Month: December 2012

When it comes to replacement parts for your Corvette there are a lot of choices. Recently two members of the National Corvette Restorers Society (NCRS) selected Mid America’s Performance Choice division to provide them with the items needed for their individual interior projects.

Corvette Hall of Famer Terry McManmon and his cohort Gary Bosselman made the trek to Effingham, Illinois for some custom blue 2008 seat covers and some 1967 floor carpet respectively. Terry is a former National Team Leader (among numerous other duties) in the NCRS and Gary is the proprietor at Roscoe Restoration in Roscoe, Illinois.

Performance Choice’s C2 carpets mimic the originals by using the same materials, patterns, factory-correct colors, and heel pads that were used back in the day.

“We pride ourselves in providing the most accurate interior products to bring Corvettes back to their original glory,” said Scott Bohannon, Director of PERFORMANCE CHOICE. “We also love showing our custom capabilities with special requests like Terry’s.”

If you too have an interior project coming up this winter be sure to check out Mid America’s Performance Choice interior manufacturing division. They’re located on Mid America Motorworks’ corporate campus in Effingham, Ill. Operating hours are Mon.-Fri. 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

For more information you can visit them online at www.performancechoice.com or call them at 800-428-2200. You can check out Mid America Motorworks at www.mamotorworks.com.

Source:
Mid America Motorworks

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Last year it was announced that General Motors would not be advertising during the Super Bowl game due to the growing costs of the coveted commercial spots. After all, a :30 second spot is fetching upwards of $4 million during the most watched TV event of the year. But a new report from The Detroit Bureau is saying that Chevy may be looking to get back into the game, but will swap advertising costs for product placement. As for the product to be placed, its none other than the 2014 C7 Corvette.

The Detroit Bureau goes on to say that during the halftime show which will feature R&B recording artist Beyonce, the newly revealed 2014 C7 Corvette will be parked on the 50 yard line with Beyonce receiving the keys to the car as a gift at the conclusion of the show.

It’s not the first time that Chevy has given Corvettes to stars in exchange for marketing fireworks, and product placement during sporting events is something the General is quite good at.

When the first Corvettes arrived on the scene in 1953, many were reserved for Hollywood stars like John Wayne. And as far as product placement, General Motors has even parked its vehicles on the field during the opening ceremonies at the Olympics, the conclusion of previous World Series and Super Bowls, as well as the occasional Detroit Tigers game.

TDB says that a “well-placed insider” has told them that GM is hand-building a one-off version of the C7 Corvette for Mrs. Jay-Z, who by the way just learned to drive two years ago.

It’s an interesting concept and I can already imagine what our twitter feed will look like at the moment the C7 Corvette takes the field.

Sure, the story has some holes. We know from our own “well-placed insiders” that the Corvette Assembly Plant in Bowling Green can build C7s on the assembly line so there is no reason to hand build a “one-off” version. Then there is the NFL and CBS which I am sure loves to trade revenue for corporate product placement during one of the biggest events of the year.

Don’t get us wrong. I can watch Beyonce stop, drop and shake just like any other red-blooded male and the fact that she might just shake that booty on the new Corvette is somewhat intriguing. However, if Beyonce (who can buy just about any damn thing she wants on the planet) gets to keep the C7 Corvette months before retail versions are available for the true enthusiasts of the car, well, I might just take my bat and ball and go home.

Click here to read the entire report from The Detroit Bureau.

Source:
The Detroit Bureau
Photo Credit – facebook

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We can all take a trip down Memory Lane with “car guy” Jay Leno of The Tonight Show and Ed Welburn, vice president of design for General Motors, during an episode of Jay Leno’s Garage.

With Corvettes definitely in the news these days because of the impending unveiling of the C7, GM decided to throw a little fuel on the fire and send four of their most important cars in the General Motors Heritage Center collection to Leno’s garage for The Tonight Show host to drool over.

And drool he does.

“I wish you could leave them!” Leno tells Welburn.

First up on the video is a 1953 Corvette, one of just 300 ever built. Though primitive in many ways compared to future Corvettes, Leno and Welburn both agree that the fiberglass car was a trendsetter and that its styling has aged well. Welburn even says in some he likes the car’s design better now than 15 or 20 years ago. “There’s something that’s very pure and very clean,” he says.

While the ’53 was a pet project of Harley Earl’s, Welburn wonders if he could have even fit in the small Corvette since he was such a big man.

Next, we see a special 1958 model, which is actually the boss’s car – for now. GM Chairman Dan Akerson will be auctioning it off at Barrett-Jackson in January to raise money for the Habitat for Humanity chapter in Detroit.

Then we come upon what Leno considers one of the most valuable cars in GM’s collection – the iconic 1959 Corvette Sting Ray race car that inspired the mid-year design from 1963-67 (and influenced every Corvette since, even the C7, according to Welburn). He says one of the first things he did after taking over design was to have the car restored, though the interior where Dick Thompson sat behind the wheel remains just as it was.

And speaking of steering wheels, Jay had to remove the Sting Ray’s just to climb into the car and crank it up to reveal some rumbling that is just sheer music to a Corvette fan’s ears.

