Fom the time of its introduction as a 1953 model, limited to 300 Polo White convertibles, the Corvette was intended to be an open roadster. What happened between the end of 1953 and the beginning of the 1955 model year was hardly what Chevrolet, designer Harley Earl or GM management had anticipated. The car was essentially unpopular. Unpopular with the general public because it lacked so many features Americans had come to expect, and unpopular with sports car aficionados because it lacked performance and handling. The 1953 and 1954 Corvettes were, as was often the case in Detroit, still a work in progress when introduced.
Such missteps have killed many Detroit makes, but the Corvette got a second start in 1955 and a year later a new lease on life, that has been running uninterrupted for more than half a century.
As a convertible the Corvette was desirable, especially after it was powered with a V8, and finally a manual transmission late in 1955. By then the second generation model was off the drawing boards and waiting in the wings.
Harley Earl’s team of gifted stylists had made substantial changes to the original Corvette body. For the most part they had started with a clean sheet of paper. Every aspect of the 1953 design was altered and refined. “All the designers were enamored by the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing coupe,” recalled Bob Cadaret, who worked as a stylist on the Chevy design staff. “From the windshield forward, the 300 SL was the predominant influence on the styling of the 1956 Corvette.” This new and vastly improved sports car was offered only as a convertible. In fact, there wouldn’t be a coupe until 1963. But that isn’t to say there weren’t any hardtops.
The new Corvette made up for nearly all of the first generation model’s shortcomings. The 1956 convertibles came with roll-up windows, optional power assist, and exterior door handles. Why Chevrolet and Earl chose to offer the first generation cars without them is still one of the great absences of forethought in Detroit automotive history. Yes, it was supposed to offer the essence of a British sports car, and as a convertible all one needed to do was reach inside to open the door. Still, you have to wonder how many Americans wanted that feature, or lack thereof, in a new car.
One of the other notable improvements in the second generation Corvette was a new convertible top mechanism, also offered with an available power assist, and a previously unavailable option, an auxiliary removable hardtop, that made the 1956 convertible into an all-season coupe. With the 1956 models output from the V8 was increased to a modest 210 horsepower, but by ordering an optional dual four-barrel carburetor output climbed to a respectable 225 horsepower. The V8 engine significantly improved the Corvette’s overall weight distribution, being some 40 pounds lighter than its sixcylinder predecessor. The added horses under the hood demanded commensurate modifications to the suspension, which were eventually seen to by Chevrolet’s new power and handling maestro Zora Arkus-Duntov. With his modifications and the standard synchromesh 3-speed manual transmission, the Corvette emerged as a true driver’s car in 1956. Wrote Sports Car Graphic road testers: “In almost every respect the 1956 Corvette is a very satisfying car on the highway…[it] supplements astonishing performance with a high level of road-holding.” Breaking from the previous year’s limited color schemes, Corvettes could now be ordered in any of eight exterior colors; the original Polo White, Onyx Black, Cascade Green, Aztec Copper, Arctic Blue, Venetian Red, Shoreline Beige, and Silver. For an additional $19, the RPO 440 option gave owners a choice of beige or silver painted door coves to contrast the body color. Corvette production for 1956 jumped from 700 cars the previous year to 3,467. The details of those sales figures also gave Chevrolet marketing managers a good idea of what appealed most to new Corvette owners. Of the total number of cars sold, only 276 were purchased with the base engine. For an additional $172, more than 3,000 were ordered with the 225-horsepower V8; 1,510 coupled to the manual gearbox and 1,570 teamed with Powerglide. The most interesting sales statistic, especially when the data filtered back to the Chevy designers, was the Corvette’s most popular option, the removable hardtop, ordered on 2,076 cars; 629 in place of the soft top altogether and 1,447 as a $215.20 addition. For bench racers, here’s a little bit of Corvette trivia guaranteed to win a steak dinner. Through April of 1956, all convertible tops were power operated. With the availability of a manual top in May, the hydraulic assist added $107.60 to the window sticker. For the year a total of 2,682 were produced with power tops, and buyers had a choice of white, beige or black fabric. Just for the record only 103 people opted for black, 1,840 purchased white and 895, beige.
As Corvette design and engineering progressed throughout the 1950s each year added more features; fuel-injection and a 4-speed manual transmission in 1957 and revised body styling in 1958, including the introduction of dual headlights. The hardtop option box was also being checked more and more often. In 1957 the total was 4,055, in 1958 the orders jumped to 5,607 and in 1959 nearly as many buyers, 5,481 opted to pay an extra $236.75 for the convenience of having a solid roof over their heads. By now, Chevrolet designers were thinking about the next generation to be introduced in 1963. In the interim, the 1961, and more dramatically the 1962 models, were heading toward the end of one road and the beginning of another.
