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CORVETTE TODAY #192 - Pete Callaway and The Future For Callaway Cars
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Jul 11, 2025
In July of 2023, the Corvette world and the automotive industry lost a true legend...Reeves Callaway passed away. Reeves' son, Pete, is now the President of Callaway Cars. Pete visits CORVETTE TODAY to talk about his father and the future of Callaway Cars. Your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett, talks with Pete about his upbringing with his Dad, his background and education and how he came up through the company. Pete also touches on the future of Callaway Cars and Corvette and his vision for what's next for the company. It's a beautiful tribute to Reeves Callaway. Meet his son, Pete, on this episode of CORVETTE TODAY.
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[Music] Welcome to Corvette Today, the show that
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talks about everything Corvette with your host Steve Garrett, lifetime member of the National Corvette Museum,
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president of the Corvette Club of Kansas City, Missouri, and radio disc jockey at the number one radio station in Kansas
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City for over 45 years. Here's Steve Garrett.
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Thanks for listening and watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything Corvette and the only
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current podcast dedicated to Corvette. I'm your host, Steve Garrett. I appreciate you tuning in. Corvette Today
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is brought to you by Wheelcraft. Wheelcraft has the ultimate holiday gift offer for you. Buy a $100 Wheelcraft
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Corvette Forum and Canadiancetforum.com. Welcoming Corvette enthusiasts from around the world. My guest on today's
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show is the president of Callaway Cars, the home of the famous B2K RPO option
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for Corvette. He's the son of Reeves Callaway. He is Pete Callaway. Pete, welcome to Corvette today.
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Thank you, Steve. Pleasure to be here. Pete, let's talk about your dad, Reeves. He was a true legend in the world of
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Corvette as well as the entire automotive industry. talk about your upbringing with a dad like Reeves and
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his profound influence that I'm sure he had on you. Yeah, absolutely. Growing up with dad
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was quite memorable. He had such a dedication to the business. Us kids of course couldn't have realized that at
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the time. You know, for us it was going to the shop on the weekends and playing around with whatever we could keep busy
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with. What was his real passion was building and making beautifully crafted things. Many people assume he was an
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engineer, but he wasn't. He had a degree in fine arts from Ammerst College. Wow. He really encouraged us to do things
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with our hands growing up and build things and have a good understanding of working with materials and shared the
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joy of creating things with our hands. Yeah. I recall he built a really cool
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Christmas present for me one year which is known as the Callaway trike. Oh, you can actually see it running in the
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credits of the video titled the genuine article which is about Cali Corvettes. And when the credits are rolling at the
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end, you can see me driving the trike through the parking lot. They had set up a slalom course with Mobile One oil
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bottles. But this interesting looking trike because it had two wheels in the front and one wheel in the rear. It was
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fabricated from roughly half inch diameter steel tube. And I remember him bending this steel tube around a
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55gallon drum and welding this thing together, which I had no idea what it was at the time, but sure enough, it was
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in the living room under the Christmas tree the next morning. Wow. My sister Beanie, who's four years older
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than I am, and I would spend our weekends with dad at the shop. And my first Corvette was a little yellow Corvette go-kart.
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Nice. I must have been about six years old at the time. Wow. Fond memories of running around the
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shop. The mechanical experiences that come along with stuff like that. I remember there's a pull start probably a little Briggs and Stratton engine in in
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this cart. One day I'm pull starting trying to get this thing started and sure enough the throttle it stuck open
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and it started and it took off without me. I have this forever ingrained vision in my head of the cart going up the
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driveway and making a long veing right-hand turn and crashing directly into the pricker bushes. Oh my gosh.
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Having to go inside to tell dad what happened. But then I got to figure out what the stock throttle meant. Right.
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That's fun. Good memories for sure. I have another good memory. At about 8 years old, dad had decided to set me up
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in the shop on one of the CNC machines that was configured for milling the arrow body slats behind the front and
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rear tires in the C4 arrow bodies. This was a fixture that was set up and of course the program was already there.
