Corvette History

The Fan-Funded ZR-1 That Went to Le Mans

Eduardo Zepeda··
Credit: Goodwood Racing

Ask most people about the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans and they’ll tell you about McLaren, which won outright with the F1 GTR at its first attempt. Fair enough. But further down the timing screens that June, a C4 Corvette ZR-1 wearing number 30 was having a very different weekend, and if you’d walked around the back of it, you’d have found a list of names on the rear wing alongside the sponsor decals. They belonged to ZR-1 enthusiasts who had each sent a $500 check to help get the car to France.

Beyond a single chassis, GM wasn’t paying for any of this, and the yellow factory Corvettes that now treat Le Mans like a second home were still years away. What Doug Rippie had instead was a shop in Minnesota, an engine almost nobody else had, and an email list. So what exactly did $500 buy you in 1995? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Just not a finish.

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