Callaway Cars introduced right this moment that founder Ely Reeves Callaway III handed away on Tuesday, July 11 at his dwelling in Newport Seaside, California. His reason for loss of life is claimed 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 grow to be a race automotive driver. However when that didn’t work out, he turned a racing teacher on the Bob Bondurant racing faculty. Whereas working at Bondurant, he developed an aftermarket turbocharger package for the BMW 3 Collection and managed to get Automotive and Driver to overview it.
Whereas he initially ran Callaway Vehicles out of his storage, the constructive overview from Automotive and Driver led him to open Callaway Vehicles’ first headquarters close to the place he was residing in Previous Lyme, Connecticut. Over the subsequent a number of a long time, he would go on to switch BMW, Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Land Rover, Mazda and Normal Motors merchandise. However he’s arguably greatest identified for his work on a number of generations of Chevrolet Corvettes.
Callaway had a detailed relationship with GM, which allowed him to promote his vehicles via Chevrolet sellers. In 1989, a Callaway Twin Turbo Corvette, generally known as the Sledgehammer, made 880 hp and 772 lb-ft of torque. Within the arms of John Lingenfelter, it set a manufacturing top-speed document of 254.76 mph. That document would stand for 21 years when Bugatti managed to hit 267.85 mph within the Veyron Tremendous Sport.
From there, Callaway received 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 right this moment, in addition to Camaros, Silverados, Suburbans, Tahoes, Sierras, Yukons and Escalades.
In a press release, his son Peter Reeves Callaway mentioned:
Due to Reeves’ visionary entrepreneurial spirit, Callaway Vehicles 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 fantastically designed and crafted machines could be seen in every challenge, and we stay dedicated to executing to the very best requirements, in true Callaway style. He was not often discovered doing something aside from working in direction of the subsequent milestone for the corporate. He was a charismatic chief with a humorousness that we’ll all bear in mind via varied “Reeves-isms”. I really feel lucky to have grown up working with him and the corporate.
