A young Art Center College of Design student, named Peter Elbert Brock, became the youngest designer ever hired by Bill Mitchell, the Vice President of Design at General Motors. He rewarded Mitchell in November 1957 by making a sketch of what Mitchell chose to be the basis for the next generation of Corvettes, the C2 Sting Ray. Thanks to the engineering efforts of Zora Arkus-Duntov and styling boss Mitchell, the Sting Ray came to fruition.
One of the styling cues Mitchell wanted on the car was a “spine” theme. He was influenced by several cars, including the Bugatti 57SC “Atlantique” coupe, the 1937 Adler Trumpf Rennlimousine, and Harley Earl’s Oldsmobile Golden Rocket concept car, each of which had a “spine” that ran through the car, including through the rear window.
The “Split Window” Corvette coupe was born and, while the car gained praise, the rear window did not. Some said the poor rear visibility was dangerous, and dealers were sometimes asked to replace the split window with one of solid glass. The next year, the 1964 Corvette coupe came without a split rear window. The result was to make the 1963 coupe one of the most desirable Corvettes ever produced.
General Motors and Chevrolet
Two people were key to the early establishment of the Chevrolet Motor Company, William Crapo Durant and Louis Chevrolet, although neither of them would be around for the long term. Durant, born in December 1861, only months after the beginning of the Civil War, grew up in an era of horse drawn mobility. In 1886, Durant partnered with Josiah Dallas Dort to establish the Flint Road Cart Company, which four years later became the Durant-Dart Carriage Company, a major manufacturer of horse-drawn vehicles.
Durant was not a fan of the automobiles that were being produced around the turn of the century, in part because of the lose regulation of the auto industry, but he saw an opportunity to create a company to build a safer automobile. His first step toward that goal was to buy Buick, which had poor sales and a lot of debt. Durant managed to turn Buick around, partly because of his institution of the first, and still current, system of dealer franchises. But he envisioned much more – a large company that included a variety of marques, each with some independence, but under the supervision of that large company.
He moved toward that goal in September 1908, when he partnered with Samuel McLaughlin, a wealthy Canadian, to create the General Motors Holding Company. They bought the Olds Motor Works two months later, and in 1909 purchased Cadillac and the Oakland Motor Car Company, which became Pontiac. By 1910, Durant’s enthusiasm for expanding General Motors led to the company acquiring thirteen automobile companies and numerous parts manufacturers. It also led to the company being seriously overextended financially and to Durant’s ouster as the head of General Motors.
Durant was not pleased with his ouster, and immediately developed a plan to regain control of the company he had built. His first move was to buy the Little Motor Car Company in October 1911. That gave him a platform with which to work, and a year later produced the Little Four, a small, cute car that cost $650. Sadly, it was not very durable, so Durant needed something more powerful and better built, which led him, with a loan co-signed by McLaughlin, into partnership with Louis Chevrolet, who he had known from their time together at Buick in 1907.
Chevrolet was a Swiss-born Frenchman who came to the US in 1900 by way of Canada. He had worked for a variety of auto manufacturers in Europe, including Mors, Darracq, and DeDion-Bouton. After a stint as a chauffeur, he worked for the American branch of DeDion-Bouton then for Hollander and Tangeman, importers of Fiats. At Hollander and Tangeman, he started racing and had good results. When he joined Buick, he continued racing and earned a reputation as a top driver. Durant liked the idea of working with a well-known race driver, and, it was rumored that he like the sound of Chevrolet’s name.
Chevrolet had no formal training in automotive engineering, but he was a practical designer. In order to design his first car, Chevrolet involved his more experienced friend, Etienne Planche, who had designed the first Mercer. Together they created the Chevrolet Classic Six. At $2150, it was quite expensive, and Durant needed a car he could mass market, so he commissioned the Model H, a smaller four-cylinder car that was much cheaper. Chevrolet was not pleased with his name being associated with what he felt was a cheap car, so his relationship with Durant became strained.
It broke when Durant, who believed executives should smoke cigars, complained about Chevrolet having a cigarette constantly hanging from his lips. According to “The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile,” it was the last straw for Chevrolet, who reportedly said, “I sold you my car, and I sold you my name, but I am not going to sell myself to you.” In October 1913, Chevrolet sold his stock in the company and left to create the Frontenac Motor Corporation to build race cars and special heads for Model T Fords. His cars went on to win many races, including the 1920 Indianapolis 500 with his brother, Gaston, driving.
