John Lingenfelter

Who was John Lingenfelter?

John Lingenfelter was an NHRA driver, engineer and tuner.

Over his career, Lingenfelter won 13 career national event events in Competition Eliminator and was the first driver in the class to break the six-second quarter-mile barrier. He finished second in the Pro Stock Truck standings in 1998, which was the first year of competition for the now defunct class. His Cavalier had an E.T. of 7.08 seconds.

He was the founder of Lingenfelter Performance Engineering in Decatur, Indiana. LPE is a shop specializing in the modification of GM vehicles such as the F-Bodies, B Bodies, Corvette, CTS-V, GTO, Silverado, Suburban, Tahoe, Escalade, Denali, SSR, Hummer H2, and Sierra. The shop also worked with tuning packages for the Dodge Viper and Plymouth Prowler.

In the press, his tuned vehicles were reported to have as much civility as the stock vehicles upon which they were based in everyday driving. However, these vehicles were brutally fast. Motor Trend tested a Tahoe tuned by Lingenfelter and achieved a 5.1 second 0-60 time as well as a 0.95g lateral acceleration figure. These numbers match the performance figures of the C4 Corvette and GMC Syclones/Typhoons of that era.