Callaway Automobiles introduced at the moment that founder Ely Reeves Callaway III handed away on Tuesday, July 11 at his dwelling in Newport Seashore, California. His reason for demise is alleged to be “from accidents sustained after a fall.” He was 75.
The son of Ely Callaway Jr., the founding father of Callaway Golf, Reeves Callaway initially needed to turn into a race automotive driver. However when that didn’t work out, he turned a racing teacher on the Bob Bondurant racing college. Whereas working at Bondurant, he developed an aftermarket turbocharger package for the BMW 3 Sequence and managed to get Automobile and Driver to evaluate it.
Whereas he initially ran Callaway Automobiles out of his storage, the optimistic evaluate from Automobile and Driver led him to open Callaway Automobiles’ first headquarters close to the place he was dwelling in Outdated Lyme, Connecticut. Over the following a number of many years, he would go on to switch BMW, Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Land Rover, Mazda and Normal Motors merchandise. However he’s arguably finest identified for his work on a number of generations of Chevrolet Corvettes.
Callaway had an in depth relationship with GM, which allowed him to promote his automobiles by way of Chevrolet sellers. In 1989, a Callaway Twin Turbo Corvette, referred to as the Sledgehammer, made 880 hp and 772 lb-ft of torque. Within the palms of John Lingenfelter, it set a manufacturing top-speed report of 254.76 mph. That report would stand for 21 years when Bugatti managed to hit 267.85 mph within the Veyron Tremendous Sport.
From there, Callaway acquired into racing however continued to switch Corvettes, together with fashions with customized our bodies such because the Callaway C12 and the C16. Callaway nonetheless modifies Corvettes at the moment, in addition to Camaros, Silverados, Suburbans, Tahoes, Sierras, Yukons and Escalades.
In a press release, his son Peter Reeves Callaway stated:
Because of Reeves’ visionary entrepreneurial spirit, Callaway Automobiles will proceed to innovate and develop within the twenty first century, impressed by his distinctive, extraordinary imaginative and prescient, and by his private instance of integrity, resourcefulness, and management as our founder. Dad’s ardour for making superbly designed and crafted machines will be seen in each challenge, and we stay dedicated to executing to the very best requirements, in true Callaway trend. He was hardly ever discovered doing something aside from working in direction of the following milestone for the corporate. He was a charismatic chief with a humorousness that we’ll all bear in mind by way of numerous “Reeves-isms”. I really feel lucky to have grown up working with him and the corporate.