Durant then created the Sterling Motor Company to build six-cylinder engines for both his Little and Chevrolet cars. His Little Six and Chevrolet Six Type C Classic were ready for the market at the same time. The Chevrolet had a 299 cid displacement, which was the largest Chevrolet engine until 1958. It was also a large car, with a wheelbase of 120 inches, possibly the longest wheelbase of any Chevrolet automobile. Beverly Rae Kimes, in her article titled “Launching the Chevrolet: The Early Years of the Marque” in Automobile Quarterly Volume XVIII #3, described the car as “ponderous.”
Apparently, it was very well built, but it didn’t sell well. The Little Six sold very well, but it was likely to fail by the time it had gone 25,000 miles. Durant made the decision to consolidate features of the two cars and to drop the name “Little” before people realized that it was likely to fail.
In 1914, Chevrolet got its “Bowtie.” Kime tells two stories about how the Bowtie came to be the symbol of Chevrolet cars. The one Durant preferred was that he saw the design the wallpaper of a Paris hotel and tore a piece off to take home. Durant’s wife claimed she saw it in a section of a Sunday newspaper her husband was reading while they were vacationing in Hot Springs, Virginia. The Bowtie was in play in ads later that year, showing the design and saying “By this sign ye shall know it.”
Another idea of Durant’s was to market the Chevrolet 490, a significant model name since $490 was the price of Ford’s Model T. The Chevrolet could be sold for $490 because it was a stripper – a self-starter and electric lights cost an additional $60. Ford’s response was to reduce the cost of the Model T to $440. Eventually, the Chevrolet’s price had to be raised to $550.
Chevrolet was always the means that Durant planned to use to regain control of General Motors. Once the company was successful, he put his plan into action – he would offer multiple shares of Chevrolet (said to be five to seven) in exchange for one share of GM. He quietly made the trades until on September 16, 1915, the seventh anniversary of the day he originally founded GM, he was on control of it again.
Back in charge, Durant returned to his old habits. Kimes reported that “He kept wheeling and dealing as never before.” He was on a buying spree – some were good, and some were bad. An example of a bad purchase was Samson Tractor, with which he hoped to challenge the Fordson tractors. It was a multimillion-dollar loss. Durant and GM were in serious trouble when a recession hit in 1920. The du Pont family and J.P. Morgan Bank bailed out GM. Part of the deal required Durant’s resignation in return for having his personal debts paid. Durant was out again.
Pierre du Pont became President of General Motors and considered dropping Chevrolet as one of the GM brands. Thankfully, he had Alfred P. Sloan working for him, in charge of all operations and reporting directly to du Pont. A consulting engineering firm had been contracted to do a survey of all the GM properties, and they recommended that Chevrolet be liquidated. Karl E. Ludvigsen, in an Automobile Quarterly article titled “The Winner and Still Champion Chevrolet” (Volume VII #3) said that Sloan went to du Pont and argued against the recommendation.
Sloan reported that “I was much upset because I feared the prestige of the authors might overcome our arguments to the contrary. So, I went to Mr. du Pont and told him what we thought we might accomplish if we built a good product and sold it aggressively.” Sloan prevailed with du Pont, saving Chevrolet and probably General Motors. The decision was to keep Chevrolet as the lowest-priced marque in the GM line-up and not to compete with Ford head-on, “but to produce a car that would be superior to the Ford, yet so near the Ford price that demand would be drawn from the Ford grade and lifted to the slightly higher price in preference to Ford’s then utility design.” That strategic plan has resulted in Chevrolet leading Ford in sales for most years since 1927.
In the years leading up to World War II, there were several significant developments at Chevrolet. They were often made under the leadership of William S. Knudsen who, after a falling out with Henry Ford, became the President and General Manager of Chevrolet in 1924. One of his first actions was to have Chevrolet concentrate on one model. Another development was the use of overhead valves in Chevrolet engines, which led to the sales slogan “Valves in head, ahead in value.” Then there was the decision to have the company’s Art and Colour Section style the 1928 Chevrolet.
