Fan Friday: Gary Archdeacon's 2019 Arctic White C7 Grand Sport

Gary Archdeacon calls his 2019 Grand Sport "The Polar Bear," and once you've seen it in a show hall you don't argue with the name. Arctic White paint, red graphics running the length of it, and a hood that tells you exactly what it's carrying: SUPERCHARGED, 675 HP, in red letters flanking a Jake skull. There's an actual stuffed polar bear riding in the driver's seat at shows. It is, somehow, the least loud thing about the car.

The Grand Sport left Bowling Green as one of 1,785 Arctic White Grand Sport coupes built for 2019, wearing Adrenaline Red leather inside — a combination that photographs beautifully and, in Gary's hands, became a starting point rather than a finish line. He added a centrifugal supercharger and a high-flow intake, then had it dyno-tuned to 675 horsepower at the crank and 600 at the wheels. From there the build went the whole distance: powder-coated Racing Red wheels behind red calipers, a carbon fiber front splitter and side skirts, a custom rear wing, carbon fiber dash trim, rear window louvers, Grand Sport lettering on the tires, and red LED lighting threaded through the engine bay, the wheel wells, and the interior. The engine bay alone is a display piece — red-painted covers, Grand Sport rail covers, red hoses, all of it lit. The Ohio plate reads ITLIAN. The trophy record backs up the effort: mostly First Place finishes with a few Seconds, and two appearances in the top fifty at Carlisle.

The Grand Sport badge Gary is running has a heavier history than most people realize, and it happens to connect directly to his own garage. In 1963, Zora Arkus-Duntov set out to build 125 lightweight Corvette Grand Sports so the car could be homologated for FIA GT racing and sent after Shelby's Cobras. GM's leadership found out and shut the program down. Five were finished. All five survived, smuggled out to privateer teams rather than destroyed, and they remain among the most valuable Corvettes in existence. Gary's second Corvette was a 1963 — a black-on-red four-speed convertible, from the very model year the Grand Sport name was born. His first was a 1961 convertible in white with contrasting silver coves, the last model year Chevrolet offered a two-tone cove at all. And this third one closed a different loop: 2019 was the final year of the C7 and the last front-engine Corvette Chevrolet has built, out of 34,822 produced that year. What's more, the Grand Sport was already the enthusiast's pick of the range — it carries the Z06's wide body, brakes, and chassis hardware with the naturally aspirated 460-horsepower LT1 in place of the blown LT4. Bolting on a supercharger, in other words, was Gary finishing a sentence the factory started.

Thank you, Gary, for sending The Polar Bear our way — three Corvettes deep and still swinging for the fences. 🏎️

Products for This Build

C7 Grand Sport Fuel Rail Covers, 2 pc (2017–2019) — Gary's engine bay is built around Grand Sport-lettered rail covers sitting over red-painted covers and red hoses; if you want that same centerpiece under your own 2017–2019 Grand Sport hood, this is the two-piece set that does it. → Shop C7 Grand Sport Fuel Rail Covers

C7 Door Prop, Polished Stainless with Carbon Fiber Insert — Driver Side (2014–2019) — A show car that gets judged with the doors open needs the door held right, and the real carbon fiber insert matches the carbon dash, splitter, and skirts already on Gary's build. → Shop C7 Carbon Fiber Door Prop

C7 Grand Sport Hash Marks Hat / Cap — Somebody standing next to a Grand Sport all weekend answering questions about it should be wearing the hash marks. → Shop C7 Grand Sport Hash Marks Hat

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