Humansdorp businessman Rudolph De Vos, took his immaculately prepared Chevy Can-Am to Zwartkops Raceway outside Pretoria this past weekend to the Passion for Speed Festival and ensured that the car celebrated its 50th birthday in brilliant style by bagging two race wins in the super competitive Pre-1980 Historic & Classic class, beating the more fancied Porsche 911’s of Rui Campos and Peter Bailey.

Image by Colin Windell
Having been developed in the United Kingdom by General Motors in the late 1960s as a Vauxhall Firenza, the brand was brought to South Africa and rebadged as the Chevrolet Firenza at the GM Factory in Gqbergha and came out in a 1.2 litre & 2.5-litre version. Renowned race car developer Basil van Rooyen was looking for an alternative vehicle to take on the seemingly untouchable Ford Capri Perana’s that were dominating the South African Production Car championship, and he started developing a Firenza with a Camaro Z28 V8 engine in it. The results of the light-bodied car with massive V8 power grabbed the imagination of the executives at GMSA and the green light was given to start production of them. To comply with racing rules, a minimum of 100 cars had to be developed for them to be officially homologated to compete in the production car series. GM produced 106 of them, with 6 being purpose-built race cars. With upgraded brakes and suspension and some comprehensive strengthening of the chassis using additional bracing, the “Little Chevy” was officially released in 1973. With a four-speed gearbox and limited-slip differential, and a seemingly never-ending power supply, the cars were a handful to drive but started winning races immediately. Basil van Rooyen wanted the car to be branded as a Chevy Mamba due to its unpredictable nature and quick striking speed.
Eastern Cape Motorsport enthusiasts are lucky to have three of these mighty machines making regular appearances on our race tracks, with the other two in the hands of Derek Boy, who has recently retired to Port Elizabeth from Queenstown and Matthew Gudmanz, who, although he has relocated to George, still races out of East London for the Gudmanz Racing Team. Testimony to the fantastic performance and legacy of the V8 Firenza, many of the cars have been snapped by overseas collectors and sit idly in collections around the globe.