Found this partial interview in 'Corvette - 50th Anniversary'.

Q:What do you think of the 1984-generation Corvette?
Mitchell:I think it looks like a grouper - a blunt look. I think the Camaro and Firebird are sharper. Although - I'll eat my own words - on the highway it looks pretty damn good from the front. But I don't like this lack of whip in the side view - it isn't exciting. And the taillights look like it was done for A.J.Foyt. I think it should have been done for women as well as men. I like more interest in the car. You look at watches - there's millions of them and they look different all the time. You don't want cars all looking alike. I'd have put more accents on it. The new Corvette is engineering perfect, but design? No. The engineers ran the whole damn show. They wouldn't have done that with me.
You need two things in a car: You need road value and showroom value. You need a little sparkle in a car. On a little misty day they all look dull. You don't want to put chrome on with a trowel like we did in '58, but you need some. There isn't showroom value in these cars today. If I had one, I'd touch it up. You have to have enough interest to keep looking at it. That goes for all the cars.

Q: What are some specific changes you'd make?
Mitchell: I'd put more flow in the line. I wouldn't make the sideline straight through. I know it wouldn't be as aerodynamic, but I'd put some curve in that. Like a shark is so much more interesting than a grouper because there's so many little things happening to it. This '84 Corvette is a big potato. On the road, yes; but you walk up to it - blah. Black rubber around everything. I like to have a car that when I pull up, somebody says, "Whose car is that?" I want a car that, when it's stopped, people walk around it for an hour. Exciting automobiles.

A POTATO!!? :lol: :lol: :lol:
Hardly.

 

well,least its no small potatoe :lolg:
i have a chrome antenna,thats to much for me :)

 

People walk arround my potato all the time!

 

As a car stylist, I respect Mitchell a great deal. The man lead GM's design department for a good number of years and did alot of good for automotive styling and design as a whole.

But to say that the C4 Corvette looks like a GROUPER? Are you kidding me? That's what people said about the '53 to '62 Corvettes. And they where right! Very organic, voluptious shapes tended to create the 'Grouper' look that Mitchell is talking about. But park a C4 (any C4) next to a C1 and tell me which one looks like a Grouper and which one looks like a Shark! No offence to the C1 owners - I love all Corvettes equally.

And if the man even ATTEMPTS to say that the C5 looks like a Shark, then I'd like to see the Sharks that he's looking at! I've never seen a Shark that looked like a massive lump of melted chocolate painted Millenium Yellow! For a guy who spent his entire career at GM driving some of the greatest Ferrari's ever built to and from work (No, he didn't drive a Corvette. In fact, I don't think he ever really 'owned' a Corvette) he really does seem to have a screwed-up sense of taste!

Of course, I also think that he's biased because he let Palmer and McLelland develop the C4 with little intervention; to Mitchell, Corvettes are for peasants!. But the C5 was supposed to be his 'swan-song' before his retirement from GM so he got heavily involved with its development.

But to think that the C4 looks like a Grouper? I think it's time for the Chrome Cobra to accept his cynility and just stop talking about car styling. What he thought was gospel in the 50s and 60s no longer holds true today.

Sorry old man, but it's time for you to go now.


[Modified by TheCorvetteKid, 11:46 AM 8/9/2003]

 

it is only a part of the interview but i think,after reviewing the snipit once again,he may have been emphasising that due to the MAJOR redesign of the c4 series (to the extent of new plant and loss of a model yr) the engineers "ran the whole damn show".
sounds like there was a bit of internal turmoil back then and the engineers won :)
the design ran for 12 yrs and judging by the looks of the c5 i'd assume the engineers are still running the whole damn show :party:

 

from my experience the food chain was always (from highest to lowest)

1. bean counters
2. designers
3. engineers

if there was a one-to-one battle between a designer and engineer, and the designer was not asking for a physical impossibility, the designer will win out. there is a bit more tradeoff in aerodynamic design, like Mitchell mentions, but i think in the case of the C4 (and all GM cars in the 80's and 90's IMHO) i have a feeling the beancounters "ran the show."


[Modified by tempest, 2:45 PM 8/9/2003]

 

"but i think in the case of the C4 (and all GM cars in the 80's and 90's IMHO) i have a feeling the beancounters had a huge influence."

i agree with that except it seems the years should be 73-83.
in 84 on up (especially 88 on up),most all american vehicles sold were good for 150000 miles plus.
and the vette costs of manufacture doubled in 84 m.y. compared to 82 didnt they?

