Q&A: Antonio Calvo
How are you able to produce such
large numbers on a stock Viper
platform?
The Gen 5 Viper has just been a great
car in general. We have to make a little
modification to the bearings and
crank; they have a factory bearing
issue; but other than that, once the
bearing issue is fixed they will last all
day long at 1,300-wheel horsepower.
It’s crazy to think just recently we went
194 mph on 19-inch Toyo R888 tires
and a bone-stock transmission,
besides a modified fifth gear. It’s a top-
to-bottom stock long block making
1,300-wheel horsepower. It’s just pure
insanity how much these motors can
handle. These cars are honestly the
best bang for your buck. You can find
a nice used Gen 5 Viper for $70,000
to $75,000, then put on a $60,000
turbo kit into it and you have a
1,300-horsepower street car that will
keep up with the stage 2 UGR car and
decent GTR builds on the streets. To
be honest, they are very comparable
performance wise. It’s an awesome-
looking car that is comfortable and an
all-around fun car to drive.
What do you personally do at Calvo
Motorsports?
I am the owner and founder, and hon-
estly, I kind of do everything. I’ve been
in the office a little more than usual,
but at night I do tech work and fabri-
26
STREETRACE
cation. I was fabricating all day today
and built half of a turbo kit. Pretty
much I can do everything except for
tuning and wiring. I have guys that
specialize in that and I just let them
handle it
How would you describe the
production capabilities of Calvo
Motorsports?
We have the capability to pretty much
build anything and everything in-
house. We build motors, we have a
tech shop, we have CNC Machines and
we do full fabrication in house. We
also have in house tuning using our
state of the art dyno system so we can
handle any need you wish. You name
it, we can do it.
What is your most notable
build so far?
Our most recognized build would have
to be my personal Gen 5 Viper, a.k.a.
“The General.” That car makes 2,300-
wheel horsepower and 2,000-foot
pounds of torque. It gets raced hard
everywhere we go and we take it out
on the street for an occasional joy ride
with no issues. It’s an absolute RWD
monster and everyone knows the car
by its “General Lee” theme it has going
on. That car is probably the most
badass thing we have built here; ev-
erything just worked on it. It went 195
mph at TI, we were eighth or ninth
place out of 80 cars, or something like
that, and all the other cars were UGR
Lambos and GTRs. It really says some-
thing when a RWD car that’s a rela-
tively new build goes to TI and does
really well.
I would have to say my Porsche 911
has been the most rewarding. My girl-
friend recently passed away, and that
was her absolute favorite car. She and
I worked on it a few times together
and she always wanted to see it run.
It was really good to hear that car fire
WHENEVER YOU
COMPLETE ANY
PROJECT IT’S A
GOOD FEELING,
ESPECIALLY WHEN
THE PROJECT HAS
KICKED YOUR ASS.
different so you can’t build a mail
order kit for them. You can build 80
percent of the turbo kit off the car, and
the last 20 percent you have to build
on the car to make sure everything
fits correctly. If you bring your car to
us, it’s going to be done 100-percent
our way. If someone brings us a car to
build, we take everything off and build
it our way so we know what’s all done
to it and it has all our parts on it. It just
makes it easier to work on and so you
don’t have a bunch of shops’ mixed
work.
What do you consider the most
rewarding project you’ve personally
worked on at Calvo Motorsports?