Callaway’s C12 Is a Super Car Built for the Highway, if Not the Raceway

Reeves Callaway insists that his 440-horsepower, Kevlar-bodied, 194-mph, six-speed, Corvette-bred, ground-skimming C12 is not a race car.

Because its suspension will not crack your crowns, and the car carries no fire extinguisher. One does not need Nomex undies to drive it. And the Federation Internationale d’Automobile prefers not to see air bags, Bose sound systems, fitted luggage and cup holders on its competition cars.

Callaway, the 20-year guru of turbocharging and engine blueprinting whose work has blessed and elevated the products of Aston Martin, BMW, Chevrolet and Land Rover, will acknowledge that his C12 is a full 2 meters wide. He admits that’s the maximum allowed for international GT racing and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where a Callaway Corvette stirred and surprised so many in 1994.

OK, says Callaway, never say never about going back to Le Mans. Also, the C12, with its carbon-Kevlar matrix body, ducts that would suck up a Geo and the ground clearance of a vacuum cleaner, definitely looks like a Le Mans race car.

And with prices positioned between $185,600 and $212,000--depending on your choice of coupe, hardtop or speedster--the C12 certainly costs as much as a good used racer. You know the kind: one-owner car, always garaged, located in Indianapolis with only 500 miles on engine and chassis.

Then just what is the C12?

It is a super car in search of a success that so far has eluded such fast-paced, mega-priced, hand-built racers in mufti engineered by Bugatti, Jaguar and McLaren. But they were foreigners to our shores. The C12 was bred from the Chevrolet Corvette, which is as American as Toledo, Ohio.

The Europeans thought buyers would not blink, let alone close their eyes tight, at prices creeping toward $1 million. Expensive though it may be, at least the C12 two-seater does not cost more than your house.

And unlike the brutal, barely restrained horsepower of Bugatti, Jaguar and McLaren, Callaway’s super car represents a smoothing, soothing taming of the high-horsepower beast.

“This is the car aimed at the man who is really conscious of what he is driving, the man with the ability to drive anything he wants and a man well-grounded in his driving talents by a lifetime of acquiring high motoring skills and experiences,” explains Callaway, founder and president of Callaway Cars of Old Lyme, Conn. Callaway, obviously, does not see many women buying his car. “He wants something nobody else has, and pays attention not to what the car badge is but what the car does.”

We could paraphrase here, but Callaway, a Southern gentleman transplanted to Connecticut Yankee, is on a roll.

“I have engineered this car so that the most experienced drivers, the experts, the retired Formula One driver, will get out and say: ‘This is the finest-handling road car I have ever driven, and the finest-handling road car that has ever existed.’

“Let me say again: This road car is not close to being a race car. It is not light enough; it is too comfortable. But architecturally, this car is exactly what you’d want if you chose to drive a race car. Because it is probably the best possible platform for creating a winning GT racer.”

*

That platform is born of two countries, two parents, Callaway Cars of New England and IVM Engineering of Old Germany. Each C12 starts life as a rolling chassis and powertrain that if left alone would leave its General Motors assembly line as a standard Chevrolet Corvette C5 with a small-block, naturally aspirated V-8 that in stock form produces 350 pound-feet of torque and 345 horsepower.

But for the car to grow into a C12, those underpinnings must be kidnapped and shipped to Munich. There, the engine is taken apart, blueprinted to design optimal and rebuilt by hand with Callaway-modified aluminum cylinder heads, high-silicon pistons, forged-steel rods, new camshaft and crankshaft and heavy-duty clutch. Wheels grow to 19 inches and are shod with Pirelli PZeros built just for this car and its high performance.

Handcrafted components are fitted to the suspension system, with double-A arms and adjustable dampers. The track is stretched to 2 meters. Brakes are fitted with tougher, four-piston calipers and internally vented, slotted discs.

Then comes the body, a masterful sculpture by Canadian designer Paul Deutschman, who has penned all of Callaway’s striking shapes. The Flying Deutschman’s specialty seems to be creating just the right hint of menace to balance the moment when enormous beauty starts to soften the car’s purpose. It is Coke-bottle styling, and set very low, maybe too low for those inclined to power from their driveways. The only sign of its former life is a rather pronounced, not really attractive Corvette bustle. Maybe one needs that subtle reminder because this time, this Callaway carries no Chevrolet logos or names to remind us of its lowlier heritage.

The interior has enough racing visuals to stir the juices. All black and silver, aluminum and leather, splashed with understated dashes of carbon fiber. And right down to a gearshift knob that now resembles a miniature, high-tech bowling ball.

*

Callaway currently has orders for 30 cars, with No. 16 well into its two-week reassembly program in Germany. Michael Jordan has ordered a C12. Retired Los Angeles Times publisher Otis Chandler has added one to his Vintage Museum of Transportation in Oxnard.

Our test car was No. 1, which a dutiful son presented to his devoted father, Ely Callaway, 79-year-old patriarch of the Callaway dynasty and founder-chief executive of Callaway Golf in Carlsbad.

On start-up, the engine note is an opera blasting through huge, rectangular, stainless-steel exhaust pipes. You just want to sit there, blipping the throttle, being a nuisance, acting silly.

The biggest surprise is the lack of ordeal in driving the car. Clutch pressures and gas-pedal feel are practically showroom stock, with responses delivering none of the ragged, retching, high-revving jerks of most big-bore cars. Shifting is firm, precise and pitched where it should be. And you’d swear the almost docile steering is best managed by fingertips and heavy thinking.

The C12 is incredibly fast, chirping those big Pirellis when running from zero to 60 mph in a blink over four seconds. But nothing to cower from here. It is not frightening speed, just a smooth, perfectly modulated rush to where scenery blurs and the pace is far greater than whatever you might be sensing.

You couldn’t attract more attention in this car if you drove it naked. It slows traffic, attracts stares and makes young men drool.

Like the Marine in the elderly Mustang who pulled alongside where Interstate 5 brushes Camp Pendleton. He rolled down the window.

“What is that?” he begged. “Some kind of race car?”

Um, not exactly.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

1999 Callaway C12 Hardtop

Cost

* Base, $185,000: includes front air bags, cruise control, power steering, six-speed manual transmission, power windows and doors, anti-lock disc brakes, 19-inch alloy wheels, removable hardtop, automatic air conditioning.

As tested, $197,500: adds interior leather package, Konig sport seats and Wilton carpets.

Engine

* 5.7-liter, small-block Corvette V-8 producing 440 horsepower.

Type

* Front-engine, rear-drive, hand-crafted, limited-edition, two-seat super car.

Performance

* 0 to 60 mph, as tested: 4.1 seconds.

* Top speed, manufacturer’s estimate: 194 mph.

* Fuel consumption: not available.

Curb Weight

* 3,300 pounds.

The Good: A beautiful beast, with polished manners. Styling worthy of any museum, art or automotive. Enormous power and performance, exhilarating without being frightening. A genuine, world-class supercar born in the USA.

The Bad: Guaranteed to dispose of most disposable incomes. Snout a little too close to the ground.

The Ugly: The Corvette bustle.

*

Times automotive writer Paul Dean can be reached at paul.dean@latimes.com.