{"id":35355,"date":"2025-12-05T16:23:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T20:23:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=35355"},"modified":"2025-12-05T16:24:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T20:24:21","slug":"toys-for-tots-and-truckers-lingenfelter-revs-holiday-cheer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/toys-for-tots-and-truckers-lingenfelter-revs-holiday-cheer","title":{"rendered":"Toys for tots (and truckers): Lingenfelter revs holiday cheer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"For<\/p>\n

For the Lingenfelter Holiday Toy Drive and Open House, Kristen Lingenfelter collects a Corvette-full of toys.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Henry Payne, Detroit News<\/em><\/p>\n

The Lingenfelter Collection will unlock its doors to the public for its sixth annual Holiday Toy Drive and Open House from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday in Brighton. Bring a toy for a needy tot and see Santa Claus, the Grinch and Ken Lingenfelter’s famed assortment of 160-plus collector cars \u2014 including a room-full of historic Corvettes.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a collection built on Lingenfelter Performance Engineering\u2019s mod shop down the road in Wixom, which for decades has slaked muscle-car enthusiasts\u2019 thirst for higher horsepower General Motors Co. products like Chevrolet Corvettes, Camaros, and Cadillac V-Series monsters.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a thirst that is increasingly shared by the market\u2019s biggest segment: truck customers.<\/p>\n

\"Truck<\/figure>\n
Truck mods have grown to 20% of Lingenfelter Engineering’s business. Shi Lessner 2020, Lingenfelter Engineering<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

GM pumps out 30,000 Corvettes a year from its Kentucky factory, but that pales next to over 1.2 million in ladder-framed-based trucks and SUVs. Badges include the Silverado, Sierra, Yukon, Escalade, Suburban, Tahoe, Colorado and Canyon. Many of those customers want more muscle from their trucks too. The same goes for aftermarket mod shops for Ford (Roush, Saleen) and Ram trucks (Hennessey).<\/p>\n

Truck mods now make up a healthy 20% of Lingenfelter\u2019s business.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re having a blast with our truck development, and there’s a lot of fun involved with that, too,\u201d Lingenfelter said in an interview. \u201cWe supercharge the majority of them, but there’s lots of levels of horsepower. You can get some accessories that go with it, (and) business is great.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ken<\/figure>\n
\n

Ken Lingenfelter in the Corvette room, which visitors will be able to peruse Saturday at the Lingenfelter Holiday Toy Drive and Open House. Henry Payne, The Detroit News<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A visit to the\u00a0Lingenfelter.com<\/a>\u00a0website reveals a Chevy Silverado pickup and full-size Chevy Tahoe SUV sharing equal billing with a mid-engine Corvette C8 on the home page.<\/p>\n

Accessories for the truck\/large SUV models include such toys as superchargers for 5.3-liter and 6.2-liter V-8 engines making 545 and 650 horsepower, respectively. Customers can also outfit their trucks with, say, Borla S-Type Classic Racing Howl exhaust to wake your neighbors in the morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuperchargers have always been, from my perspective, the best way to go forward with trucks,\u201d said Lingenfelter, who has run the mod shop since 2008. \u201cWe had to get through some encryption in the engine management system just like the Corvette C8, but we’ve got some good engineers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Lingenfelter<\/figure>\n
\n

Lingenfelter Engineering has made a history of modifying Corvettes and Camaros. But 20% of its business is now GM truck mods. Henry Payne, The Detroit News<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Those engineers, to Lingenfelter\u2019s delight, have also figured out how to stuff a 7.0-liter, 427-cubic inch V-8 behind the driver\u2019s ear in the eighth-generation Corvette C8.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t resist \u2014 427 and Corvette just go together,\u201d Lingenfelter said of the legendary engine metric that has graced everything from previous-generation \u2018Vettes to AC Cobras to the 1966 Ford GT40. \u201cOur development guys put together a 427 as a result. We’ve had it on the chassis dynamometer and it makes about 1,200 horsepower.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Lingenfelter 427 Corvette C8 prototype will be on display Saturday at the Collection \u2014 and a lot more horsepower besides.<\/p>\n

\"Bring<\/p>\n

Bring a toy to the Lingenfelter Holiday Toy Drive and Open House.<\/em><\/div>\n

Henry Payne, The Detroit News<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOur main product has alway,s been Corvette. The center hall of the collection is all Corvettes, and there’s some really unique cars in there,\u201d said Lingenfelter who sits on the board of the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky.<\/p>\n

Corvette toys include the first V8-powered \u2018Vette, the 1954 so-called \u201cDuntov Mule.\u201d The nickname comes from Zora Arkus-Duntov, the engineer who first made the sports car legend. You\u2019ll know it by its open cockpit and rear-mounted shark fin for stability at speeds over 160 mph. There\u2019s also a 1963 Corvette split-window and a 215-mph Greenwood Corvette GTO race car.<\/p>\n

\"Lingenfelter<\/figure>\n
\n
Lingenfelter Engineering adds superchargers like this Magnuson product to trucks as well as Corvettes and Camaros.<\/em><\/div>\n

Shi Lessner 2020, Lingenfelter Engineering<\/em><\/figure>\n

The 40,000 square-foot space contains three bays and a shop full of swag like T-shirts, hats and other wearables. Other notable models in the collection include Ferraris, Camaros a two-door Chevy Nomad wagon, a V8-powered 1974 AMC Gremlin (dressed in Levi\u2019s jeans interior), nitrous-fed 2007 NHRA Nationals-winning Dodge Charger Funny Car dragster, and the 2006 Pontiac Solstice sports car that played the character \u201cJazz\u201d in the 2007 sci-fi movie “Transformers.”<\/p>\n

Organized by a group of retired Marines, the Toys for Tots charity is dedicated to collecting goodies at Christmas time and distributing them to needy families.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n
The Lingenfelter Collection shows off everything from Bugs to DeLoreans.<\/em><\/div>\n

Henry Payne, The Detroit News<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cWe just asked our guests to bring an unwrapped toy or a donation at the door in any amount, and then we open up the collection for them to come and take a look around,\u201d Lingenfelter said.<\/p>\n

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or @HenryEPayne<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the Lingenfelter Holiday Toy Drive and Open House, Kristen Lingenfelter collects a Corvette-full of toys.\u00a0 Henry Payne, Detroit News The Lingenfelter Collection will unlock its doors to the public for its sixth annual Holiday Toy Drive and Open House from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday in Brighton. Bring a toy for a needy tot and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35355"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35363,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35355\/revisions\/35363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}