I recently saw a tweet that stated as a matter of fact that alternative music began when REM released Losing My Religion 1991. The birth of the genre. I have only the merest passing of interest in REM but even I know that whatever left-of-the-dial credibility the band had was spent the moment they signed for Warner Brothers in 1988. To grungy twenty-somethings in 1991, REM were naff – an opinion that was only temporarily altered by the crunching overdrive of the album Monster in 1994. Trying to figure out the beginning of alternative music is an exercise in futility – British and American music bores will have differing viewpoints, but one thing can be agreed with absolute certainty: Michael Stipe whinging into a microphone over a fucking mandolin is definitely not it.
Our lives are punctuated by these moments when music and culture intersect. Nothing changes at all and then everything changes at once. In a way they’re like old flames and previous jobs, things that timestamp and forge who we become. Cars have moments like this as well. Over a long enough timeline, a definitive form appears that affects everything from then on. For the Corvette, the C4 is that point. A complete rethink of what it meant to be America’s sports car, the 1984 C4 is a pivotal moment in Corvette history.
The C4 Corvette isn’t just another eighties techno-wedge. It set the template for the following three decades, defining what the Corvette could, and should be. The C4 is a groundbreaking design that is built on ideas introduced with the 3rd generation GM F-bodies, and it emerged during a tumultuous period of GM history under the supine design leadership of Irv Rybicki. Grab a cold domestic beer from the cooler, it’s time for Damn Good Design.
The First Corvette Was A Disaster
The Corvette story did not have an auspicious start. Harley Earl’s idea was to use GM’s industrial might to compete with imported, mostly British sports cars that GIs returning from Europe had fallen in love with. For cost reasons, GM management insisted it used off-the-shelf components. To speed up the time to market it had a body crafted from an experimental material known as glass-reinforced plastic. What emerged at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in fall 1953 was an expensive, underpowered and badly finished mess that was neither pure sports car nor refined roadster. It didn’t sell well and would probably have died on the spot were it not for two things: the appearance of a competing two-seater car from Ford – the 1955 Thunderbird, and the intervention of a legendary GM engineer named Zora Arkus-Duntov.
Zora Arkus-Duntov was a colorful European emigre whose wife was a dancer from the Folies Bergere. Before war set the continent on fire, he raced motorbikes and cars, and after fleeing to the US he would go on to be instrumental in turning the early Corvettes into potent performance cars. In 1953 Duntov wrote an internal memo highlighting the image and perception problem Chevrolet faced in the eyes of young hot-rodders who ate, drank and slept Ford. He knew enthusiasts were going to race the Corvette and make it competitive by slapping Cadillac engines in them, so why not develop a range of performance parts for the new Chevrolet small block V8 engine? Even back then GM management were more interested in their martinis than European sports cars, but Duntov’s introduction of ever higher output V8s, four-speed gearboxes, under-the-skin technical advances, and a racing program eventually turned the Corvette into a serious performance machine and sales finally took off.
His engineering and racing priorities eventually led to the C2 Corvette of 1963 losing one of its trademark features – the split rear window. GM VP of design Bill Mitchell had been inspired by the Bugatti Type 57 Atlantique, but Duntov the pragmatic racer hated it, considering it a designer’s flourish and impediment to rear visibility. For the 1964 model year, it was gone, and the ’63’s iconic status was instantly assured. Towards the end of the sixties, customer tastes were changing rapidly, moving away from rolling jukeboxes and towards a sleeker, more refined appearance. This meant the C2 was only on sale for four years. It might have ended up being even less than that but issues ramping up for production meant even though the C3 was just an extensive rebody of the C2, its introduction was pushed back to 1968.
In contrast to its short-lived predecessor the C3 remained in production for fourteen years. Initially a sharp design based on Mitchell’s 1965 Mako Shark II show car, by the early eighties, for enthusiasts it was an embarrassment. Now weighed down with energy-absorbing plastic bumpers at each end and barely powered by a variety of smogged-to-death motors, the Corvette had gone soft, going from lean rock and roll star to overweight lounge singer. Bizarrely these later C3s were some of the strongest sellers, shifting well over forty thousand units a year between 1976 and 1982, something the factory where it was built was not equipped for. From “The Decline and Fall of the American Automobile Industry” by Brock Yates:
“Between 1968 and 1982 the Corvette was produced in a crowded, inefficient plant in St. Louis, Missouri. In certain years the assembly line, which was designed to produce about 30,000 units a year, pumped out over 40,000 sports cars that demonstrated shamefully poor workmanship”.
Badly built, badly performing, and thanks to a chassis dating back to 1963, horrendously out of date, not for the first time in its history the Corvette was suffering from an identity crisis. Was it a soft grand tourer or an out-and-out sports car to take on Europe’s best? Like a middle-class university student, the Corvette was going to take a gap year to get its head together and find itself.
