Ken
Gone but not forgotten
From Canada.com:
Detractors miss point of Corvette evolution
David Booth
National Post
July 8, 2005
The '68 Camaro was cherry -- one of the most pristine I'd ever seen. And why wouldn't it be, what with a hulking University of California at Santa Barbara gridiron star whisking it gently with a camel hair brush before driving home from his gruelling football practice.
He was also responsible for the old Chevy's immaculate restoration. No tacky flames for this ancient pony car. Instead, it was all flawless monochromatic black pearl paint with just the right hint of chrome accents.
Ditto for the engine. Instead of some fire-breathing, hydrocarbon-spewing drag race motor, he'd gone the sensible route with a 350-cubic-inch small block, bored over 0.30 of an inch and fed by a relatively small Holley 650 cfm carbur-etor, all riding on some period-piece Cragar-look-alike wheels with decent rubber. One fine-looking automobile guaranteed to challenge the 10th commandment in any hot rodder's heart.
And he was gawking at my ride with envy.
It was a trait he seemed to be sharing with just about everybody else in this wealthy little Southern California enclave. I found this mildly surprising because reading the U.S. motoring press left the distinct impression that America wasn't exactly thrilled with the latest rendition of its most iconic sports car, the Chevrolet Corvette. "Too radical!" cried some detractors of the redesign. "Too boring," responded others, claiming the C6 was barely distinguishable from the outgoing C5.
Except for the headlights. And here the criticism has been often so withering, you'd swear George W. was announcing plans to invade yet another Middle Eastern country.
For those who don't know what the hullabaloo is all about, the new C6 has aerodynamically contoured, clear-lens-covered HID headlamps replacing the C5's pop-up lights (a Corvette staple for more than 40 years). Various sources say this makes the new Vette look like the Ferrari 575M Maranello or the latest Dodge Viper. And they don't mean this as a compliment.
Corvette fanatics have a little Hare Krishna in them, and cults don't exactly embrace change. So the absence of hidden headlamps is a source of serious consternation. Never mind that they help shorten the front end by about 125 millimetres, reducing the car's important-from-a-handling-point-of-view polar moment of inertia. Never mind that the slick new front fascia design helps reduce the car's coefficient of drag to a measly 0.28 (the lowest for any Corvette), meaning the C6's boost to 400 horsepower comes with a relatively small fuel economy penalty. Or that the new headlights also save a considerable amount of weight. They're new; therefore, they must be bad.
Of course, if the progress-is-bad crowd had its way, we'd still be driving '60s-era Sting Rays with tall skinny tires, mushy brakes and chassis made of linguine, not to mention consuming one-dollar-a-litre gasoline (leaded at that) at a rate of about eight miles to the gallon.
What's ironic is that the Corvette's chief designer, Tom Peters, has incorporated a little of the original Sting Ray into the C6. The C6's front fenders are just a little taller, just a little more sharp-edged than the C5's and distinctly like the most beautiful of all Corvettes, those immortal '63 to '67 Sting Rays.
And though all the wealthy denizens, young and old, of Santa Barbara's trendy State Street may not have got the connection, they got the point. The bright red convertible I was trolling in was immediately recognized as the latest generation of America's most important sports car.
More importantly, their approval was universal and by far the most arduous for any new Corvette of the last 20 years. If you don't believe me, park a new C6 beside a 1984 C4 and then tell me progress is not a good thing.
Detractors miss point of Corvette evolution
David Booth
National Post
July 8, 2005
The '68 Camaro was cherry -- one of the most pristine I'd ever seen. And why wouldn't it be, what with a hulking University of California at Santa Barbara gridiron star whisking it gently with a camel hair brush before driving home from his gruelling football practice.
He was also responsible for the old Chevy's immaculate restoration. No tacky flames for this ancient pony car. Instead, it was all flawless monochromatic black pearl paint with just the right hint of chrome accents.
Ditto for the engine. Instead of some fire-breathing, hydrocarbon-spewing drag race motor, he'd gone the sensible route with a 350-cubic-inch small block, bored over 0.30 of an inch and fed by a relatively small Holley 650 cfm carbur-etor, all riding on some period-piece Cragar-look-alike wheels with decent rubber. One fine-looking automobile guaranteed to challenge the 10th commandment in any hot rodder's heart.
And he was gawking at my ride with envy.
It was a trait he seemed to be sharing with just about everybody else in this wealthy little Southern California enclave. I found this mildly surprising because reading the U.S. motoring press left the distinct impression that America wasn't exactly thrilled with the latest rendition of its most iconic sports car, the Chevrolet Corvette. "Too radical!" cried some detractors of the redesign. "Too boring," responded others, claiming the C6 was barely distinguishable from the outgoing C5.
Except for the headlights. And here the criticism has been often so withering, you'd swear George W. was announcing plans to invade yet another Middle Eastern country.
For those who don't know what the hullabaloo is all about, the new C6 has aerodynamically contoured, clear-lens-covered HID headlamps replacing the C5's pop-up lights (a Corvette staple for more than 40 years). Various sources say this makes the new Vette look like the Ferrari 575M Maranello or the latest Dodge Viper. And they don't mean this as a compliment.
Corvette fanatics have a little Hare Krishna in them, and cults don't exactly embrace change. So the absence of hidden headlamps is a source of serious consternation. Never mind that they help shorten the front end by about 125 millimetres, reducing the car's important-from-a-handling-point-of-view polar moment of inertia. Never mind that the slick new front fascia design helps reduce the car's coefficient of drag to a measly 0.28 (the lowest for any Corvette), meaning the C6's boost to 400 horsepower comes with a relatively small fuel economy penalty. Or that the new headlights also save a considerable amount of weight. They're new; therefore, they must be bad.
Of course, if the progress-is-bad crowd had its way, we'd still be driving '60s-era Sting Rays with tall skinny tires, mushy brakes and chassis made of linguine, not to mention consuming one-dollar-a-litre gasoline (leaded at that) at a rate of about eight miles to the gallon.
What's ironic is that the Corvette's chief designer, Tom Peters, has incorporated a little of the original Sting Ray into the C6. The C6's front fenders are just a little taller, just a little more sharp-edged than the C5's and distinctly like the most beautiful of all Corvettes, those immortal '63 to '67 Sting Rays.
And though all the wealthy denizens, young and old, of Santa Barbara's trendy State Street may not have got the connection, they got the point. The bright red convertible I was trolling in was immediately recognized as the latest generation of America's most important sports car.
More importantly, their approval was universal and by far the most arduous for any new Corvette of the last 20 years. If you don't believe me, park a new C6 beside a 1984 C4 and then tell me progress is not a good thing.
