Corvette

IN 1953, HARLEY EARL UNVEILED A WHITE FIBERGLASS ROADSTER AT THE MOTORAMA SHOW IN NEW YORK.

Critics were skeptical. The Blue Flame six-cylinder was borrowed from a truck. The automatic transmission was borrowed from a sedan. The design was more concept car than road car. And yet - that prototype became the Corvette, the one American automobile that refused to die, refused to be reasonable, and refused to stop pushing the boundaries of what an American sports car could be.

Seven decades later, the Corvette is a mid-engine supercar. It did not arrive there by accident.

Corvette: America's Sports Car traces the engineering decisions, corporate battles, and cultural forces that shaped every generation of America's most iconic sports car - from the C1 that nearly killed the model before it started, to the C8 that finally gave the world the Corvette it had always deserved.

Twelve chapters follow the car with the forensic precision the subject demands:

- Why Zora Arkus-Duntov's insistence on a V8 saved the Corvette from cancellation in 1955
- How the 1963 Sting Ray's independent rear suspension made it the most capable American production car of its era
- What the fuel-injected L88 427 really meant - and why so few buyers could handle it
- The long slow decline of the C3 through the 1970s, and why it took a decade to undo the damage
- How the C4's computer-managed suspension gave Corvette more performance than ever - and less soul than anyone wanted
- Why moving the engine behind the driver in the C8 was the most significant Corvette decision since 1953

This is not a book of superlatives. It is a book of decisions - the choices that explain why the Corvette survived when every financial case argued against it.

ALSO INCLUDES: A complete technical appendix covering all eight Corvette generations - engine options, production numbers, key variants, and performance specifications from 1953 to the present day.

Icons of American Motoring · Volume 1