 

true, i'm not suggesting the cost cutting hurt quality. in fact, in many cost cutting activities, quality actually went up as a result. parts consolodation among the different makes is an example.

i've just seen some cases where this consolidation requires sacrifices in the custom "look and feel" of a vehicle. take the C5's radio...

as for the exterior, my unconfirmed theory is that to make funkier looking cars (=usually more curves) it costs more. this is certainly the case for sheetmetal (partially why the aztec looks unbalanced), but i'm not sure for fiberglass.

i didn't know about the manufacturing costs. pretty interesting! however, i wonder how much of that is attributed to the increased content of the vehicle, especially electronics and emissions devices.

 

Grouper and potatos..... sounds like he was hungry! :rolleyes:

 

well,least its no small potatoe:lolg:
i have a chrome antenna,thats to much for me
________________________________________ _______

And I don't think mine's any "commontater", either. :lol:

 

Why can't you accept the criticism of the C4? Do you think GM is perfect? Guess What? GM is run by the cheapest bunch of beancounter in autodom and the only reason the C5 is a better car than the C4 is because they would rather get $50K per can than $40K per car and not enough people were ponying up the big bucks for the C4. Comes under heading fooling some of the people some of the time.

I give the engineers credit, given their budget they put their money in the right place, chassis and engine for the C4, not that they had much choice, the previous interation was such a slow rattletrap and people wouldn't stand for that much longer, not at the prices they wanted to charge.

So the design suffered. Its an adequet design, at best, very little room for it's size. It had the 80's angled look but its not the most interesting shape in the world and coming at you, is it a Firebird or a Corvette? Who can tell.

 

Nobody's putting GM down or saying bill has to be mistaken, but for a corvette owner who really loves his vette (C4) to say its a potato or a pile of junk, I think he/she will fight you to the end. I have a 84 which is considered to be at the bottom of the food chain, but my 84 looks GOOD, RUNS GOOD and can't nobody tell me it doesn't. But there is always room for improvement in every car. As long as there are people like us (Tuners, Mod heads) there will always be room for improvement. :seeya :auto:

 

He was right...it was the first in a long line of lack luster Corvettes.
My 72 got a hell of alot more looks then my 94 ever will :yesnod:

 

:iagree:

 

read this http://www.corvette.nl/specials/xp882.html
impressive resume,think i will respect his opinions.
wonder if i should wax with tartar sauce and pile some cream cheese on the roof? :D

 

I respect his work and what he has done but, times change, as well as taste.

 

i have a pretty fast potato? :D :cheers:

 

i agree with him on the body line is to straight and long in the side view.
everythings tamed down compared to the c3.
when i was deciding between the series the main points i liked with the c4 vs c3 (as far as body design) was the fact that from the drivers seat your vision was much cleaner to the sides of the car and you dont have that "driving from the trunk" feel in the c4.
as far as eye candy itself goes,i prefer the wild lines of the c3,especially from the top down.
although the beancounter factor has always been there,the vettes never been a profitable car.
its only been necessary to produce it to prevent evryone from driving ford products instead of gm.
and when you factor in the shear volume of c4 vettes that were sold,its pretty tough to say everyone in the world thinks it looks like a "grouper".
or-maybe ford turned the tbird into a rock cod so a grouper was a better option?

 

Road and Track once called the C4 smooth and uncluttered of line with unity of design that was likened to something from Pininfarina design.

IMO the C4 is indeed plainer on the exterior than any other Vette generation, but it is still agressive and definitely a Corvette. That simplicity of the design to me is gorgeous. I love the design because of the lack of extraneous details and the fact that they were able to maintain an agressive Corvette look without all the exterior "eye candy". For instance the simple beltline rub strip dividing the top from bottom, the rear end with the 4 lights and the well integrated reverse lights, turn signal lights and side markers, and even the minimalist gills. In my book it will always be timeless although maybe not as "interesting" as the other generations.

 

When I first started to read this I thought he was a FORD guy, or worse, a Rice man. I guess the C4 wasn't his idea, so it wasn't any good. You know the type. :bs