I spent an early part of my life driving from coast to coast in a big truck. After 10 years and a million miles I've changed enough gears to last forever. I quit that nonsense in 1981. Since then, it was 10 years of Chevy dealers as a tech, and the last 30 years have been big airplanes. That said, there are some things that must have both a manual trans and be RED..(edit-- current Harley is not real red, but close enough. I got a good enough deal on it to make up the difference)

 

In the early 80's the Corvette had morphed into a Grand Touring sports car. They were no longer fire breathers and many comfort/convenience options became standard equipment. As the product and demographics changed, the stick shift became less important. Automatics were by far more common. The sticks were rare back them and even rarer today.

 

I don't know how much of that is demographics/market, and how much of that is externally imposed by emissions requirements. Is my 80 a fire breathing monster? No. But in stock form the L48 is plenty fun with a 4-speed behind it. Since I don't live in California, I can do pretty much whatever I want to make it breathe fire with the (up to) 93 octane 10% ethanol gas available where I live, but I haven't focused on that. Make it Stop, then Turn, then Go, in that order. Still working on turn.

You say that many comfort/convenience options became standard equipment like it's a bad thing. Those are the most sought after early options, all standard in the 80 (tilt-tele, AC, PW, PS, etc), plus the seats are more comfortable. The L82 dual snorkel cold air intake is standard in the 80 on both engines. The cars are lighter, with more, colder air going to the radiator, better aerodynamics, and finally a bumper that doesn't look like an afterthought for the first time since 1973. The only weak point is the Dana differential behind the aluminum batwing, but it is lighter if you keep it together.

Grand touring in stock form? Maybe, but the bones are there to turn it into whatever you want it to be. And without the guilt of modding a chrome bumper car. The manual transmission is the best part, by far, so I'm at a loss to understand why they are so uncommon. I'm sure it didn't help that GM couldn't get a manual L82 to pass emissions, so none were made. They were still playing these stupid games 25 years later with the 1-4 skip shift on some 6-speed cars, but I digress.

 

It's too bad the engine stamped numbers indicate the type of transmission used.

I've got everything, the big stuff anyway, to do a conversion but won't for that reason.

 

Not according to CorvetteMikeB. If I remember correctly about 10% of late C3s had manual transmissions. That means the manual is more than twice as popular in new Corvettes as it was back then.

 

 

The automatic transmission did not stop me from buying my 1980 L-82. That was the car I wanted almost 30 years ago when I bought it and I still have it.

 

Very interesting. I'm surprised to see the numbers so low from 75-77 and go up significantly in 80 & 81

 

I'd pay more for a manul than I would for a numbers car, and I'm guessing there are a lot of others like me.

YMMV

 

I like both and they both have their place.
I like my 4 speed its fun to drive but I keep spilling my beer when I shift so that's when the automatic is more efficient.

 

 

It's low because those numbers are wrong. At best, they reflect the numbers of Close Ratio manuals as a percentage of total production. In 1980 and 1981, there was only a single manual option (on the L48 only), so those numbers were correct. 1979 was the outlier, if anything, but there were more Corvettes made that year than any other.

Pulling data from vettefacts.com, I got these numbers (I had to total coupes and convertibles, base and pacecars, and for the most part take their word for auto production).

Year Prod Auto Manual Percent
1974 37502 25146 12356 33%
1975 38465 28473 9992 26%
1976 46558 36625 9933 21%
1977 49213 41231 7982 16%
1978 46776 38614 8162 17%
1979 53807 41454 12353 23%
1980 40614 34838 5726 14%
1981 40606 35031 5575 14%
1982 25407 25407 0 0%

EDIT:
Just the percentages, since the formatting looks terrible:

Year Percent
1974 33%
1975 26%
1976 21%
1977 16%
1978 17%
1979 23%
1980 14%
1981 14%
1982 0%

 

 

 

 

cupholder mod to the console is easier than replacing the trans...