We all may have seen photos of this car for years, but here we finally have a chance to hear it run! “Talk about a piece of history!” Jay yells.

The Stingray has an illustrious history, winning the SCCA national championship in 1960, and Elvis even drove it in his movie, Clambake.

Finally, Jay gets a look at another icon in the Corvette world – a red 1963 Split Window Coupe that features knockoff wheels and fuel injection. Leno recounts the story of a friend who actually went to great expense back in the day to have his ’63 split removed to make it look like a ’64. Whoops!

As the video ends, Leno, with Welburn beside him, drives off in Akerson’s 1958.

“What’s cooler than stealing the boss’s car?” Leno cracks. “Let’s see what two four-barrels sound like. All right!”

Source:
Jay Leno’s Garage

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By now, you’ve probably seen the leaked drawings showing the rear end of what appears to be the next-generation Corvette. You’ve probably watched the video mistakenly released by the company that will make the front bumper of the C7. And you no doubt laid eyes on the much-discussed rendering of the 2014 Corvette that was posted on Jalopnik months ago.

But even if you had not scoured the Internet looking for any scraps about the highly anticipated C7, you could already know for sure what kind of engine the new vehicle will sport when it hits the road months from now and have some idea of what the instrumentation will look like, straight from the mouth of Chevrolet months before the official unveiling on Jan. 13.

Peter De Lorenzo, the Autoextremist on Autoline.com (which is dedicated to reporting on, discussing and dissecting the inner workings of the auto industry and the products that it makes), says releasing such information is exactly the wrong thing for Chevy to be doing.

“Do you really need to beat the anticipatory drums for one of the iconic sports cars in the world?” he asked rhetorically on a segment released on Christmas Day.

“Do you think there’s a chance that a) someone with even a shred of automotive curiosity wouldn’t have heard something about a new Corvette coming, and b) it wouldn’t be instantaneous news across the mediasphere the moment it was unveiled,” De Lorenzo says.

If he were asked to lead the launch of the new Corvette, De Lorenzo says he would allow absolutely no teases of any kind.

“That means no early discussion of its content, no hints at what it will or won’t do, no emblem reveals, no engine specification disclosures, no design reveals in the shadows, no nothing!” he says emphatically.

Remember, De Lorenzo says, “this is the Corvette we’re talking about! It is one of exactly two automotive nameplates in this business – the Ford Mustang being the other – that transcend all consumer groups in this country.”

Just about everyone has a personal story or a remembrance of the Corvette from some point in his or her life, De Lorenzo points out.

He believes that if Chevrolet had kept the lid on the new Corvette, and released zero information of any kind, “the resulting media frenzy would be spectacular, and if the new Corvette lives up to its billing, even moreso.”

De Lorenzo says the enthusiasts now working feverishly on the next-generation Mustang should take a lesson from the way Chevrolet has handled the release of the C7.

“Pay attention to how Chevrolet is setting the table for the new Corvette,” he says to the guys at Dearborn, “and use it as a roadmap on how NOT to do it.”

Remember, he says, “creating excitement does not mean controlling every last shred of information, it means letting people’s imaginations and emotional connections run wild with anticipation.”

Source:
Autoline.com

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Corvette To Display the Chevrolet Bow-Tie?

 

Milk. Turkey Bacon. Pork Rinds. Beer. Grocery stores stock nearly all of our daily necessities. One such store, however, in Brunswick, Maine also happened to house a 1954 Corvette with 2,300 miles on the odometer for over 25 years. The car, now known as the Entombed Corvette, is being offered for sale at Mecum’s 2013 Kissimmee event next month in central Florida.

The “Entombed” Corvette was bought new in 1954 by Richard Sampson who owned a chain of 33 grocery stores. He drove the car until 1959 at which time he visited a then under construction retailer in Brunswick, Maine. He promptly directed the builders to enclose the white on red, 6 cylinder car in a “tomb” inside the store.

Initially his will stated that it was to be left there until the year 2000. Prior to his death in 1969 he voided that clause and the car was eventually unearthed in 1986 after an ownership change at the property. The once gleaming Polo White paint had yellowed and blistered after all those years in isolation. Ironically, the bias play tires still held their decades old air while the chrome, convertible top, and interior all remained in remarkably good shape.

Sampson’s daughter, Cynthia, was present at the rescue and took the car to her Daytona Beach, Florida home and stored it, naturally, in her living room for the next decade before selling it to a Corvette collector.

The car made its public debut at the 1996 Bloomington Gold Special Collection where it was shown in Richard Sampson’s honor. Cynthia Sampson, his daughter, was in attendance that June weekend.

As you read this, the once hidden Corvette now shows just 2,331 miles on the clock, and will go up for bids on Saturday January 26th, 2013 about 4:50pm.

Mecum’s 10-day Kissimmee auction takes place January 18th – 27th at the Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee, Florida. Hundreds of Corvettes will be offered as part of the 3,000 vehicle docket. We’ll take a look at some of the other January Corvettes over the next few weeks.

Source:
Mecum and Hemmings

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