![Donna Mae Mims, first female SCCA winner and Cannonball Run vet, dead at 82 [w/VIDEO]](http://www.niot.net/blog-images/donna-mae-mims-first-female-scca-winner-and-cannonball-run-vet.jpg)
The automotive world lost its iconic "Pink Lady" on October 6 as Donna Mae Mims died of complications from a stroke at the age of 82. To car enthusiasts of a certain age, Mims was best known for her early racing career and for her penchant for pink helmets, pink jumpsuits, and pink cars usually emblazoned with the phrase "Think Pink." That predilection earned her the nickname, "Pink Lady" from her admirers.
After buying a Fuelie Corvette with her husband in the late Fifties, Mims got the racing bug. She had been a secretary at Yenko Chevrolet, the legendary Pennsylvania dealer that churned out specially souped-up super Chevies back in the Sixties and Seventies, and along with a few coworkers she decided to go racing. She also moved into the Yenko sports car division to help develop their cars.
It wasn't long before she racked up her first win driving her Corvette in B Production at the Cumberland Nationals in 1960. By 1963, she was driving a pink 1959 Austin-Healey Bugeye Sprite that had incidentally once been owned by Polio vaccine developer, Dr. Jonas Salk. That car carried her to the championship in 1963, the first national championship recorded by the SCCA for a female driver. Besides the championship-winning Bugeye Sprite, Mims at one time or another also owned a pink Corvette, Corvair, Triumph TR3 and an MGB.
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Front-engine rear-drive aluminum chassis, 640-horsepower supercharged V8 engine, high bang:buck ratio... Chevrolet's Corvette ZR1 has got it all. No wonder it's proving to be such a compelling choice for coachbuilders. Reviving the time-honored tradition in re-cloaking Vettes with Italian sheetmetal, the resurgent Stile Bertone used the ZR1 as the basis for the Mantide. And now, a Russian design student has teamed up with rival design house Zagato for another coachbuilt supercar concept based on the ZR1.
The Marella design study revives the Iso Rivolta nameplate, as imagined by one Fedor Stetskevich of the Moscow State University of Industrial and Applied Arts. Commonly known as the Stroganov (yes, you sophisticate, like the beef dish) the university was founded in 1825 and stands as one of Russia's oldest design schools. As you can see, Steskevich collaborated directly with Zagato on the project – which currently exists only as a model – and you can see a lot of resemblance to the Perana Z-One. Beyond that, we'll let the work speak for itself, so have a look in the extensive high-resolution image gallery below and you can leave your thoughts in the Comments below that.
![WaterCar Python rocks our Corvette-loving, Ram-driving souls [w/VIDEO]](http://www.niot.net/blog-images/watercar-python-rocks-our-corvette-loving-ram-driving-souls.jpg)
If you thought that the amphibious Fiat we told you about last month would be a hoot, but you longed for more power than that car's 850 cc four-banger could provide, then maybe this is the vehicle for you. Billed as "THE WORLD'S FASTEST, HIGHEST PERFORMING AMPHIBIOUS VEHICLE EVER DESIGNED AND BUILT," this is the WaterCar Python. Whether on water or on land, it is one quick ride. Weighing 3,800 pounds, the modified Corvette powerplant can propel it from a standstill to 60 mph in a claimed 4.5 seconds on its way through the quarter in the mid-12s. Not bad for a boat that has all of the aerodynamic goodness of a Dodge Ram. Appropriately, the car's motive force is honored in the styling of the rear fascia. Seeing the Corvette tail on this beast reminds us of the Ferrari-powered regatta racer in One Crazy Summer, except this one is still roadworthy.
When you decide that you want to take to the waves, a Dominator Jet provides the propulsion and allows a top speed of 60 mph! That is damn fast for a boat, especially one that is highway-capable as well. Heck, you can even open the doors while out on the water. The interior features two captain's chairs up front and a wraparound bench in back so you can share all of the amphibious fun with a half dozen of your closest friends. For a base price of $200,000, WaterCar will build you a Python to your exact specs, with your choice of aluminum Corvette LS motors, exterior and interior colors, and even a custom-tailored pedal and shifter placement. Bikinis are optional.
Back in the early Nineties, Lister North America looked to recapture some of the awesomeness that is the 1959 Lister Corvette, a British car built to compete with the likes of the Jaguar and Aston Martin on the British racing scene. Opinions on whether or not the reborn company was successful are split, and the endeavor resulted in just five 1992 and 1993 Lister-bodied Chevrolet C4 Corvettes being produced.