Enter Roger Smith
By the late seventies GM, and the American auto industry at large, were in deep shit. Recessions, oil shocks, imports, tightening emissions, and crash legislation had dealt body blow after body blow to the domestic industry. GM itself was an unwieldy, disparate organization with out-of-date factories and a testy workforce. Into this morass stepped new CEO Roger Smith who took over in 1981. Determined to modernize and rationalize the corporation, Smith invested heavily in state-of-the-art factories and attempted to streamline vehicle design and engineering by consolidating the previously independent vehicle divisions. Time would later judge these efforts and Smith’s tenure harshly, but GM had to do something. The new Corvette would be one of the first products to benefit from this modern approach. Yates again:
“Serious pilot projects such as the new GM Corvette are already underway which offer interesting contrasts with the past. The Corvette is considered to be an “image car,” a vehicle that will represent the Corporation’s best efforts in engineering and performance. In recent years the automobile had become a travesty”.
Design work for what was meant to be the all-new 1983 C4 Corvette began in 1978. Arkus-Duntov had been pushing for a mid-engined Corvette in the background for years, and GM mucked about with the idea, even building the rotary powered Aerovette. But the desire to increase space, comfort and visibility for passengers meant the front engine layout was to remain. Arkus-Duntov retired in 1975, and his successor David McLellan would be responsible for engineering the new car. Chevrolet studio chief Jerry Palmer would lead the design with direction from Chuck Jordan and Bill Mitchell’s replacement as VP of Design, Irv Rybicki.
How The C4 Was Influenced By The 1982 F-Body
Form follows function is an overused cliché, but Palmer and McLellan were keen that the term drove the design of the C4. This wasn’t to be a flashy car covered in tinsel like the early C1 and C2. It was going to be an aero-driven design that was all new from the ground up. Luckily for GM they had already introduced such a car with the 1982 F-body Firebird and Camaro. With their laid-back windshield at 62 degrees and wrap-over tailgate glass, the ’82 F-Bodies were smaller, lighter, roomier and much more aerodynamic than the cars they replaced. GM was about to use all it had learned on those cars and put it to use on the C4. Looking at the rendering below, the F-Body influence is clear, particularly in the B pillar, which would later change to be raked back and a lot slimmer.
The basic exterior theme was nailed down quickly – by 1978 full size clay models appeared that were recognizably the C4, although as ever the detailing is what took time. Interestingly these pictures below, dated 1979 are captioned ‘turbo coupe’, and the side view rendering, dated 1980 has a small turbo badge on the fender, but I can find no information as to whether GM was considering a turbo motor for the new Corvette or not. Although glass-reinforced plastic had been used on the C1 out of expediency in the intervening years it had become something of a Corvette trademark. Together with four round taillights and pop-up headlights these features would ensure the new car would remain immediately recognizable as a Corvette.
Initially, the C4 was intended to be a fall 1982 model – the new plant at Bowling Green was built, but the new car was such a leap forward over its predecessor it wasn’t going to be ready in time, so it was kicked to a spring ’83 release. Then the story goes, Lloyd Reuss (father of current GM President Mark Reuss) demanded the new car have a lift-out targa roof panel, as opposed to the T-tops that had been planned. This wasn’t done on a whim – both the 911 and Ferrari 308 were available as targa models, cars the new Corvette was intended to compete with. Removing the central T-bar required putting strength back into the C4 frame, which is why you’re when you open the doors you have to climb over a small wall to get in. Although a number of prototypes and pilot cars were built during 1983, the production car was punted again to 1984 – and the C3, now being built in the new plant, staggered on for another year.
Underneath the wind tunnel-honed exterior, the C4 used a steel frame, welded together by robots in the brand new plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky. This enabled significantly better interior packaging. The above image shows tape drawings generated from computer-generated data points overlaying the C3 and C4 packages for comparison purposes. In the final event, the new C4 was 8.8” shorter, 2” wider, 1” lower and a staggering 220lbs lighter. With a windshield angle of 64 degrees and the cut off Kamm tail, the drag coefficient was 0.34 (compared to 0.44 for the C3). Remember this was two years before the 1986 Taurus, the car that popularized the idea of aero-led design for the mainstream market.
The C4 was hi-tech on the inside as well. The instruments were an Atari fever dream that might have looked more at home on the Space Shuttle but contained useful functions, like being able to swap instantly from imperial to metric units. This was GMs ‘why use one button when three will do’ period of interior design, and the plastics used would shame a Monogram plastic kit. Money had to be saved somewhere, and neither Porsche nor Ferrari were paragons of ergonomic science at the time.
Breaking Down The Design
When it appeared in 1984 the C4 Corvette was nothing less than a state-of-the-art spaceship. Our friends at MotorWeek devoted a whole episode to it and came away raving. But the real brilliance of the C4 is its exterior design, which would influence the next three generations of the car. First, that form follows function line was not just some marketing nonsense. McLellan and Palmer really meant it. Look at just how clean and simple the side view is – I’ve said it before but keeping things simple but not simplistic is incredibly hard to do. There’s an incredible amount of restraint on show here in the lines and the detailing – not something American cars of the time were particularly known for.