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And I recall he had me running these slats, you know, loading up the fiberglass stock in, running the program, vacuuming the stuff up and then
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unloading it. I a whole long weekends of machining those parts. So, you know, the amazing part about your
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dad was he was self-taught, which is pretty darn incredible. He started Callaway Cars in his garage, right?
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Yes. Callaway Cars was started in the garage in 1977, as he says, in the back of a house that they were essentially
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housesitting for, which didn't have a garage, even built on it. So, they built a small garage, and that's where the
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first turbo systems were constructed. And he had hired friends from the neighborhood to come help put these kits
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together. But, I would say that it's not entirely selftaught. I think after he graduated Ammerst, he started a race
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prep and body shop in Ammerst with a friend of his, Bob Gray. So Callaway Gray was the first shop that they had
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had out of school. He went on to work for Ray Caldwell at Autodamics, which
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was the country's largest race car manufacturer of the time and they were building primarily Formula V's and
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that's how he stepped his way into being the de facto factory driver of the Formula V. In the beginning of that
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story, Alex Dearborn is another influence on his upbringing. They were
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building midenine dune buggies based on Volkswagen type 1 components called Deserters. This was a kit car that you
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could build and assemble yourself and the chassis were all brazed. My dad learned how to braze their autodnamics.
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Dad had wanted to learn how to do everything from any kind of fabrication to welding to machining, making castings. That was where he really
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realized that his passion was in building these beautiful machines. That's really cool. You know, Pete, your dad was on two shows of Corvette today,
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and he really, really loved being on the show, but I know that he did a lot of work really with BMW, but it was kind of
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the work that he did with Alfa Romeo that caught Chevrolet's eye, wasn't it? That's right. That's right. The Alfa
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Romeo GTV 6, which was a 2.5 L nice handling little sports car of the era,
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just suffered from, like most vehicles, and lack of real horsepower. And as I understand the story, the Maserati B
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Turbo had just been released and Alpha was looking for a way to compete with this. So they had contacted my dad and
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his company was seen what they were doing with turbocharged systems and that was the first OE contract that Callaway
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cars had earned. This was important because the Alfa Romeo had to pass all the factory durability standards as well
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as emissions compliance. Alfa Romeo was putting a big trust in this small group of talented folks in Old Lime,
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Connecticut to be able to do that within about a year's time so they could be in market in time. It came at unfortunate
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timing for Callaway. By the time they finished the first 37 cars, Alfa Romeo
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was really struggling and they decided to pull the plug in North America and head back to Italy. That was the end of
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the Alpha program. It left everybody in Connecticut standing around saying, "Geez, what are we going to do now?" We
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were all entirely focused on achieving this goal for Alpha and now the program's ended. Yeah. It turns out that one of those 37 cars
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ended up in GM's competitive analysis fleet. And apparently it did quite well.
