We had a feeling (or a lingering hope maybe") it was going to come eventually. And it did. The first mid-engine Chevy Corvette is finally here. With its LT2 engine, it’s the most powerful entry-level Corvette in history; and now that we can officially drop the top, it will arguably be the coolest. A convertible variant for the 2020 Stingray is welcome news for those who like the wind in their hair.
In fact, the 2020 Corvette Stingray was envisioned and engineered as a convertible from the get-go.
Corvette Stingray Convertible: Always Is. Always Was.
Larry Edsall’s book, Corvette Stingray: The Seventh Generation of America?s Sports Car, opens with the different people and events that may have propelled then GM Design Chief Harley Earl to create the now iconic Vette. A prominent theory is that Earl, in a one-off Buick LeSabre concept convertible, lead the parade prior to a race at Watkins Glen in September of 1951. Edsall later writes that racer Briggs Cunningham teased Earl, saying his Buick was fit for a parade but nothing else. In other words, Earl’s car was all show and no go.
Today we love the Vette because it’s both show and go. It looks hot and runs like the wind. Reflecting back over the generations, we might say wind is forever woven into the Corvette’s design. When the crowds gathered around the first Corvette in January of 1953 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, they saw and admired a convertible. It makes sense tha...