5 Little Known Facts About The Corvette
Think you know everything about the Corvette? Here are some little known facts about America's sports car.
1. The 90's ZR1 by Lotus and Mercury Marine
When Chevrolet set out to build a version of the C4 Corvette that would be the world's fastest production car, they turned to Group Lotus, who GM acquired in 1986, to create the engine. It was then that Lotus, with input from GM engineers, designed the aluminum block LT5 for the forthcoming ZR1. In addition to the engine, Lotus helped design the brakes and steering, and even helped pick the settings for its active ride control. Even more interesting is that neither GM nor Lotus actually assembled the engines, as none of their production facilities could handle the workload, or the tight tolerances. So GM farmed the job out to Mercury Marine instead.
2. Designed to Photograph Well
The 1978 Corvette Indy 500 Pace Car is instantly recognizable by anyone, but its paint scheme wasn't solely designed to appeal to the eye in the flesh. Because most magazine ads were still black and white back in the late 70's, Chevrolet designed a paint scheme for the car specifically to look good in black and white photographs. It just so happens that they also look great in real life.
3. Last Minute Changes to the Corvette Logo
Originally, the Corvette crossed flag logo was set to feature an American flag and a checkered flag, which makes perfect sense for America's only true sports car. Before it was finalized, Chevy found out that you can't trademark the American flag, for obvious reasons, and or use it to promote commercial products (it was illegal at the time). So, just four days before the Corvette's unveiling, they changed the design. The replacement flag features the Chevrolet logo and a French fleur-de-lis reported to be Louis Chevrolet's family crest.
4. From Opel to Corvette
Today, nobody thinks of anything other than Chevrolet's sports car when they hear the name Corvette, but the name actually came from small, fast navy warships.Chevrolet’s chief photographer Myron Scott is reported to have come up with the idea of applying it to the new show car. While the Corvette was in development, its internal code name was Opel, but that would have been too easily confused with the German GM automotive division.
5. Assembly Proved Difficult
Because the Corvette was the first mass produced fiberglass car ever made, it presented a lot of manufacturing challenges. A makeshift production line meant that the first batch of cars were basically hand built, as more efficient processes were still being worked out. Since that early assembly line was started before engineering was finalized, there was no provision for electrical grounding to a fiberglass body, so cars could not be started, and workers had to literally roll the cars off at the end of the line.
For help keeping your Vette running right, see the how to sections of CorvetteForum.com