The black trim line running around the entire car is necessary because of the limits on how big the GRP panels could be molded – it’s why the Lotus Esprit and Ferrari 308s have the same detail (although the 308 later switched to steel bodies it kept the line). But what’s clever about the C4 is how the one-piece clamshell hood uses it to hide its shut line. It helps the car look solid, and opening the hood becomes an act of theatre: the engine, front suspension and tires revealed in their entirety to impress onlookers.
The salad shooter wheels are instantly iconic but there is a functionality to how they look. The vanes, directional for each side of the car, draw in air to cool the brakes. Their flat surface helps the aero and the black center hides the wheel lugs. Making wheels different for each side of the car is expensive because you’re tooling up twice. In the C4’s case, they were tooling up FOUR separate wheels, because the rears were wider than the front. This is normally the sort of thing GM would cheap out on, so it shows how serious they were at making a genuine performance car.
Suddenly here was a Corvette that not only looked modern, it was modern, representing a genuine effort on the part of GM to drag themselves into the modern era. I always think the best designs could be subtly updated and be on sale today. And with the C4 in a way that’s almost what happened. In 1991 the auxiliary lighting at the front was subtly updated to wrap around the sides and the black body side trim became body colored. The rear fascia became a convex shape and the rear lights gently squared off. The interior ditched the Space Invader instruments, and the hard-edged interior was fluffed up and rounded off. The C4 effortlessly shed its eighties neon jacket and was bought bang up to the nineties overnight, and it remained fresh until it was replaced in 1996. It remains the second best selling generation Corvette of all time (after the C3) at 360k units sold over 14 years on sale.
The Legacy Of The C4
Of course, you can’t buy a new C4 today, but its design was so good it influenced the generations that followed. The C5 and C6 were careful evolutions of the same theme – a sharp nose, wrap over glass hatch, strong raked B pillar, wedge side profile, and four round taillights set into a body color panel. The C7 changed up the formula somewhat, adding aggressive creases and raked C pillar with a conventional hatch, but you can still trace a direct line from it back to the C4. The C4 gave the Corvette a signature look for the next 36 years, right up to the introduction of the C8. But more than just a visual identity, the C4 was a quantum leap forward over its predecessor, representing the moment in time the Corvette really re-embraced its role as an out-and-out sports car. It would solidify its performance credentials with the introduction of the fearsome 32v ZR-1 in 1990, a car specifically designed to be the fastest production car in the world.
Zora Arkus-Duntov died in 1996 so wouldn’t live to see the Corvette adopt the engine position he advocated for all those years ago, but I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say it might never have happened if it wasn’t for the C4, the Corvette that genuinely changed everything all at once.
Once again, I have to extend my heartfelt thanks to the staff at GM Heritage Archive, whose researchers dug into the archives for these exclusive studio images. They provided so many great pictures there will be a follow-up to this article in a few days, showing more of the design process for the C4, so stay tuned.
All other images GM Pressroom.
A friend of mine has a 1990 Z51.
I’d never driven a C4 previously, and I was SHOCKED at how nice it is to drive. Around town, hammering on the 90 mph toll road, twisty roads headed out into the Hill Country.
I’d always heard the C5 was the first ‘Vette to handle like a sports car, and while the C4 wasn’t Miata nimble, it was all sorts of confidence-inspiring. I even got the rear end to break free bid corner (not the result of skill) but a natural pump of the throttle straightened it right back out.
I was so impressed I started looking for one up for trade… some masochist out there certainly would swap a Corvette for an Alfa GTV6. Right?
I always appreciated the cleanliness of the design and the way it evolved the language from the C3, but felt it too narrow. The ZR1 and later cars were a lot better looking and I preferred the wraparound marker lights. My favorite is the Callaway Twin Turbo with the full body, though. I didn’t see one in person until about 5 years ago and I was stunned at how much more exotic it looked, more 288 GTO than Corvette and not because of the vents, because it was wider, at least seemed lower, and the body appeared to be thinner, like a race car, though I’m not sure what it was about it that gave me that impression. If they drove better, I’d have bought one when they were dirt cheap. The C5 was such a disappointment styling-wise after these, but at least it was a massive improvement underneath.
I remember one of the car magazines called the C3 “the dumb blonde of automobiles.”
We just saw Jane’s Addiction last night and if any band deserves credit for paving the way for Alternative it’s them.
Also, IMO the C4 was the last good looking Vette before the C8. I liked C1-C4 with my favorite being C3vbut just never cared for C5-C7.
The C8 is ghastly.
I can’t believe how ungainly it looks. Every proportion is off, I don’t think it even has one good viewing angle. Keeping a front and back end similar to the C7 doesn’t work, either..
