Automoblog Book Garage: Corvette Stingray

When something unusual happens, we often remember clearly where we are and what we are doing. We recall the moment we noticed in vivid details; we stopped at that moment, and it changed the way we perceive the world forever.

The Chevy Corvette can and does illicit these moments. Larry Edsall documents it as such in Corvette Stingray: The Seventh Generation of America’s Sports Car.

Original Origins

Author

Corvette Stingray Gallery

Original Origins

In 1953, the Corvette Convertible captured the hearts and minds of a generation when it unveiled at the New York International Auto Show. It reflected a bold new era for American automobiles, be it as a weekend cruiser or track warrior. At the time, it could hit 60 in 8.5 seconds. Today, the Corvette Z06, with the available Z07 package, does it in 2.95 seconds, while running a quarter-mile in 10.95 seconds.

Looking back and contrasting to today, it may seem as if the Corvette had humble beginnings. Call it how you see it, but one thing is for sure: it was destined for greatness, never to be matched, never to be duplicated because it was, and still is, an original.

Bill Mitchell poses with his 1959 Stingray, a car originally built for racing but which Mitchell later used for his daily commute to the GM Design offices.

Author

GM granted Edsall exclusive access to engineers, designers, and photographic archives to tell the Corvette story from day one to the current, seventh generation. The book features over 300 amazing photographs that truly capture the essence of the Corvette.

Edsall, a former newspaperman, went on to serve as Managing Editor of Autoweek. He now lives in Phoenix, Arizona where he helped launch iZoom.com. Edsall still contributes to several automotive and lifestyle publications.

The depth of his experience is played out masterfully through this book.

Be it your

Corvette Stingray Gallery

A trio of C7 Stingray prototypes and a pair of C6 Corvettes are ready for cold-weather testing at a General Motors facility in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

The C7 Stingray works for the daily commute to work, the weekend road trip, or when pushed all-out at the race track.

To underscore that the new seventh-generation Corvette truly marks the start of a new generation of the American sports car, the traditional crossed-flags Corvette logo was re-designed once more, drawing from the proud history of its six other predecessors.

Hourly employees from Bowling Green work with technicians and engineers in Michigan during the prototype-building process. Their presence helps with the transition from styling and engineering design to the actual assembly of those components into a finished automobile. It’s one thing to build nearly one-off prototypes, but another to do production on a moving assembly line. It’s better to identify any potential issues a year or more in advance when there’s time to devise a solution without slowing production.

The Stingray Design team considers a couple of full-size scale models in the private courtyard at the GM Tech Center. Note how the mirror is positioned so viewers can see the full rear end of the vehicle, even though the clay model holds two different design proposals.

General Motors designers from studios around the world were invited to submit sketches showing their ideas for a seventh generation Chevrolet Corvette. Here is one of the 300 or more that were submitted.

At the Automoblog Book Garage last week, we studied the stories behind American auto companies.