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Dave Mlelen, chief engineer of Corvette at the time, called up dad and said, "Hey, we've got this 85 alpha 2.5 L
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six-cylinder and it's like a dead ringer for an 85 Corvette. You guys have built a nice twin turbo system for the car. us
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Corvette engineers are trying to validate what the future is for a higher horsepower version of Corvette. We're
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looking at turbocharging or we're looking at this overhead valve 4 cam development which ended up being the LT5
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for the ZR1. Dave said the plug's about to get pulled on the turbo effort because all the engines are failing, but
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we would really like to see it at least get through validation. Would you guys be interested in turbocharging some
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Corvettes? At that moment, that was like the big call, right? That was the big call from GM. So work began on the
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Corvette. I believe that the basis for the program was to stress the rest of
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the vehicle as well for warranty data more than anything else. Yeah. They had no initial intention of being
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public facing special version of the car that you could order through the dealers under an RPO. I think it really began
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more as an engineering validation for the whole platform. That's great. And we're going to get more into detail on the Corvette program
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in segment number two of the show. But at least that's a nice leadin. It gives people something to look forward to. You
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also, Pete, come from a very entrepreneurial family. Many people ask me, "Now, is Callaway Cars the same as
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Callaway Golf?" Talk more about that and the relationship within the family. You bet. We get that question to this
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day all the time. I bet people think that Callaway Golf was this old historic brand that's been around
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forever. I'd just like to point out that it was actually founded in 1982, which was after dad had started Callaway Cars
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in 1977. My grandfather Elely, his upbringing was in the textile industry
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and was running Burlington Industries in New York in the 60s at the time. He decided the handwriting was on the wall
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and he was to find a new career path. So after leaving Burlington, he had an inkling that in this region of Southern
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California could be a prime area for growing varietal grapes for wine production. He decided to leave New
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York, invest in property in otherwise barely settled area of Southern California, today known as Tmacula, then
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known as Rancho California. Huh. Bought a big plot of land and had befriended and partnered with a local
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ventner who knew exactly how to establish a vineyard. Everybody thought this was a crazy idea because Tmacula is
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quite erid. It's very hot. The old thinking was that this would be too hot for a varietal of grapes. However, this
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certain region in Tmacula Valley had many years of research done by the agriculture department at UC Davis. And
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they had records on this Tmacula Valley region, which is actually only 20 miles from the coast as the crow flies. And
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there's an everyday onshore flow of cool ocean air in through the valley. And
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that was critical in that it kept the leaf temperature down of the vines which was essential for quality production of
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the grapes coupled with rainfall which was very well known on an annual schedule and the soil conditions. This
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was all a formula for very good grapes. So he started Callaway Vineyard in 1968
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and they built the winery a couple of years later. My grandfather being a great marketer managed to get their
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first wines served at the Waldorf Historia Hotel in which the Queen of England was in attendance.
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Wow. So they had this dry white wine from Southern California being served. It
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became immediately famous because Queen Elizabeth never had more than one glass of wine at these types of events. She
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would switch to orange juice or something. She requested a second glass of this white wine that was being
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served. Wow. And all of a sudden, Southern California and Callaway Wines was on the map. That's amazing. That's a great story.
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So about 10 years after Elie had started the vineyard in the winery, he decided
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to take an offer to sell the company to Hyram Walker, which is the Canadian liquor giant, he was now retired for the
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second time and looking for the next thing to keep him busy. To his entrepreneurial spirit, my grandfather
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Elie was always an avid golfer. He found two gentlemen building beautifully
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crafted golf wedges and putters in their basement. They were using a piece of hickory which was drilled down the
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center, you know, roughly 36 in long and inserting a steel shaft known as hickory stick. This was quite a challenging feat
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from a technical aspect to drill down a piece of wood that long and produce a golf club out of it. So he was so
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impressed that he ended up buying these two guys out and they created Callaway Hickory Stick which then turned into
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Callaway Golf a few years later. Callaway Golf which was the first the big technical innovation there was the
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first metalheaded woods and drivers known as the big bera. The golf company was a big success obviously.
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Yes. And it was funny you you ask about the rest of the family when my grandfather told his children that he had this idea
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to name the golf club Big Bertha. They all said, "Oh, that's a terrible idea. It looks bad. It sounds bad. Like it's a
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large woman or something like that." You know, Big Bertha was actually referenced to a World War I cannon of its era.
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That's the connection to the glove, right? They can shoot this thing farther than anything else. So, they all told him, "Hey, that's a bad idea, Dad." You
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know, and look where it ended up. That's great. That's a great story. Didn't even know about all that. That's
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really cool. Well, Pete, let's take our first break. When we come back, we're going to talk more about Callaway Cars
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Garrett. With me today is the president of Callaway Cars, Pete Callaway. In segment number two, we're going to talk
18:19
a lot more about Callaway Cars and their history with Corvette. First of all, Pete, you guys have three locations.
