Corvette

Chevrolet announced today that it will make the Corvette Atlantic and Pacific concepts from last year’s SEMA show available as special design packages for the 2015 Corvette Stingray.

The two design packages will be available from the launch date of the 2015 Corvette, which is slated to go on sale later this year. Chevrolet says a strong a response from enthusiasts helped influence the decision to put both the Atlantic convertible and Pacific coupe into production.

“One of the design goals for the Corvette Stingray was to provide customers with the flexibility to tailor the car to their personality,” said Kirk Bennion, Corvette exterior design manager. “The Atlantic and Pacific Design Packages were originally designed to showcase how the Stingray could be configured as a luxury sport GT car or as a high-performance motorsport car.”

This 22 minute video is a lot of fun, plus you get to see more of the famous Sinkhole at the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, KY! Watch it when you have some time, and really need some good laughs!

The sinkhole that opened up underneath the National Corvette Museum in February has turned into an attraction of its own for the facility. Corvette fans from all over want to check out the massive hole and the eight cars that were sucked into middle earth as a result of its opening, including Roadkill hosts David Freiburger and Mike Finnegan.

When working on your carburetor…

Transfer the carburetor from the engine to a clean, open workbench. If you don’t have a carb stand, simply slide four bolts of your choice through the mounting holes in the bottom plate, and “nut” them up at the top. All you need is enough clearance for the levers and protruding linkage.

We recently had the opportunity to visit Bill Tower in Plant City, FL. Bill has one unique and fascinating collection of early Corvettes! For those of you who may not be familiar with Bill, let us introduce you...

Bill Tower is a man of many talents. He’s done just about everything, from racing the American Bandstand-sponsored Top Fuel “Rat Trap” digger in the late ’60s to working on the Space Shuttle launch program. Bill is a GMI trained engineer, and worked for Chevrolet from 1965 through the mid ’80s. He is still involved with GM today, working with them on various engineering projects.

Seems all of a sudden, but this has been slowly creeping up on us all. We shouldn't be surprised!

With the addition of the 2015 Corvette Z06 Convertible to its stable, the Chevrolet Performance lineup grows to include 14 vehicles. These include nine variations of the Camaro, the Australian-made SS sedan and four Corvette models, with engine output ranging from a respectable 323 horsepower to the Z06’s stratospheric 625 horsepower.

The drop-top Z06 showed its face a bit early...

It was supposed to wait until the New York Auto Show this week, but, as is usually the case for vehicles this exciting, the secret can’t be kept for long, and photos have leaked online early.

But that blue, though!

Being that this C7 drop-top is still a Z06, we can suspect a metric ass load of horsepower and torque from its supercharged LT4 V8, insane brakes, equally insane suspension, and even more mental aerodynamics. All of this coupled with either the choice of a precise seven-speed manual or a super-quick eight-speed automatic transmission. This would also make the Z06 Convertible the only vehicle of its kind with this much power, and two choices of transmissions. Best of all, it will probably come in under the $100,000 mark, although that remains to be official. Historians may also enjoy the fact that there hasn’t been a Z06 convertible since 1963 (the 427 doesn’t count).

For the C5’s introductory year (1997), Chevrolet was intent on spelling everything out in plain English. This 2 page spread print ad was written by none other than David Hill, the Chief Corvette Engineer at the time. The very wordy ad touts all the new car’s attributes– from its all-new 5.7L aluminum engine (now rated at 345 hp) to its state-of-the-art hydroformed perimeter frame. Easy to see why Chevy executed this ad: they “Changed a Classic”, as they state in the ad’s second paragraph.

As of last week, seven of the eight Corvettes which fell into a sinkhole that opened up in National Corvette Museum had been recovered, but one car, the C5 Z06 Mallett Hammer, was still nowhere to be found. The car was one of the first to fall in the sinkhole, and has been buried under rocks and debris the entire time the team has been searching for it. Thankfully, after almost two months of searching, the construction crews stumbled upon the Mallett Hammer Monday evening.

Predictably, the Mallett Hammer appears to be in the worst shape of all the Corvettes which fell victim to the hole. The Corvette Museum was only able to photograph the cars underside, as the rest of the car is completely buried under rocks and dirt. Teams attempting to extract the car have been pouring water into the hole to try and make mud, which is easier to vacuum up out of the hole than dirt. The rocks on top of the car must also be removed individually to prevent the debris from shifting and re-burying the car.

With the 2015 Corvette Z06 getting the 8L90 eight-speed gearbox to compliment its seven-speed manual transmission, everyone felt it was only a matter of time before the Corvette team rolled the new transmission into the Corvette Stingray. Today, Chevrolet announced just that, and buyers can expect the 8L90 in the Corvette Stingray beginning the 2015 model year. This wasn’t expected to happen until 2016.

When it comes to an “American vehicle,” it’s a widely gray area these days. Some Toyotas are made in America. Some Volkswagens are made in America. Oppositely, some Chevrolets that are sold here are made in Korea and Mexico. It’s easy to see that  these days it goes beyond where the brand is from, and many will argue that some of the most “American” vehicles are Toyotas and Hondas due to their American-made parts content. But according to international business professor Frank DuBois and his annual “Made in America Auto Index,” American brand vehicles took this year’s top rankings. And not just any American vehicles, but iconic ones.