Chevrolet Corvette

If you’re going to buy a Chevrolet Corvette, you may as well get a convertible – if only for the sake of tradition.
The Chevrolet Corvette was introduced in 1953, and it wasn’t until 10 years later that it became available as a coupe.
Of more than 800,000 Corvettes built since 1953, 212,016 have been convertibles.
To get the ‘Vette convertible, all you need is extra money – lots of extra money.
The standard Chevrolet Corvette hardtop stickers at $27,405.
The convertible stickers at $32,480.
That means you’ll pay about $35,000 after taxes and addition of a few options.

For a Chevrolet.
Actually, it’s unfair to call the Chevrolet Corvette only a Chevy. The car can blow the doors off foreign competitors with exotic names that cost twice its price.
Chevy makes no bones about the fact it’s mainly after an upscale, affluent audience with the Chevrolet Corvette.

“We have an in-house saying at Chevy about the kind of Chevrolet Corvette buyer we want,” said Robert Bierley, Chevrolet’s manager of car product planning.
“We call that person the `money-and-brains buyer.”
Bierley said the day is gone when most with average incomes can scrape together enough money to purchase a Chevrolet Corvette.

“The prices are so high it’s tough for the average wage earner to afford even a late-model used Chevrolet Corvette,” he said. “Only 3 percent of Chevrolet Corvette buyers earn less than $25,000 annually.”
Most Chevrolet Corvette buyers are affluent males between 25 and 44. The person who buys the Chevrolet Corvette convertible is more upscale than the Chevrolet Corvette coupe buyer.

They all could affford a Cadillac. But they don’t want that type of car. And the Chevy nameplate apparently doesn’t bother them.
There have been rumors that the reorganized General Motors plans to take the Chevrolet Corvette away from Chevy and give it to a more upscale GM division.
“Those rumors are false,” Bierley said. “The Corvette is a fun car, and Chevrolet plans to offer a lot more fun cars, with the Chevrolet Corvette leading the way.
“Chevy once offered fun versions of even sedans, and we’re getting back to that sort of thing. For a while we seemed to have lost sight of the fact that one of the reasons people buy new cars is to enjoy driving them.”

It’s hard to imagine enjoying any Chevy more than the Chevrolet Corvette convertible.
For one thing, it looks better than the hardtop, which has aerodynamic but bland styling.
I found while testing the con vertible that it drew lots of stares; I drove a hard-top version not long after and didn’t notice anybody looking at it.
For some reason, giving the car a cloth top makes it look 100 percent sexier, with the top up or down.

There hasn’t been a Chevrolet Corvette convertible since 1975. A bright yellow model was chosen to pace the Indianapolis 500 race this year, and it was virtually identical to the stock Chevrolet Corvette.
There was no need to modify the pace car, just as there was none to modify the 1978 Chevrolet Corvette, which also paced the Indy 500.

The Chevrolet Corvette’s standard 5.7-liter V-8 pumps out 230 horsepower and gobs of torque. Acceleration from 0 to 60 m.p.h. takes a scant 6 seconds.
The top speed is almost three times the national speed limit.
Why so much power and performance?
“Some Chevrolet Corvette buyers want to be king of the hill,” Bierley said. “They desire maximum performance.”

But the Chevrolet Corvette stops as well as it goes, thanks to the addition this year of a computerized, anti-lock brake system.
I found that the car, with its innovative four-speed manual overdrive transmission, that the V-8 is turning over at slightly more than idle speed at 55 m.p.h.

The Chevrolet Corvette grew big, fat and slow from 1968 until the introduction of the current-generation Chevrolet Corvette in 1984.
The 1984 model, a vast improvement, thrust the Chevrolet Corvette into the world-class arena. It finally was fully capable of competing with Ferrari, although the hardtop’s ride still is overly stiff.
The convertible has a softer ride with little sacrifice in handling. It’s the ultimate Chevrolet Corvette.