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You're in Old Lime, Connecticut on the East Coast. You're in Tmacula, California on the West Coast. You also
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have a place in Lime Garden, Germany. Talk about those locations and what all three of those locations do or
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specialize in. Absolutely. My dad founded the company in Old Lamb, Connecticut as Callaway Turbo Systems originally. The four
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business units today are Callaway Cars, Callaway Engineering, Callaway Carbon, and Callaway Competition. Callaway Cars
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specializes in the production of high performance, roadgoing automobiles, primarily the Corvette, emissions
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compliant, warranties, etc. Callaway Engineering is a facet of the company that does OE engineering services for
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other car companies. some of the other projects we've spoken about over the years. Callaway is a diverse group of talented folks and we are often called
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upon for help in other technical challenges. Callaway Carbon is the division dedicated to primarily carbon
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fiber composite structures, not only automotive but aerospace and military and defense applications. And Callaway
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Competition, which is based in Lion Gart, Germany, has been responsible for production of all the Callaway race cars
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over the years that have competed worldwide. Everywhere from GT Racing to 24 hours of Lama sports car racing
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worldwide and construction of both the C6 GT3 car as well as the C7 GT3 car,
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which were both authorized constructor by GM to design and homologate those
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cars. and Callaway cars. The famous RPO code is B2K. That means your Callaway
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Corvette is fully licensed by a Chevrolet and it comes with a full factory warranty. Right.
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That's correct. RPO B2K was assigned to the twin turbo program in 1987 and it
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was kind of a secret code. It wasn't in the ordering guide for dealers to configure the car. You had to know the
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code to be able to put in the order. The car would then drop shipped to Old Lime,
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Connecticut from Bowling Green. It would be converted to Callaway twin turbo spec and then shipped off to the dealer.
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And you're celebrating 36 years of Callaway cars now, too, aren't you? Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to believe that's
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36 years ago. And I'll just say that, you know, in 1987, I was all of 5 years old. I know.
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To clarify, the relationship with Chevrolet and the Corvette team has always been quite informal. It's always
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been a handshake and an agreement that we do what we do and we stick to it and
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they do what they do and it doesn't compromise anything on the Corvette side. Again, back to the quality and the
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fact that the warranty can remain intact and it's supplemented by Callaway's warranty. That speaks volumes to the
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goal of Callaway has always been to do the highest quality job possible, retain the car's reliability but at a much
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higher performance, be emissions compliant and really no funny stuff. But the RPO B2K, just to clarify, that was
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assigned to the twin turbo program. However, it wasn't used again until
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2012, which was the 25th anniversary of Callaway Corvette. It was reissued to
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produce 25 special editions of the car. The Callaway Corvettes produced in between those eras did not carry the
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RPO. They were built essentially as aftermarket and still distributed through the Callaway dealer group, which
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is about 30 select Chevrolet dealers around the country. And it was all done
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on a handshake. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Between my dad and Dave Mlullen. And it's remained that way. B2K was also
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used last year in the 35th anniversary of Callaway Corvettes. And it was used
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for what's known as the B2K anniversary edition. Oh. And interestingly, it wasn't actually
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the RPO used. RPOS's in the B category have an engineering tiein. And to get
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this program done in the 35th year, a different RPO was established called PCY. That was done because these days
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new RPOS to get through engineering frankly just takes too long. Yeah. So they came up with the idea to assign
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more of a marketing RPO to it. We joked that it was nice of them to choose my initials as Pete Callaway Yar for the
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Corvette. That's nice. I like that. That's awesome. Now Pete, you've got three different types of Callaway cars.
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There's turbocharged, supernatural, and supercharged. Talk about those three variants.