The C8 has way too many creases, folds and edges. My preference is for rounded, organic shapes, which explains my visceral dislike for the 10th gen Civic Si.
The C4 was a true exercise in restraint and minimalism.
Agreed. Of all the more modern Corvettes, I like the C6 after the C4.
Yes. Too many straight-edges. I can’t stand looking at it.
I had an ’87 C4 for 20 years. My wife had bought it new (before we were married) and after a few years she decided she wanted more of a luxury car, so I “sacrificed” and traded in my ’88 Mustang and bought her a Riviera, and I took over the Corvette. It was just so much fun to drive, and always seemed glued to the road. After about 100k miles as my daily driver (no matter the weather!) It finally started breaking down with major issues (transmission twice, and diff) so I sold it off.
Automatics from the time were crap. One of my cars is a four-speed with over 300K miles on it.
I’m not saying the C8 is great looking but it’s better looking than the C5-C7, well, probably more accurate to say less-forgettable-looking than the C5-C7. I still stand by my statement than the C4 is the last good looking ‘Vette.
C5 is a little soft. I think the C6 is excellent.
I think my complaint is the C5-C7 seem iterative whereas all the other generations are distinctive from the one before. I know there are differences between the C5 and C6 but I have to stop and think about it to tell them apart. The others are easily discernable, of course those are from my childhood so maybe that’s why I’m more familiar with them.
I definitely wouldn’t argue it’s less forgettable, it looks like a car from a bank ad, albeit with an ass that a hippo sat on.
I am just glad that GM got over their irrational fear of a rear-mid engine configuration.
Function over form?
Let’s remember this is now a 40 year old car, and still looks modern to this day.
Many thanks Adrian, this is probably my favorite series on the Autopian.
Thank you, I enjoy researching them and writing them, and I try not to go over old ground and come up with a new insight.
Yes, and yes. I loved the C4 when it came out, how it looked simple, modern and yet still Corvette, and how the experience continued when looking inside and under the hood. The advertising billboards said “Blows away the myth of the exotics” and in that era there was some truth to that…in any event it showed what kind of step forward GM was finally willing to take after how blah the previous generation had become.
While I personally don’t know anyone who now likes them much, I consider the ’84 to be a historically significant car. A year-or-so ago I decided to keep a promise made to my 22-year-old self and have since picked up three of them (all dirt cheap and each with its particular condition issues) with the intent of building one good one (to sit next to my ’72 BB/4-speed).
It’s perfection. The tumblehome on the sides along with the slight pinch up over every fender well accentuates the width of the wheels (and despite how small a C4 is they can be very wide indeed on all four corners, even on a standard C4). The giant clamshell hood is a thing of beauty when raised, giving you full view of the aluminum double wishbones in front and the completely open engine bay; an absurd measure for a car that was always designed to sell tens of thousands every year. The functionality for the popups is perhaps the most imaginative ever implemented on a car with flip ups; perhaps the only such car where there was equal thought put into how they would look when they were “on” as they were when they were off. Compared to the hopelessly overstyled later C3 writing checks it couldn’t cash if you strapped a JATO to it or the roly-poly blob C5 that (due to GM’s financial issues) debuted about 3 years too late to have fresh styling, both iterations of the C4 are subtle but aggressive everywhere, with not a crease on the body that looks like it wasn’t there for some reason under the skin. It’s like Shannon Sharpe in a suit. In that regard to post-refresh base C4 is superior to the ZR-1’s wider rear body.
And the pre-refresh styling as a convertible, in export spec, looks damn near like a more modern version of a Daytona; at a time when most convertibles of the era looked every bit like some sort of ASC monstrosity with monstrous boots and roofs that didn’t fit the body at all that they were.
That extended, eventually, to the interior design. The 1990 interior redesign is one of the most striking, dramatic driver-centric designs put into a regular production car. With the glowing amber gauges at night and the deeply bolstered Enterprise D sport seats and the extensively color keyed two tone interior, you feel like you’re in an F14 every time you drive it (they ruined this aspect in particular with the 1994 airbag refresh, though you can fix most of it easily enough except the Buick-looking steering wheel). Everything falls perfectly to hand; and it took GM 20 years to put another interior in a Corvette that could match it. You sit in the car and it envelops you and is basically the front engine equivalent to an Esprit or DeLorean that you can get for 10 grand instead of 50.
It’s just too bad that GM’s management repeatedly meddled so much in its development at such inopportune times. If only it had been as lucky as the C5 had been in that regard.
I’ll stipulate up front that Corvettes are not among my favorite cars. I could tolerate the late C1 and C2s, but every redesign from 1968 forward has left me completely cold. Never understood the love for these. They’re a yawn on wheels.
I get that with the C4, Corvettes began to truly live up to a previously unearned reputation as a world class sports car and that’s commendable, but I could never embrace the looks. To me they are dull, soulless expressions of modernity and nothing else.
