The 5 Most Car-conic Corvette Photos of all Time

1. Joan Didion

This one makes the rounds every time a new book comes out or a cast member of Girls references Joan Didion. Originally commissioned by Time  magazine in 1968, this photo was part of a series shot in Hollywood. Didion was renting a house on Woodward Avenue at the time—by Time staff photographer Julian Wasser. It's Joan's '69 Stingray. About the shoot, Didion says, "I can’t remember anything specific that stands out about the day. I don’t know how we decided to include the Corvette. It must have been some whim of Julian’s." Wasser, whose memory is a little clearer, said it wasn't his idea: “You don’t tell a woman like that what to do.” However, Didion's memory about the decision to purchase her Vette was crystal: "I very definitely remember buying the Stingray because it was a crazy thing to do. I bought it in Hollywood." Beautiful things leave strong impressions, even on celebrated writers: "The Stingray was Daytona yellow. Which was a yellow so bright, you could never mistake it for anything other than Daytona Yellow."

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2. Apollo 12 Astronauts

Alan Shepard, who drove a 1957 Corvette, may have started the trend. GM continued it by rewarding him for being the first American into space with a '62 Vette. In 1967, former Indy 500 winner Jim Rathmann, who owned a dealership close to the Space Center, kept it going by offering especially friendly lease terms to our men in space. Six Mercury astronauts reportedly took him up on the deal and took Corvettes home. Apollo 12 astronauts Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr., Richard F. Gordon Jr., and Alan L. Bean (above) all ordered identical 390 horsepower, 427 cubic inch 1969 coupes (with Bean's custom black/gold paint design). Fun fact: the photo credit for the image on the lower left reads 'Dollie Cole,' who was none other than the wife of GM president Ed Cole.

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3. Brian Wilson

The Beach Boys had previously posed for a publicity still, grouped around a blue '63 coupe in matching blue jackets, and an alternate photo from the same photo session served as the cover of their fifth studio album, Shut Down Volume 2. We prefer these photos of Beach Boy Brian Wilson with his 1966 drop-top ... and a stickball bat. His contribution to bringing car culture into the mainstream lasts to this day... so we'll forgive Brian for writing songs about other cars.

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4. Farrah's George Barris Vette

Farrah Fawcett drove stick. We know this because of the famous Farrah's Foxy Vette, immortalized in magazines and in plastic model form by AMT, was a 4-speed car. In 2016, a lucky buyer received an original example of that scale model along with the full-size original by placing the winning bid of $53,900.00 at that year's Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale event. The car's previous time was spent in a storage facility near Farrah's home, where it sat in its original form—just the way Barris built it back in the days of disco—complete with Camaro tail lights. They dusted it off, got it running and the lucky bidder now gets to transport it themselves back to 1977 any time they want.

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5. Jimi Hendrix

Fast cars and rock stars aren't always the best fit. Even in 1968, when it was legal to drive under the influence of heroin (Just kidding). Jimi Hendrix owned two Vettes, both '69s. He ordered his first one when he and drummer Mitch Mitchell went car shopping while on tour in Cleveland, Ohio. Jimi, who didn't have a driver's license, promptly got busted for driving his LeMans Blue Metallic Stingray the wrong way down a one-way street. Flash forward to later that year when the band was renting a house in Benedict Canyon, above Los Angeles, when Jimi crashed the car, which had been brought to L.A. for him, into the side of a mountain. Mitchell explains: “One Saturday night we went to see Cream and had a party that didn't break up until 5 am and at about seven I'd just gone off to sleep. I'd heard Jimi's voice, 'guess what, I just crashed my car.'" Apparently, Hendrix liked his first Vette enough that he bought another, a '69 Cortez Silver coupe (350 cubic inch, automatic trans.), that he drove in and around New York until his death on Sept 17th, 1970.

It turns out what makes cars live in our memory are their connections to people. We're not surprised.

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