Chevrolet Corvette C2 as a coupé of the first year of construction - the most beautiful of all
Summary
In the late summer of 1962, General Motors presented the second generation of the Chevrolet Corvette and for the first time it was also available as a coupé. Bill Mitchell had come up with a split rear window as a styling highlight and with this, as well as the implied bar that extended from the roof to the rear, the coupé lived up to its name "Stingray". However, after just one year, the special design solution gave way to a more conventional rear window variant, which is one of the reasons why the coupé from the first year of production is one of today's sought-after rarities. This report portrays one of these rare beauties and tells the brief history of the model, supplemented by original documents, historical pictures and a sound sample.
This article contains the following chapters
- The two-part rear window
- Modern design
- Maintained with a cotton bud
- Bellezza
- At the steering wheel of the stingray Adonis
- Ahead of most
- Underestimated rarity
- Further information
Estimated reading time: 7min
Preview (beginning of the article)
When Chevrolet unveiled the new Corvette (now known as the C2) in the late summer of 1962, many European sports car manufacturers had to dress warmly. Because the "Sting Ray", as the new generation was called, had a modern, aerodynamically optimized body and independent suspension all round, while Maserati and Ferrari continued to sell cars with rigid rear axles at the time. The big surprise, however, was the appearance of the coupé, which immediately showed why the car was called the Sting Ray. The 1963 Corvette (designated XP-720 during development) was not the first to bear the nickname "Sting Ray". This already existed on the XP-87 prototype, the Stingray racer. This was originally based on an experimental vehicle with the number XP-64 SS, but was continuously modified both technically and visually.
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