Steve Magnante's 1001 Corvette Facts. Steve Magnante
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Название: Steve Magnante's 1001 Corvette Facts
Автор: Steve Magnante
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Автомобили и ПДД
isbn: 9781613254561
isbn:
And so, on February 25, 2006, I paid $6,062.74 for a nice, original, white 1985 Corvette hatchback with an automatic transmission and base-level suspension. Instantly, my world changed. Loading groceries into the hatch at Vons supermarket often triggered random conversations with female shoppers, freeway and surface traffic seemed to part around me, and, yes, gals on the sidewalk even gave me a second look. I’d like to think we’re all above such materialistic instincts, but in my opinion it cannot be denied: A Corvette adds excitement to your life. And mine was a 20-year-old model at the time! Based on that small taste of things, I totally understand why some folks buy Corvettes.
But the real reason is because of how they perform. With its 230-hp Tuned Port 350 and base suspension, my C4 wasn’t the 10-second thrill machine that my Hemi Dart was, but it cornered like nothing else I’d ever driven, and its big disc brakes were always up to the job. I grew to love late-night drives up the Angeles Crest Highway, a narrow two-lane twisting, turning route that led up into the mountains above L.A. Although the Gatorbacks were half-bald, the C4 had amazing grip, and mine was built one year before anti-lock brake systems were standardized, so stopping was never a concern.
Although my personal Corvette ownership experience didn’t revolve around a particularly rare big-block model or a much more advanced C5, C6, or C7, I get it. Corvettes are a breed apart from everything else on the road. Amazingly, Chevrolet didn’t build Corvettes by the dozens or hundreds like certain foreign supercars. Instead, Chevrolet cranked them out by the tens of thousands every year. Regular Joes and Jills with half-decent credit could actually own them.
Even exotic varieties with Rochester fuel injection, triple Holley carburetors, solid lifter camshafts, 32-valve DOHC heads, titanium connecting rods, and superchargers were built by the thousands in the years they were offered. Despite a handful of super rare models (1963 Z06, 1969 ZL1), even the hottest Corvettes were available to the masses. There was no years-long waiting list.
Finally, while some Corvette historians lump the 1953–1962 cars into a category generally called the C1, I feel that finer divisions are warranted. Here, the 1953–1955 cars are considered as one group, while the 1956–1962 models are treated as another. Thus, this book uses eight chapters to cover the eight distinct generations as I see them.
Keep in mind that with a project like this, the most challenging task is deciding what to leave out, not what to include. Each chapter is divided into five sections: Legend and Lore, Body and Interior, Engine and Driveline, Suspension and Brakes, and Number Crunching and Press Commentary. In each, I’ve loaded an interesting cross section of data. But again, I barely scratched the surface of all there is to know and learn about America’s original sports car. I hope you enjoy the book as much as I enjoyed writing it!
1953–1955 C1a: From Motorama to Main Street
1 Was the Corvette really America’s first mass-produced fiberglass-bodied sports car? Or did the Kaiser Darrin 161 beat it to the punch? It’s a common debate among car enthusiasts. Although Kaiser formally introduced its fiberglass Darrin on September 26, 1952, customers had to wait until January 6, 1954, for actual delivery. By that date, Corvettes had been cruising the streets of America for six months; the first regular-production units (as opposed to engineering/styling prototypes) rolled off the Flint, Michigan, line on June 30, 1953.
Heavy preproduction publicity was no substitute for cars in driveways. The fiberglass-bodied Kaiser Darrin trailed the Corvette into the showroom.
2 Oh, what might have been. In an official GM new-product press release dated January 16, 1953, the name Corvette is spelled Courvette. Had the odd spelling occurred once, we might chalk it up to a simple typographical error. But the Courvette nomenclature appeared several more times in the same document. Interestingly, 26 years earlier, on June 23, 1927, the General Motors Art and Colour Section was established, with creative genius Harley Earl in charge. The British spelling of the word “color” was intentional and added exotic flair. Although officially renamed the General Motors Styling Section in 1937, the memorable Art and Colour moniker is still used informally.
3 The man responsible for naming Corvette was a Chevrolet public-relations executive named Myron C. Scott. Despite his significant contribution to automotive history, Mr. Scott wasn’t compensated beyond his normal salary. By contrast, over at Ford, division manager L. D. Cruso initiated an in-house name-storming contest which Ford designer Alden Giberson won when he suggested the name Thunderbird. Initially, a new suit worth $250 was at stake, but records show Giberson accepted $95 cash and a pair of trousers from Saks Fifth Avenue, instead.
4 The Corvette’s first public unveiling took place on January 14, 1953, in the third-floor Grand Ballroom of New York City’s prestigious Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Part of the GM Motorama car show, one group of spectators frustrated the venue’s security detail by repeatedly slipping past the ropes and brazenly tape-measuring the show car’s dimensions and snapping numerous photographs. A little digging revealed the intruders to be product planners and engineers from Ford. Its two-seated rival, the Thunderbird, went on sale on October 22, 1954, more than 20 months later. Undoubtedly, details gathered by the Waldorf Astoria snoops helped shape the Thunderbird’s final configuration.
With more than 20 months to study and scrutinize Chevy’s new Corvette, the designers behind Ford’s competing Thunderbird drew plenty of clandestine, and overt, inspiration from GM’s groundbreaking triumph.
5 Hello, OnStar? Releasing the Corvette amid the paranoia of the McCarthy era, General Motors allegedly placed hidden tape recorders throughout the 1953 Waldorf Astoria Motorama display. Its purpose was to gather unfiltered comments about the cars from viewers. This technique is still used by automakers at car shows and media drive events seeking candid opinions about new products. Some say modern onboard security and navigation devices such as OnStar have similar capabilities . . . say nice things to your new Corvette. Somebody might be listening.
6 One visitor at the Corvette’s January 1953 NYC debut was a recently unemployed 43-year-old engineer who’d just returned home from a work sabbatical in England. There, he helped Sydney Allard develop and race his hand-built sports cars at Le Mans. However, the contract ended, so he returned to the United States seeking employment. Approaching middle age, this visitor was so taken with Corvette’s potential that he applied for a job at General Motors. This man’s name was Zora Arkus-Duntov.
7 Many Corvette fans mistakenly believe that Arkus-Duntov was the father of the Corvette. However, GM design legend Harley Earl deserves the credit. Deeply impressed by the post–World War II British sports cars that he saw during visits to his son’s affluent college campus, СКАЧАТЬ