What I found the most interesting in your discourse is that the C4 design hung around for 14 years, yet is only the second best selling version of the Corvette, the best being the C2, which was sold for barely a third of the years of the your vaunted C4. That tells me that despite its questionable performance credentials, the C2 design appealed to more buyers than any Corvette since.
I’d personally prefer a Corvair over any Corvette, but if asked to choose between a C2 and a C4, I’d take the C2 every time, flaws and all.
That should say after the C3.
That does make much more sense in terms of sales . I’d still take a C2, though, if forced to choose.
Surely the C3 was the best selling if it was selling 40k units/year at peak and was sold for 14 years?
Yes typo. I’ve asked for an edit.
This is my favorite generation of Corvette. There is just something about it that even now 40 years later it looks modern in some ways and not in others. Just don’t look at the interior if you have one older than 89. I may love older Vette’s better (427 midyear…anyone?) The final refresh of the C4 this was the best. While the seats weren’t as bolstered as 89-93, the 94-96 were so much more modern and comfortable.
That all said, my dream purchase of a “reasonably” priced car is a 1994 ZR1 in Polo Green with the beige interior. That green is hypnotic. One day I will decide 40’ish-k is worth spending on something just for fun, but for now, I will just keep dreaming.
A dream that my mom loves to say started when I saw my first C3 at 3 years old way back in 1979. A love that never went away. The C7 took a bit to grow on me and less so, but also the C8. Money no object? You’ll find me in Scotsdale looking for an auction on collector’s edition of every model. Stock. But hey, I don’t have, nor likely ever will have that kinda funds, so I’ll just enjoy NOT being the starting to get old (now) guy in the New Balance, khaki shorts, and golf shirt and hat. Not that I’d wear any of that but a polo in general…for work.
For reference, the ZR1 in question thanks to BaT:
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1994-chevrolet-corvette-zr-1-5/
The ZR1bits have to be unobantium by now no? That engine tho is a real bute.
Agreed this will always be my vette (GenX here)!
Saw a ZR1 for sale before I bought the Ferrari. Red with a red leather whore’s boudoir interior. £32,995. The only thing that put me off was it would be difficult to sell on in future.
Ah yes, the era of GM’s “red leather whore interiors”. Well, GM, Ford, and Chrysler, actually. I don’t miss those days.
I do, it would be way more fun to have whorish red in my car than it would be to have the none-more-black look that I have now.
You might think this, up until those different red fabrics and materials fade at different rates and to different values, so ten years later it looks like somebody colored your car with all the different shades in the Crayola box.
Still better than all black.
(Also, weird note, you have the same handle as a guy I knew years ago, who has since died, so when I saw it on my notifications I had a jolt like I saw a ghost.)
Hey, I have one of those. The red interior is… awesome and terrible at the same time. Only awesome in a Radwood kind of way. Mostly terrible. I mean even the carpet is red ffs.
My color combos of choice for a C4 are either green over tan or cocaine white over whorehouse red. GM foolishly abandoned the white/red scheme for a few decades, but you can get it in the C8. I think they offered it in the C7 as well but I’m not certain about that.
ZR1s have bulletproof motors, in fact, they can be modified to safely produce much more power. There are also work arounds for other items. This specialty shop in Illinois modified Corvette Chief Engineer Dave McLellan’s personal ZR1. The aftermarket is doing what GM could not do at the time. ZR1 prices are trending up now that people recognize how good they are.
http://zr1specialist.com/
The building of those engines was contracted out to Mercury Marine, after Lotus did the design and development. Probably why.
I have a Lingenfelter modified ZR1 (still NA). Bench dyno’d at 530HP. Rock solid.
Fantastic. Gotta look great with the clamshell hood opened up!
Nice. Bet that’s quite nippy.
It’s plenty and keeps it feeling relevant.
I also appreciate that with all the engine work being internal (no added turbos or anything) the only difference looking under the good is that the intake plenum says Lingenfelter on it.
I have always been a fan of the refreshed (’91-96) C4, especially the LT4 equipped cars, and especially especially the ’96 Grand Sport in that sweet, sweet blue with the stripes and the black ZR1 wheels. I don’t have a really strong desire to own a Corvette, but if I were to do so, the C4 Grand Sport and C6 ZR-1 are at the top of my list…and also beyond my means. Still, it’s nice to aspire to something!
I hadn’t realized the C3 was so much longer than the C4. That said, I prefer the coke-bottle shape of the C3’s body, despite the crude underpinnings.
Early C3s are magnificent things.
Yes, when doing one of those exercises in picking the best generation of Corvette I feel like you almost have to divide the C3 up between C3A for the early cars and C3B for the late ones. Between the styling changes and the smog choked engines the C3B has to rank down among the worst generation, while an argument can be made for the C3A being among the best.
Great piece! Make mine a ’92-’96, convertible, manual trans, green or dark blue with the tan interior.
