, Wallace
was the engine man and the others
did the suspension and brakes. In total,
Wallace produced six Indy 500 pace cars.
Wallace’s turbo Buick V-6 project even-
tually lead to the Buick Grand National,
Turbo-T, T-Type and the frightful GNX
series of cars that ran from 1982 to 1987.
Wallace enjoyed engineering and racing,
but he knew that if he was to rise up in the
ranks in GM, he needed to curtail his rac-
ing and get more education. In the early
’80s, Wallace got his master’s in Business
at Stanford and over the next 20 years
had a variety of chief positions with Buick,
Olds, Cadillac and Chevrolet groups. When
GM started their Vehicle Line Engineer
(VLE) management structure, managers
were in charge of everything from design-
to-production, sales and service. Wallace
ran the Trail Blazer, Envoy, Bravada, Saab
9-7, Colorado/Canyon pickups and the
Hummer H3 lines.
Dave Hill was the VLE of Performance
Car that included Corvette, Cadillac XLR,
Saturn Sky, Pontiac Solstice and Opel GT.
One day during a group vehicle-program