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Absolutely. It's connected to the best technical solution of the time, right? In the late '7s, turbocharger was
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absolutely the best way to create positive manifold pressure. People ask why after B2K, why didn't we continue
22:47
turbocharging Corvettes? It seemed to be such a good recipe. As I understand that when the L98 engine was replaced by the
22:54
LT1, it featured a reverse flow cooling system which basically made turbocharging a non-starter. So we
23:02
started looking at ways to improve the efficiency of the naturally aspirated engine configuration and we dubbed that
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as supernatural. Fast forward into the C5 generation and the beginning of the C6, we started looking at current
23:14
supercharger technology of the day which was the fifth generation supercharger. There's a number of things to consider
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when we're looking at doing this from an aftermarket perspective. The supercharger in that fifth generation Eden was looking quite attractive.
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Here's a unit that you could remove the intake manifold from the engine, install the supercharger unit basically all
23:34
self-contained. It had no requirement of changing anything on the exhaust system side. So, it's all on the cold side of
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the engine. So, from a thermal standpoint and longevity and durability, that was much better. From an emissions
23:45
compliance standpoint, again, you get to leave the factory manifolds and cats in place, which was a big help for
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achieving emissions compliance. The cost, frankly, was more attractive. And at the end of it, when you drove the
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car, the really satisfying part of a supercharged car is as soon as you ask for the throttle, you've got the boost.
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As opposed to a turbocharged car, you have an inherent lag waiting for the boost to build. Right? in a supercharged car was being
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driven by the belt and it's a positive displacement supercharger really all the air flow is available to you at a very
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low RPM and that made it feel like you were driving frankly like a big naturally aspirated engine. It was
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instantaneous gratification. Yeah. And of course we can't talk about Callaway Corvettes without mentioning
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the sledgehammer. Of course. Of course. I was fond memories of this one Corvette in the shop that had four center exit super
24:36
trap mufflers. As a child, you know, I was, why is that one different than that one? Right. Yeah. We rode around in the back of the C4 as
24:43
kids, as my dad would have told the story that the drive from the house to the shop was about six miles through the
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back roads of Connecticut. So, you'd hear us sort of thump thump thump to one side and thump thump thump to the other
24:54
side. A little different than today's rides and corvettes as kids. I guess the sledgehammer was such a neat program and
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amazing for the time. You know, 254.76 mph in 1988. We're talking about
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configuring a car for journalists to go drive, right, for top speed testing. You know, you
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look back at that now, it's like, wow, that was very dangerous at those speeds. Any little thing going wrong is big. But
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from a technical achievement, the sledgehammer is great, and it's such a neat story how the intent of the car was
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to still look and drive and operate like a normal street car. It also had to be
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able to go 250 miles per hour. Yeah. Aerodynamics, of course, plays a huge role in that. Paul Deutschman is a
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Montrealbased designer whom my dad met. Paul had designed a prototype car for Porsche called the Spectre. My dad saw
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the Spec said, "Wow, that's a beautiful car. I'd like to meet the guy who designed it." So, he called for a
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meeting with Paul. On the first phone call, my dad asked Paul, "Do you think you could design a body that's
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aerodynamically stable for the Corvette at 250 mph?" I think Paul took a deep breath and said, "Well, yes, sir. Of
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course." That was the beginning of a long-standing relationship. Paul, in fact, has designed every Callaway car
26:04
since then. Wow. Any Callaway designed part has been designed by one man. And again, with a vision between my dad and
26:12
Paul, they were able to produce all the generations of Callaway designs, which work not just aesthetically, but of
26:17
course, they have to technically achieve the goal as well. Right. The sledgehammer is really the embodiment of that.
26:23
Yeah. And you know what? 254 miles an hour in today's standards, Pete, is
26:28
fantastic. Let alone from 1988. That's just pretty darn amazing. Yeah, we joke that it took Bugatti 25
26:35
years to go 2 mph faster. Exactly. Well, buddy, let's take our
26:40
final break. When we come back in segment number three, we're going to talk about the Callaway offerings for the C8 Corvette. That's coming up next
26:46
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913-384-1550. You're enjoying the only current podcast
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$100. I'm your host, Steve Garrett. With me is the president of Callaway Cars, Pete Callaway. As a matter of fact, if
30:23
you would like to listen to any of the Reeves Callaway interviews, you can go all the way back to episode number 11.