If you’re into that sort of thing, you can pick up beater ’84s (with CrossFire!) for a song and a dance.
I’ll take the same convertible, manual, but in electric blue. Or maybe that 40th anniversary eggplant color…
As someone born in the mid-80s, the C4 was one of those foundational cars.
But I’m going to add that it has one detail that is sorely lacking in a lot of vehicles – it makes the front license plate a design element. Lots of designers forget that a front plate is required in lots of places, so you have this weird goiter that always looks half-assed. The absolute worst for this is the 1993 Ford Probe but in general you see it a lot. The C4 (and C5) have a big rectangle as an element of the design AND if you need a plate it has a really nice spot where it looks like it belongs.
That’s great if you only ever have to fit a US plate to the front.
Most cars have to fit a US plate, or Euro plate, or Japanese plate, all of which are different sizes. So that’s why most cars have an afterthought of a bracket instead.
Japan and North America have spaces that are roughly the same size, so it doesn’t require a massive change in design. Euro plates are significantly wider, but you can still do a design that fits both and doesn’t require a goiter. Since it’s mandatory in Europe and not always mandatory in North America, you can do a wider plate area that still looks decent with a narrower US plate – maybe put some trim pieces there that will be covered in the European market but look good in North America.
Make the plate part of the design, you’re going to need it anyway.
We used to this – we had mock ups of the plates of major markets to fit front and rear to the models so we could see how they looked.
My Cadillac SLS also had a well thought out cover/cove in the bumper for the front plate. Always appreciated that attention to detail.
These are the Corvettes I really respect because they take the idea of the non-facelift C1 and finally give it the engineering it always deserved. The later facelifts of the C1 became styling exercises — how European can we make an American car look? The C2 was meant to evoke a futuristic hovercar, with the weight of the body being split along the character line instead of the shoulder. The C3 was designed as a take on SCCA racers of the era, with a pointed prow curving up into the inflated fenders and wafting along towards the long ass. Each of them were the fashion designed interpretations of the mechanical ideals of their eras.
The C4 was just the body wrapped around the engineering, and it looked the part. The engine and accessories are wrapped around the front suspension. The rear glass is designed to be an unbroken surface for airflow. There is no front bumper, only a license plate cover for aerodynamics. The exhaust wraps between the transverse leaf spring rear suspension so everything can go as low as possible. Even the headlights spin so they don’t have to have bulky tracks and recesses, unlike contemporaries such as the Nissan 300ZX or Lamborghini Countach.
The C5 and C6 never lived up to the C4, because it was always apparent that they were simply incremental improvements on the perception and design breakthrough that was the C4.
Chuck Jordan hated the C5, and I agree it is a bit soft.
C5 overhangs are too long. It is the C3 of the later Vettes. C6 is much tauter visually and dynamically.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. 😛
I like C3s but it lacks of bit of sports car cred. I feel the same about the C5, which is otherwise a really good car.
It’s interesting how the different generations of Corvette actually increase the size of the fanbase. I love the C3 and C5 and think the C4 was half-baked and extremely of its time, but there are plenty of people who think the C4 is the best looking. They’re wrong, but at the end of the day we all like Corvettes and that’s what matters. 😉
You’d never see that with 911s, for example, because every generation looks basically the same. If you don’t like the 911 look (which I don’t) then you don’t like any 911s. If you don’t like the C3 look, there are 7 other generations which look meaningfully different that you might.
My problem with the C5 has always been that it reminds me way too much of a duckbill shoehorn. The drops along the windows are too steep and the shoulder too rounded. Combined with the high rear quarters and the stubby rear and it makes the front look way too thin and light. Ditching the FRC roof for the hatch doesn’t make things any better, because then instead of open air above the broad panel of the rear fender you have the top heavy looking dark glass that combines with the forward raked B-pillar to pull more of the car’s visual mass backwards.
The C5.R always makes me laugh because it doesn’t even have the same visual dimensions somehow.
C4 had design for ages but it was the C5 engineering that carried the day…
According to the great 1998 book by James Schefter “All Corvettes are Red”. The C4 was on the chopping block in mid-90’s due to engineering and cost problems and only through the heroic engineering of the rogue GM heroes of time the C5 survived to carry on the Corvette legacy.
This is correct. The C5 was the biggest leap of all, and that’s why it’s still my favorite Vette.
It’s telling that the basic architecture of the C5 carried through until they went mid-engine, whereas the C4 was basically thrown out because the chassis flex made the convertible drive like a wet noodle and the targa leak like the strainer you used to drain the water off your convertible noodles.
I can tell you’re not bitter about it.
I’m mostly here to defend R.E.M. Not sure what the hell someone was doing tweeting about Alternative Rock beginning with Losing My Religion, other than maybe the concept of the alternative becoming the mainstream. Obviously R.E.M. had been at it for about a decade before that.
