That is a couple of seconds of a drive in the highly modified Corvette I used in the early 80's. It was an incredibly exciting car to drive, especially if you used the kick down just to catch the last 1500 revs before changing up. I have always been a Corvette fan, and have collected many pictures of them racing in American sports car races in the 60's during in my younger days. Below is a brief history of how one of America’s most famous cars came into being. 

Some American sports car enthusiasts may still remember the excitement of the GM Motorama in January 1953, when Corvette was new (I will bet that very few - if any - are on this Forum). What made the moment magic was that the world's then largest automaker was now going to make a sports car - one to drive just for the sheer pleasure and excitement of doing so. It looked like a bullet and was made of fibreglass, science-fiction stuff straight out of Buck Rogers.

Conceived by Harley Earl, the American styling genius, designed by Robert McLean and engineered by Ed Cole, Corvette #1 Serial Number E53F001001 rolled off the assembly line on Tuesday, June 30, 1953, and Corvette production began which continues to this day.

Myron Scott (at the time Chevrolet's chief photographer) is credited with coming up with the Corvette name, drawing from the small, fast warships of the "Corvette" class. My father served as a petty officer on the British version of these ships in World War II - his ship was one of those that went in prior to the invasion and fired rockets at the enemy beaches. 

For those in the know, Harley Earl is generally regarded as the "Father of the Corvette." Earl was GM's legendary head of the Art and Colour Section - the American auto industry's first in-house styling department. In the early 1950s Earl became concerned about a growing new trend: the rising popularity of British sports cars like the Jaguar XK120, MG TD, Triumph TR2 and Austin-Healey (Most of the early 50's British sport cars were exported to America), so he developed a concept for a two-seat sports car. 

However, if Harley Earl was the father of the Corvette, Zora Arkus-Duntov was the Godfather. When Zora Arkus-Duntov arrived at GM in May 1953, the beautiful Corvette was in its infancy (I have always liked the shape of the earliest cars which were incredibly distinctive). He had seen the Corvette at the 1953 Motorama just months before and had written a letter to Ed Cole, within which he said that it would be an honour to work on such a beautiful car. Once at Chevrolet, he set out to make Corvette the performer he knew it could be and in so doing, he created one of the worlds most successful high performance cars.

Zora Arkus-Duntov, Corvette's first chief engineer, loved racing. In 1955, an Arkus-Duntov designed camshaft fitted to Ed Cole's small block V8 boosted horsepower from 195 to 240 and in the same year he finished first in his class at Le Mans driving a Porsche 550. Motor racing was his passion. 

With that engine, Arkus-Duntov proved his point when in 1956 he set a record behind the wheel of a Corvette for the Daytona Beach Flying Mile at 150.583 mph.

Covettes made their racing debut when a team of three were entered in the 1956 Sebring 12 Hours even though these were out classed by the sports racing cars like the Jaguar "D" types. In 1960 team owner Briggs Cunningham (one of my personal heroes and a true sportsman, as well as being the builder of Americas first super cars) brought a trio of Corvettes to Le Mans. With a remarkable demonstration of endurance and speed, the #3 car finished eighth overall - well ahead of many of the finest sports cars of the era.

This was followed by the following appearances at Le Mans by Corvettes:

From 1967 to 1973 a number of Corvettes were entered at Le Mans, but for one reason or another usually failed to finish. Corvettes entered by French teams seemed to fair better - in 1970, Henri Greder and Jean-Paul Rouget managed to finish sixth overall. Unfortunately, the Corvette fell short of displacement/distance rules and was officially unclassified. My favourite Corvette of this period is the 1976 Greenwood "Spirit of Le Mans" car. It was a monster! 

The legendary Stingray Coupe was inspired by the profile of a shark, and was actually developed as a racing car in 1958, built on the SS chassis Zora Arkus-Duntov had constructed in 1956 to go racing. In 1959 this car made it's racing debut at Marlboro Raceway in April, driven by Bill Mitchell. It was hardly surprising that Arkus-Duntov was not happy about Mitchell racing what he considered to be his car. 

It was either this car or the Mako Shark 11 (probably the latter) that later became such a headache for the Chevrolet paint shop. Having been provided with a stuffed shark in a display case, they were instructed to paint the car to match the colour of the shark for a display. However, try as they might, after several frustrating attempts their work was still rejected by senior management. Finally, in exasperation, the paint crew hauled the shark out of it’s tank and painted it with the same paint mix they had used upon the car, then showed the pair to the delighted senior executives who declared they had finally got it right!

Five years later, Bill Mitchell and his design team transformed the racing model into one of the most striking production sports cars of all time. The restyled Corvette Stingray was introduced in the fall of '67 as the 1968 model. The sexy new look borrowed heavily from the Mako Shark II show car designed by GM styling chief Bill Mitchell and stylist Larry Shinoda (This is the car that the SCX slot car is modelled on, which I have in six different colours, four Spanish and two Mexican).

Scalextric L88 Corvette Stingray

Released by Scalextric in:

• "Plain White" edition (C2525)

•  The "Confederate" #57 Sport Ltd Ed (C2502A)

• "Confederate" Std edition (C2502)

• "Red, White & Blue" #48 Sport Ltd Edition (C2503A)

• "Red, White & Blue" Std edition (C2503)

The Scalextric Corvette finally arrived though the post from Hornby and I was delighted - even after twenty years of writing slot car reviews I still find it exciting to unwrap review cars. The slot car is modelled on the Corvette that John Greenwood raced (he of the 1976 ‘Spirit of Le Mans’ goliath) and the body shape is the same as the real 1977 Corvette I had so much fun in. The first thing I did was to get out some of my old pictures as the slot car brought back a lot of happy memories as looking at the model had magically wafted me back twenty years and I was sitting in the car once more, listening to it start. 

Scalextric have captured the shape perfectly with every one of the sweeping lines exactly right, each curve flowing gracefully into the next of a shape I know so well. This is a very large car and the scale seems perfect - a vast improvement on some of their earlier models such as the TR7. I love everything about this car, and if I was 1/32 scale I’d be in it in two seconds! I could hardly wait to track test it, hoping it would go as well as it looked.

I went brilliantly, far exceeding my expectations. It was both ballistically fast in a straight line and cornered as if on rails (it must have thought it was a rail car!). I loved the bright yellow lights, running it for half an hour in complete darkness. They worked really well. However, I don't write up lap times - in the past I have been sent review cars that have turned out to be much faster than the production car.

I really like the minilite style, polished aluminium wheels and after about half an hour of running the tyres were incredibly soft and sticky. This is one of the first cars I’ve ever pulled out of the box where both the front wheels and the rear wheels were perfectly true and round without having to touch them. There isn’t one single thing I don’t like about this car, and has rocketed to one of my all time favourite Scalextric models.