I believe it was the lack of sales in previous years.
82 4 speed ?
Race Director
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 17,676
Likes: 201
From: Who says "Nothing is impossible" ? I've been doing nothing for years.
Kinda makes you wonders what kind of forward looking idiots they had employed at GM back then with a 200HP Corvette only available in an automatic when 23 years later you have a Vette with an alumnimum 427ci engine rated a t 500HP 
Team Owner
Joined: Aug 1999
Posts: 30,995
Likes: 99
From: Ontario
In 1974, Chevrolet had exited the manual transmission business, and had turned it over to Borg-Warner, which was running its production line exclusively for the Corvette. Demand was so low that, as the 1980s dawned, the plant was running way below capacity - and only for half the year. Borg-Warner was so poorly treated as a supplier, by our emission certification program, that the company finally informed us that it was not going to supply manual transmissions to Corvette after 1981. The entire 1982 model year and the first full year of the 1984 model went by before we recovered with a new source for the manual transmission.
"Corvette From The Inside" (Dave McLellan, 2002)
Basically what Mr. McLellan is stating is that post-1975, increasingly stringent emission standards made certification of Corvettes with manual transmissions more and more difficult. So production was scaled back in favour of the automatics. And Borg-Warner finally had to pull the plug. He makes a good point that this shift was not driven by consumer preferences but by government regulation.
"Corvette From The Inside" (Dave McLellan, 2002)
Basically what Mr. McLellan is stating is that post-1975, increasingly stringent emission standards made certification of Corvettes with manual transmissions more and more difficult. So production was scaled back in favour of the automatics. And Borg-Warner finally had to pull the plug. He makes a good point that this shift was not driven by consumer preferences but by government regulation.
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