The Corvette Stingray Racer is a sports racing car and concept car that debuted in 1959. The car was developed in the styling studios at General Motors (GM) at the behest of Bill Mitchell, GM Vice President of styling. The design was based on a sketch by designer Pete Brock, and was further developed by Larry Shinoda. The car strongly influenced the styling of the second generation (C2) Corvette Sting Ray.
History
Italian influence
In 1957 Mitchell attended the Turin Auto Show in Italy. While there he was impressed by a series of automobiles whose body shapes shared a strong horizontal bodyline encircling the car, and four bulges or "blips" on the upper body, one above each wheel. Among these cars was the Abarth 750 Streamliner, as well as other Abarths, and cars with bodies by Boano and Stanguellini. Also influential was the Alfa Romeo Disco Volante, already several years old by the time of Mitchell's visit.
Q-Corvette
In the mid to late 1950s, Ed Cole, General Manager for Chevrolet, initiated a project called the Q-Chevrolet, a defining feature of which was to be a front-mounted engine and a rear-mounted transaxle. The Corvette development team began working on a Q-Corvette.
Mitchell showed pictures of cars seen on his Italian trip to his design team headed by Bob Veryzer to illustrate his goals for the shape of the Q-Corvette. The design was determined by an internal competition, which was won by a sketch done by Brock. Brock was tasked with developing his sketch into a complete design for a coupe, while designer Chuck Pohlmann was given the same assignment, but for a convertible. Brock's coupe was assigned project number XP-84, while Pohlmann's convertible was XP-96. While both were based on Brock's original sketch, the designs diverged in some details in addition to their different roof lines. Full-size clay models of both were built by modeler John Bird. At this time Larry Shinoda was brought in to refine the design, adding details that would be needed if the car went into production. As the Q-Corvette was being readied to be presented to GM's board of directors, Frederic Donner replaced Harlow Curtice as chairman of GM. Donner's focus on improving profitability by cutting costs meant the end of expensive engineering projects. When the Q-Chevrolet project was cancelled, the Q-Corvette suffered the same fate.
Corvette SS
The 1957 Corvette SS racing sports car was created by a team of engineers headed by Zora Arkus-Duntov as part of an official Chevrolet race effort meant to culminate with the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Soon after its race debut at the 12 Hours of Sebring, where it retired after 23 laps, the Automobile Manufacturers Association (AMA) banned manufacturer-sponsored racing, and the SS was relegated to test track duty.
The AMA racing ban notwithstanding, Mitchell was interested in building a new racing car, and used a Corvette SS chassis as its base. Some references report that he bought the complete Corvette SS development mule for one US dollar. In interviews Shinoda and Mitchell both describe Mitchell buying a spare SS chassis for US$500. He estimated the value of the chassis at US$500,000. Duntov tried to prevent Mitchell from buying the chassis, but was unsuccessful.
Inherited from the Corvette SS were the earlier car's tubular steel space frame chassis, wheelbase and front and rear track, front short/long arm suspension (SLA) and rear De Dion tube located by two pairs of trailing arms with coil springs over tubular shocks front and rear and drum brakes mounted outboard in front and inboard in the rear. The original Stingray engine appears to have been identical to the Chevrolet small-block V8 engine with aluminum cylinder heads, a Duntov profile solid-lifter camshaft, and Rochester Ramjet fuel injection developed for the SS, but with an 11.0:1 compression ratio and slightly higher power output. The transmission was a Borg Warner 4-speed T-10 manual in a lightweight aluminum case. In the rear was a Halibrand quick-change differential. Wheels were also Halibrand magnesium pieces.
Design and development
Construction of the Stingray racer started in a small space at GM informally called the "Hammer Room". It was later moved to a slightly larger space that had once been Harley Earl's private file room. The car is considered the first product of Mitchell's Studio X, a small internal design studio he used for special projects. It also introduced what came to be called the "Folded Crease" style that became a hallmark of Mitchell's designs through the 1960s.