Corvette C1-C7 in Review…The Most Successful Car in Detroit History? Art and Article by K. Scott Teeters Read More
Search Results for: Q-Corvette
Corvettes at Carlisle – First ZL1 Engine Alive and Well!
When Kevin Mackay told me about his find, he said that like his other restoration work, his intention was to refurbish the ZL-1 back to its Hot Rod cover girl configuration in time for the 2012 30th Corvettes at Carlisle Show. If you have never been to the Corvettes at Carlisle Show, every year, there’s a special feature called “Chip’s Choice” along the long wall of Building T. For 2012 the Chips Choice theme was “The Best of the Big-Blocks” and featured many of Corvette Repair’s magnificent big-block Corvettes. So it was very fitting that Mackay’s fully restored ZL-1 engine was part of the show.
Attending the Corvettes at Carlisle Show is a real pleasure. How often does a Corvette fan get to experience complete sensory overload. With 60 years of history and heritage, plus thousands of Corvettes in all different configurations, “sensory overload” about says it all. After several hours, it’s “Oh, there’s another Grand Sport, and another race car, and another stocker, and another…” So when I was in Building T looking at the ZL-1 engine on display, it was kind of surreal. Read More
1963 Corvette – The First Production Sting Ray
The first 1963 Corvette Sting Ray, The original American Idol – I call the Corvette the “The American Automotive Horatio Alger Story.” It’s the ultimate automotive rags-to-riches story. You could also call it an automotive Cinderella story. While the C6 has taken more flack than it deserves, it’s good to look back to the very beginning to get a really clear picture of how far the Corvette has come in 60 years. Today, new designs are market researched, but in the ‘50s, it was a seat-of-the-pants approach, driven by men with strong personalities. “Father” of the Corvette, Harley Earl, was the director of GM’s “Art and Color Section.” from 1927 to 1958. His successor, William L. Mitchell picked up the mantle and drove the Corvette where Earl never imagined. Read More
A Look Back At Corvettes Designed by Larry Shinoda
Perhaps it was “in the stars” that Larry Shinoda was in the right place at the right time. If you strictly look at Shinoda’s resume in 1956, you might ask, “How did this guy get in the front door?” As a young man, the only thing Larry ever graduated from was high school, Army boot camp, and the School of Hard Knocks. Larry put his personal edginess into his Corvette designs and we’re still admiring them. Read More
Corvette Timeline Tales: Happy 82nd Birthday Larry Shinoda
Larry was only 25-years old when after not completing his studies at Art Center School of Design in Los Angeles, he landed his first job with Ford in 1955. A year later, he briefly went to work at Studebaker/Packard, then went to General Motors late in 1956. Larry not only had an impressive portfolio, he had an intuitive sense of styling. If didn’t take long before his talent caught the keen eye of GM’s Bill Mitchell. But it wasn’t just Larry’s skill at wielding a pen and airbrush that helped acquaint him with Mitchell – it was drag racing.
The story goes that one day Shinoda and Mitchell had a chance encounter at a traffic light. Since both men had what Mitchell called, “gasoline in their veins,” neither man needed much goading to initiate a little stoplight grand prix. The light turned green and Larry put a whoop’n Bill, which may have been one of his best career moves. Mitchell drafted Shinoda into his special forces of car design, headquartered deep inside GM’s guarded facilities in a place called, “Studio X.” (sounds like a ‘50s sci-fi b-grade movie, doesn’t it”?) Read More
Vette Video: 1960 Mako Shark-I Corvette At The Georgia Aquarium
Lucky for us, GM design chief, Bill Mitchell had a fish fetish. Or should we say, a shark obsession. I once read an amusing story about Mitchell and his “shark thing.” He was talking with someone about the Mako Shark-I show car and he said, (sorry for the paraphrasing) “Look at the open mouth in that grille area. You can just see the blood dripping from the opening!” Yea, he was “into it.”
The story goes that Mitchell caught a big shark off the coast of Bimini and had it stuffed and mounted. It must have been his muse because he obviously picked up on three design elements.
Check out the three unique design elements, PLUS the video!!! Read More
Vette Videos: The STUNNING Corvette Classic 1959 Stingray Racer
Every so often a car design comes along that is “perfect.” It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, you end up stopped dead in your tracks. You find yourself almost unable to STOP looking at the car’s shape. For me, the 1959 Stingray Racer is such a car.
The 1959 Stingray Racer was an outgrowth of the dead-on-arrival 1957 Q-Corvette, which never made it past the full-size clay model stage. But the pint-sized concept had a nuclear-powered punch because it set in motion a design process that is still with us today. Consider the lineage…
Q-Corvette leads to…
1959 Stingray Racer leads to…
Mako Shark I show car leads to…
1963-1967 Sting Ray leads to…
Mako Shark-II-inspired C3 “shark” Corvette… that leads to…
C6 Corvette (look closely at the front and rear fenders of the C6 – there’s a C2 Sting Ray in there).
Back to the timeless ‘59 Stingray… Read More
Vette Videos: How Hi-Tech Z06 & ZR1 Aluminum Frames Are Made
Fast forward to the 2006 Z06 and its aluminum chassis. One of the biggest challenges with an aluminum chassis is the strength of materials issue. Lightweight aluminum is soft, so there were interesting shape and construction problems that had to be worked out to mass-produce such a chassis. While it is true that the Z06 wasn’t the first car to use an aluminum chassis (many hand-made exotic cars had aluminum chassis) the Z06 was the first “mass produced” car to have an all-aluminum chassis, engine, and suspension. Read More
