BEST LAID PLANS
I’ve been building race cars for various employers and customers for more than 20 years now, and, in that time, I’ve built hundreds of roll cages — yes, hundreds. It is one of those jobs that reminds you how old you are every time you climb in and out of a car for a week or so putting together a chromoly jungle gym. That’s why I no longer build roll cages other than for cars that I am building from the ground up. It is also why, when my old mate Paul Manuell asked me if I wanted to put a cage in a Corvette for his mate Stu, I thought, Yeah, nah.
At the time, I was flat out running two NZ V8 utes for a customer and two V8 super tourers in the North Island Endurance Series, so I didn’t need any extra work. Paul talked me into coming to meet Stu and having a quick chat about the car by telling me that Royce McCort at Autospeed Engineering would be building the engine for it. I had worked with Royce on various projects and always enjoyed it.
OK, I’ll come and drink your beer, I thought. The meeting was at Paul’s house. Following introductions, Royce began telling Stu about his progress so far in regards to his initial planning of the engine. It would be an iron LSX block filled with the very best gear money could buy with a couple of hair dryers hanging off it. Power would be well into four-digit territory. I started to get a little more interested. Next discussion was which car to use. Stu had decided to use a Corvette but hadn’t confirmed which shape would be best. The decision was made to go with the latest-shape (at the time) C7.
Talk then turned to Stu’s targets for the car. Mid sentence he just casually mentioned “five hundred” without skipping a beat. Hang on. I stopped him.
“Five hundred what?” I asked. “Kilometres per hour,” he replied with a grin. Sheesh! Things just got really serious. “OK, I’m keen to build the cage. Who’s building the rest of the
