Fifty years ago, the first Corvette was born as a plaster model on GM's 1953 Motorama show circuit.
Since that day, more than 1.2 million Corvettes have rumbled down highways and race tracks as America's first sports car. So as part of the year-long celebration of the Corvette's half-century, The Eighth Annual Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance celebrated that birthday March 9 with a very exclusive show that included a historic gathering of its most famous racers, important concepts and a few specials.
Because of 50 years of development, Wayne Cherry, vice president and director of GM's Design and Portfolio Centers, said the Corvette is something "very special, with a huge following."
"It has become an icon," he said. "One of the things that is so special is that it has not only stayed true to its original vision as American sports car, but has gotten better and better. I think the whole world recognizes it as a world-class sports car."
Seeing all those icons assembled at the Amelia was fantastic, said Peter Brock, Corvette designer from 1956-1959.
"It adds so much more life to the automobiles, to be here with the people who worked and raced with them," he said.
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A modern day Corvette.
-- Dan Scanlan/Staff
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Dave McLellan, Corvette chief engineer from 1975-1992, said some of the models on display at the Amelia date back to when he was a "young kid, which tells you something about the car and its very long life." So does the display.
"The early years were pretty iffy. But when you look across the field here of the purpose-built race cars and the engineering development that went into them was seminal, and those are all important to the history, particularly the Chaparral cars and their interaction with Chevrolet R&D," McLellan said. "This is wonderfully historic. To see five Grand Sports all together in one place is extraordinary. There is a great collection of cars that GM owns as well, from the Sting Ray and the aluminum Reynolds cars and the Manta rays, all cars important to the history of Corvette."
Indeed, reaction was so positive to the 1953 show car that a running prototype was undergoing testing at GM's Milford proving grounds a few month's later. The first 300 were under construction in June atop a new 102-inch wheelbase chassis with off-the-shelf suspension bits and a Blue Flame Six engine with three single-throat carburetors, more aggressive camshaft profile and other modifications good for 150 horsepower.
No. 65 of that run was Tom Gerrard's 1953 Corvette, done in white with red interior. Tucked under the low black cloth roof during a rainy rally for Corvettes two days before the Amelia, he was ready to drive it -- one of 70 cars in his collection.
"It has 34,590 miles on it. It is a survivor and has been restored. I collect 1953 to 1966 American convertibles, and this is the first of my collection," Gerrard said. "It was quite revolutionary, having a fiberglass body and two-door roadster from an American manufacturer. It is a milestone car, the first of a kind and here it is 50 years later."
In 1954, one-third of the 3,640 Vettes made hadn't been sold by the end of the year, and the model was about to be scrapped when Ford came out with its two-door Thunderbird. Chevy engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov pushed for a 195-hp V-8 to match the T-bird's engine, and set a flying mile speed record of 150.583 mph on Daytona Beach in March 1956. At Florida's 12-hour Sebring race, one finished ninth overall and first in class.
The finned Corvette SR-2 followed, using a Sebring Corvette chassis, racing windshield, side scoops and driving lights. The sleekest of the first Vette racers was the 1957 Corvette SS, conceived to take on the 24 Hours of Le Mans with a lightweight magnesium body, tubular steel frame, inboard aluminum drum brakes and a fuel-injected small-block V-8. The whole project was shelved when the Automobile Manufacturers Association opposed factory involvement in motorsports. Still, the SS lapped Daytona International Speedway at 155 mph during ceremonies in 1959, and one chassis became the basis for a concept that predicted the best-loved Vette of the 1960s.
Sting Ray was its name, its knife-edged nose and bubble fenders done by Larry Shinoda, Brock and others after GM design chief Bill Mitchell saw an Italian Abarth design study. It won the SCCA C-Modified National Championship in 1959 and 1960 before Mitchell civilized it a bit for personal use.
"Every time I see it, I think it is holding up pretty well," Brock said. "After a few years, if it still looks good, you know you did a pretty good job. You can never tell when you finish them if it's right or not, but time will tell."
Next came the XP-720, very close to the fastback 1963 Stingray production car. Finally, a 1961 Vette concept that predicted the 1963 model.
Inspired by a shark Mitchell caught off Florida, the Mako Shark's iridescent blue upper paint blends into the white lower body like a shark's natural coloring. The nose is sharp, while an edge rides up the fenders, flanking aggressive vents on either side of the hood's power dome. Four pipes a side flow from the production 427-cubic-inch ZL-1 Chevrolet V-8, its four-barrel carburetor allowing it to produce about 427 hp.