Possibly the most significant developments was the “Stovebolt Six” engine. Named for the slotted bolts that held on the cylinder head, this engine, although improved and enlarged, would power every Chevrolet through 1954. According to historian Richard M. Langworth, the engine was “designed to be just good enough and no more.” The 1932 Chevrolet Confederate introduced a synchromesh transmission, free-wheeling, and increased power. New body styles were introduced in 1939 – a station wagon, convertible with a power top, and a fastback coupe. Then came the war and a total conversion to war production.
The emphasis immediately after the war was on civilian truck production. The first Chevrolet passenger car was not assembled until October 3, 1945. The high demand for new cars caused all American auto manufacturers to produce cars that had been on the market before the war rather than take the time to do new designs. The first new Chevrolet design wasn’t seen until 1949, and it wasn’t until the Tri-5s of 1955-1957, that Chevrolet had a significant change in design approach. This new approach was, in part, due the move of Edward Nicholas Cole (better known as Ed Cole) from Cadillac to Chevrolet in 1952 to be chief engineer and particularly to develop a new V8 engine to replace the “Stovebolt Six.”
Corvette
In another article in Automobile Quarterly (Volume XXII #3), Ludvigsen begins with a statement that is somewhat surprising: “An event so recent in history as the birth of the Corvette should, it would seem, be clearly recorded. Well, it isn’t, because many of the principals involved are still prominent in General Motors, and some of them are still reluctant to claim credit because they’re not really sure, even to this day [1969], whether or not GM considers the Corvette to be a success.” Well, 50 years later, we can be sure that they now believe it to be an incredible success.
The fact that the Corvette exists is thanks to the foresight of Lawrence P. Fisher. Fisher was the general manager at Cadillac and was visiting Cadillac dealers and distributers around the country. One of the dealers he visited was owned by Don Lee, who had bought Earl Automotive Works, a custom body design and build company created by Harley Earl’s father, JW Earl. Lee kept the young Early on as the director of Lee’s custom body shop.
When Fisher saw Earl’s work, he commissioned Earl to design the 1927 LaSalle. The success of the LaSalle encouraged Sloan to create GM’s Art and Colour Section and name Earl as its first director. Earl had spent his early career designing custom cars, and eventually he influenced GM to consider the value of concept cars for interesting the public in what GM was producing. His first for GM was the 1939 Buick Y-Job, an incredible Deco two-seater, which he eventually used as his daily driver.
Earl realized, when visiting his sons in college, that young men were becoming very interested in European sports cars. He also observed that European sports cars were being successfully raced on tracks around the US after WWII. He believed that GM needed something to compete with the growing interest in European sports car, and particularly wanted a car to compete with the Jaguar XK 120. He secretly started what eventually became “Project Opel” and offered it first to Ed Cole, now general manager of Chevrolet. Cole immediately accepted the project.
After an initial model using a short wheelbase version of a standard Chevy convertible was rejected, designer-engineer Robert McLain took a Chevrolet frame, shortened it by thirteen inches and moved the engine back by seven inches and down by three inches to get a more European profile and weight distribution. McLain worked with stylists Clare MacKichan and Joe Schemansky to create the initial mock-up. The mock-up was shown to Chevrolet executives in the spring of 1952, and Cole was given a deadline of having a running car ready for the January 1953 Motorama. A final decision about production would be made after the Motorama.
In early June 1952, a plaster model was completed, and Chevrolet engineers were told to “put an automobile under it.” Later that month, Maurice Olley sketched a chassis with the code name “Opel” which proved to be very close to the final design. Olley’s design included an open prop-shaft and outboard leaf springs angled to cause understeer. The frame was boxed and cross-braced with the driveline above the center of the cross-bracing.
A Stovebolt Six got an aluminum head that was modified with a special camshaft, solid lifters, higher compression, three side-draft carburetors, and dual exhaust. The result was an engine producing 150 bhp with a two-speed Powerglide automatic installed in the shortened chassis for the concept car. Originally, the car was to have a three-speed manual transmission, but a late decision to make the car a “luxury” model, resulted in the use of the automatic. Another last-minute decision was a change from a column shifter to one that was floor mounted.
According to Ludvigsen, “The remaining dash hole for the shaft was plugged by a hand-brake-on warning light.
