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SEMA 2012: Rod Saboury’s New Ride is Another Extreme Split Window

[1]Regular readers of Corvette Online may recall that Rod Saboury, owner of the ’63 Split Window Corvette billed as the ‘world’s fastest street car,’ put that particular C2 up for sale on eBay recently [2]. Of course, the man needs a new way to get to the grocery store, so Saboury commissioned Troy Spackman and Legacy Innovations [3] to build him a new Corvette.

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A factory-supercharged LS9, normally rated at 638 horsepower, makes more than 800 thanks to a little TLC.

I build cars, but I could never build them like Troy does – Rod Saboury

This car, also a ’63 Split Window, just happens to be stopping traffic in front of the ESAB [5] booth here at SEMA. Instead of a twin turbo big block like his previous ’63, this one gets motivation in the form of a beefed-up supercharged LS9 powerplant sourced from a C6 ZR1, making north of 800 horsepower.

The engine is backed by a “Tranzilla” T56 6-speed transmission and a McLeod twin disc clutch. A fabricated Ford 9-inch rearend with a Strange S-Trac third member and 35-spline axles hung from a DSE swivel-link suspension handles the duties out back, with a matching DSE C6 fabricated front suspension.

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The headers' primary tubes go directly into collector mufflers, then straight out the front fenders.

Legacy put together the 4130 chrome moly tube chassis, fully TIG welded using ESAB equipment, of course. Like many cars at SEMA, this one isn’t quite finished yet, but we’d say it’s 90% of the way there, and should be one hell of a ride when it’s complete, though it will probably seem pretty tame compared to Saboury’s last “street Corvette.”

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Nothing to see here... move along...

While Saboury is a talented and accomplished car builder himself, he turned to Spackman when a mutual friend introduced them. “I build cars, but I could never build them like Troy does,” Saboury admits. Spackman founded Legacy in 2006, and since then has been putting together everything from classic musclecars to widebody 5th Gen Camaros [9], and even a tilt-body Fiat [10] that was a SEMA top 10 car in 2009.

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