All of R.E.M.’s early stuff is solid, but I listen to Reckoning and Life’s Rich Pageant the most. For later career stuff, New Adventures in Hi-Fi is underrated.
If one succeeds in making alternative the mainstream, is it alternative anymore?
That’s sort of the confusing inconsistency of labeling something based on it’s lack of commercial appeal.
“College Rock” wasn’t cool enough and sounded like you had to be smart to get it.
I think alternative was firmly established long before REM even fell asleep (get it?). At least a decade before.
In 1983 REM released Murmur at the same time I arrived in Atlanta. Some college buddies and I made a “Pilgrimage” to Athens to find the kudzu-covered railroad trestle on the front of the album (now gone).
While the Out of Time album was unconventional musically, it was the arrival of REM into the mainstream and got lot of MTV play. You could certainly make an argument that Murmur, including Radio Free Europe, was the start of the alternative movement but not Losing My Religion.
As not much of an REM fan, I really liked New Adventures in Hi-Fi when it came out, but when I don’t really care for a band, car model, whatever (without going so far as to despise them), I tend to most like the album, trim, or generation the fans don’t.
I love the C4. It was the Corvette in the arcade games of my youth, and something about the minimalist approach to the styling really speaks to me. It’s purposeful. It looks like a car built to slice through the air. I also like that GM offered so many variants that you could get your Corvette for whatever purpose you wanted. A base model drop top with an automatic makes a great cruiser. The ZR-1 you mentioned would blow the doors off exotic sports cars that cost twice as much.
Best of all for a modest-income tightwad like me, the C4 is the most affordable generation of Corvette. The C3 is more pleasing to the eye (not for me, but whatever). The C5 unleashed the LS upon the world. That puts the C4 today in an awkward middle space which has glossed over what a triumph it was. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to own one, but I hope I do someday.
I do find myself browsing for C4s on a somewhat regular basis. If only I had the space for one.
However, despite knowing how carelessly they were built, how awfully uncomfortable they are, and how poorly they drive I still love the 70’s vettes and also frequently browse for them.
The C4 is a wonderful fun, piece of junk. I have had 2x of them, both kept with cars costing 10x what they cost (3k and 8k), just big go-karts. I really enjoyed the sleek shape, easy to wash.
But it was 80s GM engineering. Everything was falling apart, everything was a nightmare to work on. Every repair was a risk of breaking 5 other things.
Out of the 48 cars I have had, there are only a few I kinda wish I had today, and this is one of them.
I go browsing for one every once in a while. The one thing nobody tells you about them is the rubber seals for the roof and all the glass are absolute garbage after thirty five years, and if you find a C4 for under five grand it’s guaranteed the price is because the thing turns into a fishbowl when it rains.
My understanding is that many C4s leaked even when new. The underlying structure wasn’t strong enough to handle the targa roof so the flex in the body makes it next to impossible to seal them up properly. For the C5 they redesigned the frame around a central tunnel because they knew from the start that they couldn’t rely on the roof for additional stiffness.
My 1st one was never bad (94 with 180k), my 2nd one stayed sealed so I didnt mess with it.
Thats interesting, mine doesn’t leak at all. With either top on. There is definitely flex though, you can hear it.
Yeah, i kept my 1st one in the garage… and the 2nd one sealed nicely so i never took the top off!
I knew a few people who bought new C4’s (all pre-facelift).
Everyone of the cars was a POS rattletrap. Typical GM quality of the time.
Got to drive a few and the power/handling was a joy, but everything else was just so poorly assembled and poorly engineered. Confirmed my negative feelings about GM products of the 80’s.
As an owner of a C6, I can say that the GM quality is still what you would expect (mediocre at best), but the car is a blast to drive so I can put up with the stupidity of the GM accountants.
Did not know that the massive body work you have to crawl over to enter the car was required for the targa. Thanks for that bit of knowledge.
“Every one of the cars was a POS rattletrap”
It didn’t help the the suspension was tuned primarily for 1+G skidpad testing results to get accolades by the contemporary enthusiast magazine writers – and not for the comfort of their actual customers.
The resulting ride, which was horrendous, caused as many rattles and groans as the mid-80’s GM build (lack of) quality.
They updated the suspension after the 1st year, and all the complaints. Still rattle traps, but it was only the 84 that was super hard riding.
Excellent writeup! What’s kinda crazy is Losing My Religion started playing out in the shop as I was reading this ????
I’m coming back for the rest of the article, but thank god I’m not the only person that realized Michael Stipe whining into a studio mic is plainly annoying and not musical.
Me too. I’ve never thought of REM as really alternative, but rather alternative-adjacent.
R.E.M. was about as alternative as it got in 1983 when Murmur came out. A lot of people forget that they had released six albums before Out of Time came out. It took a long-ass time for them to break into the mainstream.
I think REM is a great band that’s misunderstood. If you’re someone who connects more to vocals and lyrics rather than the instrumentation then they’re pretty much a net 0. Stipe isn’t a great singer and calling his lyrics nonsensical would be generous. I totally get why people find them annoying.
