Top speed records were pretty popular in the ’80s, and Reeves Callaway was no stranger to them. But most of the cars he sent down the road were one-offs. In 1988, Callaway wanted to see if he could set a top speed record with a car that still had creature comforts.
The result was this: the 1988 Chevrolet Corvette Callaway SledgeHammer. The car features a 5.7-liter V8 with a Cosworth crankshaft, forged pistons, a dry-sump oil system, MSD ignition, and two Turbonetics T04B turbos paired to twin intercoolers.
Callaway rated the engine at 880 hp and 772 lb-ft of torque, which is hard to argue with given the performance it managed. In October 1988, this car was driven to the 7.5-oval track at the Transportation Research Center in Ohio and drove to a record-setting speed of 254.76 mph (that’s 410km/h for the old world).