ZL-1 SUPER CAR

May 19, 2012 – Charley from CA out bid Reggie Jackson @ Mecum Indy & now owns Dick Harrell #1.  This has to be the ‘holy grail’ of all the Dick Harrell Cars.   Jim

GMMG Clock

“When Fast Just Isn’t Fast Enough”

I will try to post up some information that I have until Matt has time to respond to this thread.

As mentioned before…………..the production of these cars had G.M./Chevrolet involvement.

Here is a document from Matt Murphy that I have with all the documents on my car:

“Dear Chevrolet Dealers and ZL 1 “Super Car” Customers, 

This special web page is dedicated to a few select email addresses and will be updated periodically with information and photos sent out to you on a weekly basis. This project was started in late summer of 2000 in response to Fords, new at the time, Mustang Cobra R. Things don’t happen over night and we (Scott Settlemire, John Heinricy and Myself) had to be careful for the first 6 months not to alarm anyone at GM about this car.

I did almost get the program scrapped in February of 2001, when I took the Pilot car, then an LS6 black, no badged SS, with Z06 wheels and tires down for the Daytona 24hr. I was there to show John the car and then put it back in storage. Problem one, I took it to Dale Eamhardt down there and told him about the project and showed him the car. We talked about the project for a few minutes, and he gave me that Eamhardt grin and said I will take 50 of these. Don’t forget me he said, I want 50. Forget him, we will never. We at GMMG, Inc. will dedicate these 69 cars to Dale and his passion for the Camaro. He was a huge fan of Don Yenko and what he, Fred Gibb, Dale Berger and others did for the Camaro through their Chevrolet dealerships. We were on the brink of something big for Special Dealer Build Camaros with Dale in early 2001. Dale and Steve Crisp [DEI Public Relations] wanted to build Black B4C Camaros with the LS6 motors in them, all hardtops, no options. We settled at the time for Black SS’s with leather and some t-tops and most hardtops. Dale died about two weeks before we delivered the first batch of his 381 HP Intimidator SS’s, but thankfully to Teresa, Steve Crisp and a few others at DEI and DEC we were able to build 85 cars (83 #’rd and 2 prototypes) in Dale’s honor.

Problem two and almost fatal to the project, I was introduced to Rick Baldick (Corvette & Camaro Brand manager) and he said to me, “Scott has told me about all the Camaro projects you are working on, I think that is great and any help I can give you, just let me know.” Well, surely Scott told him about our LS6 Camaro, so I said to him, ‘Well, what did Scott tell you about our LS6 Camaro project.” His face went blank and dead silence for 3 seconds, before he replied, ‘What LS6 Camaro project.” Oh no, he had that look and I knew I was in trouble. I had to show him the car and he looked it over very quietly and carefully. He didn’t say much except it looks nice and then he had to go, he said. I got in the car myself, and left at once for Atlanta. I called John Heinricy on a cell phone and told him what happened. He said, “It is over, I told you that no one could know about this car and now this project is over .” He wanted the car in Detroit ASAP . I didn’t tell him that I had an appointment that Monday for the car to be repainted in a 1969 Garnet Red. I begged him to let me keep it in our shop, locked up for a few months, let things die down. He agreed and other than the paint shop, the pilot car was covered for 3 months.

I didn’t hear any more about Rick’s involvement except that he agreed to keep this car’s secret between the 4 of us. Rick’s involvement in this project will come back up at a later date. He has been very helpful since the day I broke the news to him. We went on to unveil the 2002 Pilot ZL-1 car to Scott Settlemire the night before the Atlanta F-body Gathering Car show in May 2001. We forgot to tell him that the car was now Garnet Red and had a complete package with the name ZL-1 on the fenders. I thought he was going to die when we uncovered it. But I was the one dying because he was taking my car away from me, that I had since the previous September.

Next week I will continue with the ZL 1 2002 story and each week I will update you with some more facts on the project. We were planning on starting the build process with motors in mid July. As luck would have it, we got the first motors from GM Parts last Thursday and Friday. About 6 weeks late, but, as some might say, better late than never. We met our first goal and that was to unveil the 2002 Car #1 ZL-1 “Super Car”‘ at the Fred Gibb Memorial Car Show in La Harpe, IL a few weekends ago. Car #1 is a special tribute to the original 1969 #1 ZL-1. It is painted Candy apple red with the gold lace and graphics like the original Fred Gibb/Dick Harrell ZL-1 Race car had.

Bill Porterfield, from MI owner the original 1969 ZL-1 car #1 and now owner of the original 2002 ZL-1 car #1. Our site will update you with pictures and articles on the current and past ZL-1 cars. There is an article from La Harpes newspaper describing the unveiling of the new car. As well as other articles from various magazines. We plan to have the #3 2002 ZL-1 car at the Berger Chevrolet Car show later this month [August 30th thru Sept. 1st] Both cars are close to being completed and both were specially prepped for their first showing.

We started swapping engines last Friday and won’t stop until they are all done sometime in October. The rest of the parts are coming in slowly like the motors. We are eager to deliver these cars to you the dealer and customer; but, we will not rush these cars due to the extent of the project. We are working still with vendors we ordered parts from some three months ago. This project is moving slower than we planned but will progress and we will get all 69 cars built and delivered, if all goes well by the end of October or first part of November. I would like to deliver the first cars by the end of September. We will keep you posted.

As for the first cars to get motors, they will be the ones not getting painted and the ones not getting the engine upgrade packages. We will try to ship cars in groups to dealers to save them cost on shipping. As some of you know, we had to change some of the options, due to emission reasons and our attorney trying to protect the dealers and GMMG, Inc. We will not be selling Phase 2, gears, headers or line locks through the dealers like originally planned. This is for your protection, as they do not comply with the emission certification tests we performed on the test car. The owners will have to pay us directly, in order to keep the dealers involvement out of it.

We have been contacting each ZL-1 owner and reviewing the options with them. So far half have either changed their stripe colors, take off credit, etc. One backed out and we did not get a call from the dealer and we were planning to send the car to the paint shop next week to get the custom Ferrari Yellow paint done on it. It is important that we talk directly to the owners to make sure that we get the right information. I do not want to ship cars next month and have the customer say, “I didn’t want it that way.” Right now we would have about 12 people pretty upset because the order form was different from what he wanted. I apologize for any order form confusion, especially with the early one with the extra options. We cannot take a chance of getting the dealers in trouble over emission related items. I also realize that it has been
almost two months since some of you sent in these forms and people change their minds. Please help us reach all customers and get the options finalized by the end of this week.

Please feel free to contact me personally if you have any questions or you can ask for Laurie or David and one of us will get back in touch with you, if we are not able to get your call. I believe these cars will go down as a truly collectible car and a sound investment. I promise all of you will be happy with the quality of the finished product. Thanks again for your patience and we look forward to talking to all of you soon.

Sincerely,

Matthew K. Murphy, Jr.
On behalf of all of us at GMMG, Inc.”