Peter Brock Column: Without Bill Mitchell, the Chevrolet C2 Corvette May Never Have Happened

I had the rare opportunity as a young designer to work at GM Styling in the mid ’50s. I wasn’t aware at the time just how crucial that era would be in terms of the future of the American automobile industry and Chevrolet in particular, but time has a way of clarifying history that’s impossible to ascertain at the moment …

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So, what was the rationale for the C4 ??

300zxfreak said:

So, what was the rationale for the C4 ??

Bean counters will be bean counters.

300zxfreak said:

So, what was the rationale for the C4 ??

Drive a 1982 C3.

OK, that may have been a cheap shot, but smog and CAFE requirements were ensuring the brutally powered big block approach was now a non-starter, and the C3 chassis was seriously dated. While the interior was a pretty bad case of cost-cutting, the chassis was much lighter, with a far more modern suspension, both of which the Corvette lineup badly needed.

In reply to 300zxfreak :

They almost whacked the Corvette in 83 (only a handfull were built in 83). GM was being overrun by Japanese cars, 911 Turbo was the darling of the day and the automotive press basicly said Corvettes were a joke. It was either total revamp or shut it down.

Bardan said:

In reply to 300zxfreak :

They almost whacked the Corvette in 83 (only a handfull were built in 83). GM was being overrun by Japanese cars, 911 Turbo was the darling of the day and the automotive press basicly said Corvettes were a joke. It was either total revamp or shut it down.

There are no 83s. Some prototypes and mules were built, but the 84 model year began earlier than normal.

There is one 1983 Corvette, and it is at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The plant manager who was in control at the time took it upon himself to hide a single prototype from being crushed as directed by upper management.  

Great comments. I was in the magazine business back in 1984 and the C4 was a huge revelation and a step forward. Porsche owners took notive and started taking the Corvette seriously when the C4 was introduced. the personality of the NCCC changed too, as a new type of Corvette buyer was introduced into the fold.

I worked in Marketing and Product Planning at GM from 1978-81, and then again from'83-91.  In 1988, my boss, a former Finance Staff guy who maintained stong connections to other Finance Staffers, told me that the Corvette had finally become profitable, so that would have been either the '87 or the '88 model year.