As anyone who has any experience of social media knows, automotive manufacturers love to make the most of any big reveal. And so it was recently that my Facebook, Twitter, email and whatever else one uses in these days of interwebby communication exploded with wave after wave of pictures and information on the new
Corvette.
Personally, Im a little on the fence. Sure its very aggressive and angular and has a quad-exhaust setup that looks like a converted church organ but its not exactly pretty, is it?
Of course, there are those who would say that the Corvette isnt about beauty; its about speed above all else raw, unbridled, powerful, kind of a handful. And, so the stereotype goes, a little rough around the edges. Looks the business at a race track but doesnt know which fork to use at the fancy restaurant, so to speak.
This new one does seem more polished than the previous generation and its plastic-fantastic trim. The old interior is also much improved upon.
Even so, with 450hp coming from a 6.2L small-block V-8, you just know its going to be a sledgehammer in many ways. Expect to see the automotive magazines put this C7 put up against all manner of sacred cows and expect big-dollar front-runners to get taken down a peg or two.
It wasnt always like this. Six decades ago, a very different Corvette debuted.
First of breed, the 53-62 C1 is still an American icon without peer. Check the specs though, and itd be hard to see where the lineage comes from. With a medium displacement straight-six and a two-speed automatic transmission, the original Vette was a chrome-laden aristocrat in white and a slug on the road.
But the crowds loved it. GM Vice-President Harley J. Earl had created an American sports car to rival the Europeans. Unique touches like a hideaway folding convertible roof gave the first Vette a sleek shape, befitting its name. (Earl reportedly rejected 300 potential appellations before settling on Corvette, the term for a small, fast warship.)
Then, in 55, a small V-8 became an available option, giving the Vette a little go to match the show. Experts will endlessly debate when the Vette actually became good, but Id mark the point at late 1957, when fuel-injection and a four-speed manual became available.
Currently, the sixth-generation Corvette is best represented by the insanely powerful ZR-1 model, which makes a feature film appearance in an upcoming Arnold Schwarzenegger flick.
Chevy also released a 60th anniversary package for most of its Vettes this year and brought back the iconic 427 badge on a manual convertible, which I was fortunate enough to test in the summertime. It was a little bit like driving around in a controlled explosion that someone had fitted with a steering wheel.
All indications are that performance cars like these are dinosaurs, that the future will be autonomous transport, electric propulsion, networked vehicles with automatic accident
avoidance.
Even so, theres a place out there in the desert where the blacktop shimmers in the heat, where the twisting two-lane snakes up into hills marked only by spotty scrub-brush.
Its empty, barren not a destination, but merely the blank space on the map between where youre going and where youre coming from.
Now, and always, itll be the best place to find yourself behind the wheel of a Corvette the V-8 roaring, the rear dancing around like a skittish horse, the sound and the fury echoing down 60 years of legend.
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