30:29
Reeves was with me on the show at the end of June in 2020. And also we talked
30:35
about the 35- year anniversary of Callaway Cars in episode number 148. So
30:41
make sure you check those out. But in this third and final segment, we're going to talk about the C8 Corvette. Before we do that though, Pete, talk to
30:48
me about how you got into the family business. Yeah, going back to spending weekends in the shop as a kid, that turned into a
30:54
summer job at the shop. My high school years, basically did a sort of an apprentice program. I spent time in a
31:00
few different departments. one fabrication and welding, engine building, running the dyno, testing. Dad
31:06
was big on us gaining as much experience as young kids as possible. That opened my eyes to a lot of different things.
31:13
And when it came time to choose what I was going to study in university, I felt
31:18
that engineering would make the most sense. So, I went and ended up getting a degree in mechanical engineering. After
31:25
that was done, we decided that it would make sense to expand the business and we
31:31
started the facility in Southern California. That was my job to establish the facility and grow the West Coast
31:38
operations as a way of expanding our dealer network into the Western region and increasing the capacity of building
31:44
production supercharged cars. Gotcha. Also, Pete, let's talk about the current offerings for the C8 Corvette
31:49
through Callaway Cars. Absolutely. It's an exciting time. You know, the Corvette itself has always been what we've thought is the world's
31:56
best starting point for what we want to do with an automobile. The C8, of course, brings a entirely new platform.
32:02
Being mid-enine configuration, even got to say driven a stock Corvette C8, it's wildly impressive how good the car is
32:08
right out of the box. Of course, Callaway, we need to add more power, right? So, we've just announced our
32:14
latest iteration of the supercharged Callaway Corvette. It's different than past Callaway Corvettes. We'll talk about a few of those things. It's the
32:21
best and fastest version of the cars we've ever produced. It features the generation 4 supercharger. I'd like to
32:27
get into a little bit of the technical detail on that. It's quite amazing what we're able to achieve with today's latest technology. And we talked about
32:34
starting with turbocharging, then shifting to naturally aspirated, then just supercharging. And today is a
32:39
further evolution of that supercharger technology. So the Gen 4 supercharger is still a positive displacement
32:46
supercharger. And what that means is that for every revolution of the supercharger itself, it moves a certain
32:52
volume of air. In the previous generations, that was typically a 2.3 L displacement in the roots type
32:59
supercharger in the Callaway Gen 3 supercharger. In the fourth generation of the supercharger, we're actually
33:04
going to a different design of the rotor pack itself. And this is a twin screw configuration. It is a 3 L displacement.
