1969 Corvette Baldwin Motion Phase III

This Baldwin Motion Phase III SS427 Corvette is the prototypical “ground pounder”. As Kevin drives it through a parking lot today, it sets off car alarms from the thundering exhaust of its sidepipes. This is one machine that you can literally say will blow the doors off other street cars foolhardy enough to challenge you to a race.

Baldwin Chevrolet in New York teamed up with a local high performance shop called Motion Performance. Joel Rosen was the man behind Motion Performance and had already established NHRA records with cars of his own. It was a natural combination to have a racer-affiliated high performance shop produce cars for a Chevy dealership to be destined for the street and strip.

Baldwin Motion cars were built and priced according to the elapsed time the customer wanted to turn in the 1/4-mile drags. A full refund was guaranteed if the car ran slower. If the car didn’t turn the time promised by Motion, they sent their professional driver out to try it. Remarkably, all the cars turned the time promised and a refund was never necessary.

This Vette started life as a tripower L71 427/435HP. The motor was taken apart, balanced, and blueprinted. Compression was increased and a new cam installed per Motion’s full Phase III specifications. It received the full treatment of headers, high-rise intake, 3 barrel Holley carb, Phase III ignition, duel electric fuel pumps, quick-fill flip-top gas cap, and GT paint job.

Although this Vette sports the GT paint, fender flares, and stinger hood scoop, it did not receive the full GT body modifications. The extra GT modifications included a fastback window and a headlight swap (from the concealed factory pop-up headlights) to a fixed design which encased them with a plastic cover. Some Vette enthusiasts have termed the full GT body modification as looking like Chevy’s Opel Kadet on steroids. Kevin’s personal preference is the style of his Vette as it is configured here.