Big if you’re like me and you connect more with the instrumental and don’t pay much attention to lyrics or vocals unless they’re outliers, they’re fantastic. Their compositions are pretty brilliant in their minimalism and layering. Nothing musically stands out as being particularly technical or interesting, but the final product is greater than the sum of its parts.
They manage to layer in a lot of traditional instruments in subtle ways, which is hard to do…and those driving, powerful Mike Mills bass lines are criminally slept on. I’m also a fan of Peter Buck as a fellow guitarist. He’s one of those folks who’s not really a technician in any way but still found a way to create their own voice and sound. I’d rather listen to him than probably 95% of shredders.
Anyway, REM is great, but maybe not for the reasons they get credit for, if that makes sense. They’re somehow simultaneously overrated and underrated. The instrumentation is S tier but the lyrics and vocals are wholly forgettable. Hell Buck is a better singer than Stipe. If you don’t like Stipe maybe give Texarcana a listen. He’s absent other than backing vocals, Buck sings lead and the instruments really do the talking. It’s a real hidden gem.
Texarkana is a great song.
I personally like Stipe, he’s not a great vocalist, but he brings a certain gravitas and personality to some of the catalog that would lack impact without him. Buck is an awesome guitarist for the reasons you mention.
R.E.M. takes some flak for a handful of singles that got played to absolute death in the early 90’s. They have an extensive catalog that informed a lot of 90’s bands and they seem to get little credit for it.
Well said! I hate ’em because I can’t get past Stipe but everything you said is right and I’ll check out Texarcana on your recommendation.
“Reckoning” (also released in 1984) was peak R.E.M.; the rest was downhill from there.
This is correct.
I do hope that GM bestows the Zora name on one of the upcoming Corvette models as rumored.
So if a Brit says to grab a domestic beer does that mean Coors Light, or are we reaching for the Bass?
American domestic beer. British domestic beer is warm and brown and has leaves in.
For the Vette, I feel it’s full-on regular, black and red can Budweiser. Both from a historical pov and b/c AB is always teasing us with the possibility of new world-beating versions.
Sometimes a simple pale lager is exactly the right drink. What ya see is what ya get. The Corvette has always been like that to me. It may not be as refined as the European stuff. It’s going to go over fine just about anywhere, though.
I will take ice-cold later over small batch Hardigree IPA bullshit any day of the week.
I’ll happily drink both. Last brew I had was a light lager. I’ve also enjoyed some chew the pinecone hazy IPA’s this summer. Then there are the neat fruit beers the local places love putting out.
Some of my English relatives used to own a pub that had all kinds of interesting local drinks on tap. My favorite was a cider called Black Rat. The name tells you everything. It was stone dry and packed a serious punch. My uncle jokingly advertised that if you drank 10 pints the 11th was on the house. I don’t know if anyone ever tried to take him up on that. For the sake of their liver, I hope not.
Looks like Black Rat is 6%ABV; I wouldn’t recommend it, but one could conceivably put that away between the five o’clock whistle and 11PM closing. Not worth all those trips to the head for a free beer, though!
Interesting, I remember it being more potent than that. It has been 20 years though since I had it.
I will freely admit that “packs a punch” meant something completely different to me twenty years ago, but also that somebody else could be making it completely differently nowadays.
What I do know is that we just traveled to London and it was extremely rare to find anything stronger than 5%, as most offerings were deliberately detuned “session” beer, better tuned for a long (albeit expensive) night.
So I’m sure you’re right–6% would be comparatively strong, and you might have been less accustomed to it, and eleven beers at a pub is still too many!
I couldn’t do more than a few pints of “The Rat” at a time, but of course those were imperial pints and not the detuned American pints I was used to.
Don’t break the seal. What is this amateur hour?
[Karl Hyde voice] American adjunct LAGER LAGER LAGER LAGER
We’ve not had Bass Ale in the U.S. since 2020.
On a trip to Ireland with my wife 16 years ago, we drove through the countryside getting lost in order to find out-of-the-way pubs in which to drink local beer and talk with real people; we were staggered to find they all proudly served shit US domestic beer on draft (Bud, Miller, Coors) and couldn’t understand why we Americans weren’t happy about this.
Well, it was in Ireland, so it was US -imported- beer. It makes all the difference.
I’ve always had a thing for the taillights on the first C4; they seemed both appropriately reverential to its predecessors, but also very much of the time. Nothing else in the ’80s really had anything like them…they really added to the uniqueness of the Vette back then.
Less so for GM’s attempt to get ahead of possible safety regs by adding a big foam brick to the dash on the passenger side. At least it said “CORVETTE”.
In the Motorweek review John Davis says that is meant to be for an airbag in future. A glove compartment would have been more useful.
I have always wondered about this strange “feature”. Thanks Adrian!