33:11
The difference between a roots type and a twin screw, while they may look similar from the outside when you open
33:17
the hood, a roots type is essentially more of an air pump where it's pushing the air into the engine, it's being
33:23
compressed in the intake manifold and therefore the combustion chamber after the supercharger itself. Whereas in a
33:30
twin screw design, the air is actually being compressed down the length of the supercharger rotors, then delivered to
33:36
the engine at the elevated pressure. The difference there is that the twin screw
33:41
design is actually a more efficient way of compressing and delivering the pressurized air to the engine. And that
33:47
is proven by several things, but one is the data from testing. When you compress air, naturally there's a temperature
33:54
rise, right? The better job you can do of compressing the air is to minimize that temperature
33:59
increase. It's really quite phenomenal. If you look at turbocharged or supercharged cars over the era, it's
34:04
quite impressive. Let's just say for rough numbers what all this translates to. So, here's just a couple of numbers
34:09
from our test data to share this with you because we're very happy to see these results and to share it with everybody. Let's say you've got an
34:15
airbox temperature of 104 degrees that gets drawn in before the throttle body, right? That gets drawn into the engine
34:22
that's then at 123° go through the supercharger. The compressed air has a
34:27
rise to 235°. So, that's 112° rise with the increase
34:32
in pressure. Then it passes through the intercooler. The result coming out of the intercooler is 144 degrees. That's a
34:40
net rise of only 21 degrees coming into the supercharger. So, we're shedding off 91 degrees across the intercooler. This
34:47
is highly more efficient than any other type of supercharger that we've tested or used in the past. That's shedding
34:52
basically 81% of the temperature that was associated with the pressure rise. It's quite good. And what that of course
34:59
means is that no matter how long you stand on the throttle pedal, the temperatures are controlled. It doesn't
35:04
heat soak and lose power, which was historically associated with superchargers, is that they would heat soak and not make the power after really
35:11
being driven hard for long periods of time. That's basically gone now. So, these cars perform flawlessly driven
35:17
around the road course or down the drag strip, the temperatures are very well controlled. It just speaks to the reason
35:22
why supercharging and all these factors really explain that. All of that also translates to you with the amount of
35:28
power that we're making per PSI of manifold pressure is more than previous design. And speaking of power, talk
35:34
about the horsepower gain and the torque gain. So the stock for about 495 horsepower
35:40
out of the LT2. We are producing 687 horsepower. Wow. And 643 pound- feet of torque. You have
35:48
to stop and think about that for a second because we're talking about 193 more horsepower than the factory engine
35:54
without even removing the cylinder heads. It speaks again volumes to talking about the best starting point
35:59
and GM have done such a good job on powertrain development over the years. I mean, the bottom end can handle it. The
36:04
cylinder heads flow well enough. We're not running a huge amount of manifold pressure. You know, we're talking about just sub 8 PSI range for making that
36:11
much power is really phenomenal. Absolutely. Plus, when you get your car call, as I like to say it, there are
36:17
other options that you can order. Talk about like the widebody kit, the front splitter, the famous double D exhaust,
36:23
and some of the other things that you can get with the Callaway cars. That's a good point. Yeah. So to get yourself into a Callaway Corvette, it's
36:30
primarily the supercharged package that we spoke about that comes along with the branding of the vehicle. There's build
36:36
plaque with a VIN number engraved. Cars are serialized. There's anodized aluminum threshold panels. Other options
36:42
after that are really menudriven options. It's all very much all cart. Yeah, those can be groups of aerodynamic
36:49
components, mechanical components, suspension, wheel, tire, brake. We have a nice widebody package that we've just
36:56
shown at Carile this year. The main idea there was, let's offer a package that is
37:01
visually pleasing, of course, but also allows us to run a larger wheel and tire package. So now you can have a
37:08
supercharged Callaway Stingray, but configure it so that it has the same tire that comes on a Z06.
37:13
Nice. Pete, all this is great. What is in the future for Callaway cars? Now, the future is wide open, as we say.
37:20
There's a lot of questions about as the industry goes from internal combustion engines to electrified, where does
37:26
Callaway fit in? And I think that we are pretty good at adapting to the current market and finding clever technical
37:32
solutions to no matter what it is that we're working on. Very interesting though is the concept of what will you
37:38
do with the -ay being electric assistance to the front wheels. Of course, while the car is brand new from
37:44
GM, we haven't had any chance to evaluate at the moment, but theoretically, it's a Stingray with an
37:49
independent electric assist to the front axle, the internal combustion powertrain is what comes in the Stingray. So,
37:56
theoretically, Callaway Supercharged E-Ray could make sense. Now, do you still add the 160 horsepower and the 125
38:04
pound feet to the Callaway numbers? Well, if you did, that would mean 847
38:09
horsepower and 768 pound- feet. Now, I'm not saying that's what's going to be available or that's going to be the
38:16
final configuration, but from a high level, that looks pretty enticing. Yeah, in all-wheel drive configuration of a
38:22
Corvette. That's amazing. Those are mind-boggling numbers. That's hard to believe. Secondary to
38:27
that, we are looking at the C8 and really thinking that a track dayonly
38:33
version of the car would be another product offering that makes sense for the Callaway Fit, especially with the
38:39
history and competition side and motorsports tie-in and the experiential side for consumers. As you know, if you
38:45
buy a new Corvette, you're encouraged to go attend the Corvette driving school at Spring Mountain and most folks come away
38:52
with a great experience and are probably looking for more. That's driving a street car on the track. And as you
38:57
progress as a driver, being in a road car and road tires, you work up to a level where you're ready for more. We
39:03
would like to develop something that would be just that. Something that's track dedicated car. As your skill
39:09
increases and you're wanting more performance, have a car that is mechanically sound. It's lighter weight.