On a brief test drive in blue bucket seats, a three-spoke steering wheel faces a fake woodgrain dash with 7,000-rpm tach and 160-mph speedometer, plus driver-oriented auxiliary gauges and a Jaeger chronograph. The view over the hood vents is incredible, as is the mouth-watering rumble out the side pipes under my elbow.
"A genuine 30,000 miles. The car is completely unrestored, other than the interior," said Rod Green, supervisor of GM's design properties system. "The second two barrels on the carburetor are disconnected for safety reasons. There is so much horsepower and torque, it is virtually impossible to keep on the road."
Two very different Corvettes were at Amelia.
One started life as one of three chassis sent to Italian coachbuilder Scaglietti by three racers who included Carroll Shelby and Jim Hall. The cars were shown to GM brass to get production approval, but no one bit.
Even rarer was Anita Kelly's 1961 Vignale Corvette, with its Ferrariesque oval crosshatch alloy grille with streamlined headlights and finned Kelsey-Hayes drum brakes designed as part of the wheels.
The two-seater has a Corvette steering wheel, shifter, dash cowl and radio inside, plus period 283-cubic-inch Vette running gear underneath. It was built by the Jefferson, Wis., resident's late husband, Gordon.
"He wanted to design a car. He designed it and drew up the plans, and went with a scale model to Italy and visited quite a few carrozzerias there. It became the Paris auto show car for Vignale in 1961," she said. "He tried to make a deal with GM, but it fell through, so we bought the Corvette and shipped it to Italy."
Kelly said she loves the shape of the car, with it's "tucked-in rear" and unique grille. It was restored in 1992.
Another car at Amelia looked like a Corvette custom, although Mike Yager's Candy Apple Red 1964 Styling Concept is really a rare piece of history, said restorer Werner Meier. A prototype done by the GM Styling Center for auto shows, it has a larger grille, 1965-style hood with room for a fuel-injection system, and unique side exhausts. Done in 15 coats of Candy Apple Red lacquer, it ended up at the 1964 World's Fair in New York.
"After it served its duties as a display, it was purchased by GM executive vice president Alex Mayer for his son, Steve, as a 16th birthday present," Meier said. "Steve took exceptional care of the car and the stories I heard is he wouldn't wear his shoes in it. He kept it for 20 years and only put 26,000 miles on it."
It ended up in some museum collections, and maintains its original paint and interior. The car won Best in Class.
Perhaps the most famous Vettes on display were the five lightweight Grand Sport Corvettes built between 1962 and 1963 and never seen together until The Amelia.
Five coupes, two converted later into roadsters, were planned as the first of a production run of 150 lightweight Corvettes to kill Carroll Shelby's lightweight Cobras. But only five were made before the project was killed, discretely "loaned" to private competitors who raced them through 1966.
Jim Hall drove the first Grand Sport to victory at the 1963 Nassau Trophy Race.
Bill Tower, who built the Grand Sport's 377-cubic-inch aluminum engines with Weber carburetors and four-speed Rock Crusher transmission while working on the GM's design team, owns one.
He repainted it in its 1965 12 Hour of Sebring colors when he bought it in 1978, still wearing its scars from racing wins with Hall and Roger Penske at the wheel.
The look of the 1968 C3 Corvette was presaged by Mitchell's Mako Shark concept, and continued for 15 years with a few changes. For a while, GM fiddled with a mid-engine design, as shown by the alloy-bodied 1969 EXPO 40 Vette concept shown at the Amelia.
No Vettes were made in 1983, before the C4 premiered in 1984 as a more modern design with the 375-hp ZR-1 to follow. Then came the current Vette, with a pushrod 350-hp, 5.7-liter V-8 on a new hydroformed chassis members with more sophisticated suspension, followed by a tweaked ZO6 versions that now offer 405 hp.
Now we have the 50th Anniversary version, and a C6 in the wings that Chevrolet says will be more powerful.
Duntov would have been proud.
cutlines:
-- Dan Scanlan/staff
GM design chief Bill Mitchell used a Corvette SS chassis as the basis for this 1961 Sting Ray concept car.
-- Dan Scanlan/staff
The Mako Shark concept was the precursor of the 1963 Corvette.
-- Dan Scanlan/staff
Chevrolet's own 1964 Corvette Sting Ray design concept has design cues that would be seen on later Corvettes like the grille, side pipes and sport mirrors.
-- Dan Scanlan/staff
The 1961 Vignale Corvette is a one-of-a-kind model.
