Printable PDF files of 13 “Corvette News” Magazines from 1958-to-1962
Dateline: 10-22-18 – National Sales Promotion Manage, Joe Pike came up with a brilliant idea in 1957/1958. To build a Corvette community, Pike created “Corvette News”, a quarterly publication that was only available to owners of new Corvettes! Talk about an exclusive club! I am pretty sure that “Corvette News” was the first-ever regularly published magazine for a specific model automobile. Joe Pike was one of the first batch of six men that were inducted into the National Corvette Museum’s Hall of Fame in 1998.
I was recently perusing around the GM Heritage Center’s website. The “GM Historical Brochures” section of the “Archives” section, has 16 different subjects covering; Cadillac, Camaro, Chevrolet Engineering, Chevrolet History, Chevrolet Trucks, Consumer Information, GM History, GMC, Manufacturing Facilities, Events, Portfolio, Service and Training, Corvette Historical Brochures, and Corvette News.
The Corvette Historical Brochures section has 47 sales brochures and the Corvette News section has 13 issues of Corvette News from Vol 1, Number 4, (1958) to Vol 5, Number 2 (1962).
The earliest issue covers the Corvette Rally scene, Pebble Beach coverage, information about Corvette Gymkhana events, a story about falconry and the U.S. Air Force Academy, front-end alignment, and Tuning Your 1958 Corvette. Most interesting is the one-page “Corvette Club Directory” listing a total of 13 Corvette Clubs in America!
You can download PDF versions of all 13 of these vintage “Corvette News” magazines in two different file sizes. The small (4MB) version is for viewing on your computer. The larger (62MB) version is if you want to send the file to a printer to be printed.
If you would like to add paper version of the Corvette News magazines to your Corvette library, modern local printers can print the high-resolution files in full color, and saddle-stitch them for you are very reasonable prices.
Each issue is a time capsule, a visual look back at a simpler Corvette and a simpler time in America. It probably didn’t seem like “simpler times” back then, and the Corvette was considered an advanced Chevrolet sports car. Modern electronics and computers allow today’s Corvettes to do the unimaginable from back then. But there’s a special kind of joy these purely mechanical performance cars gives.
I sure do hope that the webmasters at www.GMHeritageCenter.com add more vintage “Corvette News” issues soon. We’ll just have to keep checking back! To access the 13 available issues, CLICK HERE. – Scott
PS – Here’s an anecdotal personal story I think you’ll find to be interesting.
I discovered Corvettes in 1965 when I accompanied my big brother Bob to the local Chevrolet dealer where he had just purchased a used 1957 Bel Air. He told me to wait in the showroom while he went back to the Service Department. On the showroom floor was a 1965 Sting Ray Coupe. I though it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen!
I must have looked bedazzled because a salesman came up to me and said, “You like that car, don’t ya, kid?” I said, “Yea!” Then he gave me a brochure and scribbled his name on the cover, right over the picture of the red Corvette! Maybe he thought my Dad would buy a Corvette. THAT wasn’t going to happen! I took the brochure home and must have read it a hundred times! That’s how it began for me.
About a year later one of my friends told me that his older brother once had a Corvette and that when he bought the car new, he got a free magazine. By that time I was buying every magazine I could find with anything about Corvettes, as well as building model car Corvettes. But when I saw a few of the issues of Corvette News, I copied the mailing address for Chevrolet. I knew who Zora Arkus-Duntov was by then (he kind of reminded my of my grandfather), so I decided to write him a letter asking for “specs” for Corvettes!
A few months later a package arrived from Chevrolet! Inside was a letter from Chevrolet Marketing (not Mr. Duntov, DRAT!), several Chevrolet General Specifications documents and a few issues of Corvette News. The letter thanked me for my interest and informed me that they were adding my name and address to the Corvette News mailing list!
Not only did I not have a Corvette (except for many 1/25th scale versions), I was about five years from getting my driver’s license! I kept getting Corvette News until around 1970 and still have many of them today in my Corvette library. Who knows, I might have been the only kid to be on the Corvette News mailing list! HA! – Scott