39:15
It's got proper safety. It's got the ability to run on a slick tire with improved chassis componentry. and the
39:21
experience of being in a real track prepared car is totally different than driving a stock road car on track. So,
39:27
there's a nice program available that you could sign up to be part either own a Callaway dedicated track car or to
39:34
have more of an arrive and drive program where you can come and work your driver skills up at different tracks around the
39:40
country and not have to worry about the car ownership. That's a thought for the next iterations of the car. You know,
39:46
the Z06 could play into that quite well. Man, that sounds good to me. Now, how long does this entire process take,
39:52
Pete? The build process for Callaway Corvette is typically about two weeks, depending on the options.
39:57
Okay. Doing the widebody adds a little more time. The pieces are attached to the existing fenders and quarter panels so
40:03
that it doesn't require repainting of any of the factory body work. That's great. The panels are all crafted in carbon
40:09
fiber and it's beautifully meticulously made. You know, no distortion in the weave. The parts are very high quality
40:14
and they look great. Typically, leave them clear coated carbon fiber. contrast against the Corvette's body colors looks
40:20
great. Or as an option, they could be painted body color to match. Both configurations are shown on our website
40:26
galleries, but that really gives the car a nice muscular stance and of course the benefit of running a wider wheel and
40:32
tire. And it looked great at Carlilele. Boy, that was an awesome looking car. And that leads me into my final question. If
40:38
someone wants to get their car called, as I say, where can they do that? How can they get in touch with Callaway
40:44
Cars? Yeah, absolutely. Uh shameless plug here. So callaway carars.com. You can reach out by phone or text. Follow us on
40:51
the various social media channels at Callaway Cars. There's really three ways of getting your Callaway. Typically the
40:57
cars are ordered by our Callaway dealers. They would put in a new order for you. It would be built to your
41:03
specifications in Bowling Green. It then has a Callaway drop ship code. So it either get drop shipped to California or
41:09
Connecticut depending where you would like to take delivery of the car or or get shipped back to you. and then it's shipped back to you or your dealer. Or
41:16
you can fly in and take factory delivery and get a tour through the shop and go over the car. That's the most common
41:22
method. If you already own a C8, that's fine, so long as the car is in sound mechanical condition and it hasn't been
41:28
otherwise modified, you're welcome to send us your existing C8 and follow the same delivery options. Or if you need
41:34
help finding a car, you know, there's still a big demand for Corvettes. It can be tricky. we can work with you in sourcing the vehicle and turn it into a
41:42
much faster, very special version of the car. Absolutely. Pete, thank you so much for taking the time to be on Corvette today.
41:49
We miss your dad. It was a huge loss in the Corvette world and the automotive industry. It's good to see you at the
41:55
helm of the company taking Callaway cars forward. Oh, thank you so much, Steve. That means a lot to me.
42:01
Thanks again for listening and watching Corvette Today. And be sure to tell your family, friends, and other Corvette
42:06
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Thanks for checking out Corvette Today on podcast and YouTube. If you'd like to contact Steve with ideas for Corvette
42:57
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43:26
[Music]