They were to be the last of the solid rear axle cars, the last Corvettes to be offered solely as a convertible, and for many years to come, the last with fender-mounted headlights. As something of a sales footnote, in 1962 Chevrolet sold 14,530 Corvettes, of that number, better than half, 8,074 cars were ordered with the optional hardtop.
When the all-new 1963 Corvette Sting Ray was unveiled there were two separate models, the Split Window Coupe, and the Roadster. The sleek, new body styling based on a Bill Mitchell concept car named Mako Shark, lent itself to both versions, but made a spectacular looking convertible.
The Sting Ray’s new V8 delivered a rousing 360 horsepower, burying the tach through every gear – zero to 60 in 5.6 seconds, flying through the quarter mile in 14.2 at 102mph, and reaching a terminal velocity of 151mph.
Wrote Road & Track after testing an early production model with the 360 engine and 3.70:1 final drive, “As a purely sporting car, the new Corvette will know few peers on road or track. It has proved, in its ‘stone-age form,’ the master of most production line competitors; in its nice, shiny new concept it ought to be nearly unbeatable.” Car and Driver declared the Sting Ray “…second to no other production car in road-holding and still the most powerful.” The 1963 Corvettes brought many new owners into the Chevy family and sales for 1963 came in at an almost even split between the Split Window Coupe at 10,594 and 10,919 Sting Ray Roadsters. So given a choice between one or the other, buyers were almost evenly divided between hardtops and convertibles! One of the reasons, many believe, was the Split Window Coupe’s split rear window design. Road & Track griped, “Our only complaint about the interior was in the coupe, where all we could see in the rear view mirror was that silly bar splitting the rear window down the middle.” Car Life chimed in with, “The bar down the center of the rear window makes it all but impossible to see out via the rear view mirror.” And Motor Trend chastised Chevy’s hubris with, “The rear window on the coupe is designed more for looks than practicality, and any decent view to the rear will have to be through an exterior side-view mirror.” It has been said that the split window was Bill Mitchell’s inspiration, despite the fact that Duntov was against it from the start. If the split window was a battle of wills, Duntov prevailed. In 1964 it was gone. Of course, for the nearly 11,000 Corvette Sting Ray Roadster owners in 1963, it really didn’t matter one way or the other.
Five years later the fifth generation Corvette hit the streets to mixed reviews with the first ruthless criticism of the Corvette by the automotive press since the early 1950s. Much of the car’s new styling evolved from Bill Mitchell’s second Mako Shark concept car. Built in 1965 the Mako Shark II was more than another auto show teaser, it was actually a trial balloon to test public reaction to the Corvette’s proposed new shape. Regardless of public reaction (which was good), the plans were already set into motion. Mako Shark II was mostly an exaggerated, pizzazzed-up version of what Mitchell had already intended as a replacement for the aging Corvette Sting Ray introduced in 1963.
Historically, the 1968 model has become one of the most controversial in the Corvette saga. Quipped Road & Track in its initial review, “If there’s such a thing as a psychedelic car, the 1968 Corvette is it.” The magazine concluded by adding, “We wish we could express more enthusiasm for the new model but we feel that the general direction of the changes is away from Sports Car and toward Image and Gadget Car.” Other magazines were less charitable! Car and Driver ripped its test car from bumper to bumper berating everything from the ash tray to the T-top and finally declared it, “unfit to road test.”
Although the pundits hated it and made the 1968 model the worst car in the Corvette’s history up to that time, you couldn’t have proven it by the public’s response. In deference to the opinions of the motoring press, Americans flocked to their Chevy dealers making 1968 the best sales year since the car was introduced, with 9,936 coupes and 18,630 convertibles being sold. Interestingly, new buyers opted for a convertible almost two to one. The following year the sales numbers flipped, more coupes sold than convertibles, 22,129 to 16,633. An unrecognized at the time turning point in consumer tastes. Within five years, the convertible would be dead. Well, not dead, just dormant. By the early 1970s Corvette was facing a competitor unlike any before. Ford and Shelby 289 and 427 Cobras had been tough, but the Federal Government was tougher! Styling became more of a challenge with federallymandated impact bumpers in front for 1973 and front and rear by 1974. The GM design staff did yeomen work integrating the bumpers into the body and making them look good but 1975 was to be the swan song year for the Corvette convertible. Only 4,629 were produced. There would not be another convertible for more than a decade.
In 1984 a brand new Corvette was publicly introduced, nearly all of the totally restyled and reengineered 1983 models were kept by GM, and ostensibly there was no 1983 Corvette. The 1984 model was the first all-new Corvette in almost 16 years, but it was not available as a convertible.