This being the case, finding one of these rare automobiles for sale isn't a particularly common occurrence. Hence today's eBay Find of the Day – a 1993 Lister Corvette dolled up in bright yellow with a black interior. Regardless of what you think of the bespoke bodywork, the guts of the 'Vette are sound. There's certainly nothing wrong with a worked-over Chevrolet LT1 V8 engine stroked to 383 cubic inches and topped with a Vortech supercharger, right?
This particular Lister Corvette has traveled just 7,048 miles and has apparently been the subject of a magazine article or two. Bidding is currently at $16,600 (reserve not met) and there's less than a day left on the auction.
Aside from the addition of the Grand Sport model, the biggest upgrade to the 2010 Chevrolet Corvette lineup is arguably the addition of launch control. The Corvette is by no means the first sports car to get launch control, but judging from our first impression of it this week, it may well be the best system out there.
Unlike a certain Japanese competitor, General Motors' Corvette chief Tadge Juechter made it eminently clear this week that use of the car's launch control will in no way kill your warranty. In fact, he explained that while a highly skilled driver could potentially beat the launch control system by a bit, the vast majority of drivers will find themselves getting of the line much more quickly and with markedly better consistency. Let's take a look at how the system works after the jump.
Going into the 2010 model year, the Corvette lineup is growing to four models with the revival of the Grand Sport nameplate that slots in between the base and Z06 models. This is the third iteration of the Grand Sport, the first being a run of just five race-ready cars built by original Vette chief engineer Zora Arkus Duntov. The second batch was a run of 1,000 cars built in 1996 to close out the C4 generation. This time around, the Grand Sport is a regular production model and General Motors promises to make as many examples as customers demand.
The first customer bound production examples should be arriving at dealers this week, and the Corvette crew invited Autoblog out to the Milford Proving Ground for a tasting session. Thankfully, when Corvettes and Milford mix, that usually means a visit to the Milford Road Course (MRC), better known as the "Lutz 'Ring." MRC was completed five years ago at the south end of the company's proving grounds and as you might imagine, it's a suitably wonderful place to evaluate Corvettes. We spent the better part of an hour thrashing the Grand Sport around the MRC and came away impressed with this middle child.
It's become a recent tradition for a coachbuilt car to be shown at the Gooding auction tent on Friday evening (previous years we got a look at the Pininfarina P4/5 and the Pininfarina Hyperion), and this year we were treated to the ZR1-based Bertone Mantide. The car's owner, Dan Watkins, actually drove the car from New York to Monterey for the unveiling and was on hand along with designer Jason Castriota to introduce the one-off car. Our sources tells us that Jay Leno is next in line to purchase a Mantide, possibly followed by JK Jamiroquai, both of whom showed particular interest in the car at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. In addition to the new live photos from the unveiling last night.
This is no way to treat a 1963 Corvette split-window coupe. Found in Washington by one of Google StreetView's drones, there's actually no barn to this barn find, just a car left sitting in the gray mist that folks in the Pacific Northwest call "weather." This Corvette had a 12-year shelf life, and then according to the owner, it's "been veggin' on the spot since '75." If you are interested, it's one of the fuel injected models and comes with an extra engine and other parts. Of course, if it's been sitting there for 34 years, it could fall to pieces when you try to move it... and you'll probably find more than a few dead (or perturbed) animals lurking thereabouts. But that wouldn't stop you, would it?
While the Corvette Stingray Concept (a.k.a. Autobot Sideswipe) introduced at the Chicago Auto Show earlier this month sports heritage-inspired cues, its futuristic styling could also hint at the design of the next-generation model. GM made no comment on whether any of the concept would find make its way into the C7 Corvette, but there will doubtless be plenty of people willing to speculate. The gang at BadBoyVettes.com have taken it one step further and have come up with what the C7.R would look like if the Stingray went to production as-is. Using one of our live shots from the show, they've added the Corvette Racing livery, complete with the "Jake" skull mascot featured prominently on the hood. We think they did a good job, which is to be expected, since BBV helped put together the design schemes for the actual C6.R racers. In full race livery, the Stingray looks like it'd be equally adept at chasing down Gulf-liveried Aston Martins or battling giant evil robots. After all, Jake plays no favorites; he's an equal-opportunity intimidator.
Last weekend, Corvette owners were let in on a limited edition Vette in the pipeline: the Corvette GT-1 Edition. Created to celebrate Corvette's last hurrah in the current GT1 class this year, the car is actually more like a rolling trophy than your typical paint-and-decals collector's edition car. The GT-1 package will come in yellow with black stripes, or black with yellow stripes, and be available on the coupe, convertible, and Z06. The yellow windshield banner from the C6.R will be in place, and the car will also feature "Jake," the racing team's mascot (the yellow skull with the Corvette pennants). The C6.R driver's names will be placed on the roof of the car, and the championships they've won will be written on the lower door.
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