Three concepts, all using fiberglass bodies, would be built – a convertible called “Corvette,” a coupè called “Corvair,” and a station wagon called “Nomad.” There was such an enthusiastic response to the Corvette that it was immediately put into limited production with bodies of fiberglass, even though that material was not initially intended for production. Chevrolet built 315 Corvettes in Flint, Michigan, in 1953, at a price of $3550.
The cars were to be used in promotion and for VIPs, and most went to GM executives. It was a crude car, with plexiglass side curtains and a lack of outside door handles. It was not much competition for the Jaguars or other European sports cars being sold in the US. At one promotional event at GM’s Milford Proving Grounds in September 1953, fifty newsmen got to drive the Corvette.
In an apparent indication that the Corvette would continue to be bodied in fiberglass, a fender was damaged with a sledgehammer then repaired in front of the newsmen in an hour and a half.
Production was moved to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1954 without many improvements, and sales in 1954 and 1955 were poor. Some executives wanted the cancel the Corvette, but improvements to the car made for the 1956 model year saved it. The improvements were directed at the faults in the previous models that had turned some buyers away. There was now a power top with an automatic cover, an optional detachable hardtop, roll-down windows with a power option, a sportier steering wheel, interior trim upgrades, and improved styling. There were also chassis and handling improvements partly because a Russian-educated Belgian names Zora Arkus-Duntov. Arkus-Duntov worked under Olley in the research and development area, and he became interested in the Corvette.
Although not officially involved in the car’s design, he “wheedled his way in,” and made changes that improved the car’s handling. Oh, and the ’56 Corvette also got a 265 cid V8 engine and a manual transmission. Corvettes were entered at the endurance race at Sebring, and one finished, resulting in a new ad from Chevrolet emphasizing that the Corvette was a sports car: “The Real McCoy!”
More improvements were made for the 1957 model, including an engine displacement increase to 283 cid and optional fuel injection. Late in the model year, a Borg-Warner four-speed, all synchro transmission became an option to the standard three-speed. Arkus-Duntov became more involved with the Corvette’s suspension and engine.
Ludvigsen, who worked for a while at GM had some harsh words for the 1958 Corvette: “When I was at GM Styling Staff in the summer of 1956, I saw the 1958 Corvette being finalized. It was not a pretty sight, but then neither were the other 1958 GM cars. . . . It had a very heavy front end with exceptionally ugly quad headlights, and two slathers of chrome down the rear deck. The Corvette had become a bombastic boulevard boat, veering sharply from the near-purist alignment.” There were also some improvements, especially better brakes. In 1959, it got radius rods to keep the rear axle from tramping during an enthusiastic launch, along with other improvements engineered by Arkus-Duntov.
Briggs Cunningham took three 1959 Corvettes to Le Mans in 1960. One failed to finish, and another was not classified as a finisher as it did not complete 80% of its Index of Performance distance. The other car, the No. 3 driven by John Fitch and Bob Grossman, finished eighth overall and fifth in the GT 5.0 class. The Corvette was again showing that it was worthy to be called a sports car. Not only did Corvette get a win at Le Mans, but it got a styling win in 1960.
While still very recognizable as a Corvette, its new body design for 1960 included a much cleaner front and an upturned tail that improved its look. The next couple years saw more improvements, including a change in engine displacement to 327 cid, producing up to 360 bhp. It was 1963, though, when Chevrolet introduced one of the most important models in Corvette history – its second generation, or C2, Corvette.
The 1963 Sting Ray was all new, except for its engine. Arkus-Duntov had designed a new chassis, with a stock passenger car front end and a fully independent rear end. Interestingly, an extra-heavy frame had originally been designed for a four-passenger Corvette, that was, thankfully, cancelled. Arkus-Duntov’s design gave the Sting Ray a better ride, traction, and stability. Wheelbase and track were both shortened, and the car had a fully independent suspension with coil springs in the front and transverse leaf springs and lower wishbones a the rear.
It was designed to have a 48/52% weight distribution – the C1’s weight distribution was 53/47%. Transmission was a four-speed all synchro manual, and that version far outsold the three-speed manual and automatic that were also offered. The Sting Ray was the first Corvette to offer power steering, a needed option.
The shape of the Sting Ray is due to that young designer named Peter Brock, who, at 19, was working as a designer at GM while a student at ArtCenter School (now known as the ArtCenter College of Design). Brock drew a sketch of a possible future GM sports car in November 1957. The design was selected to be the design for the next generation of the Corvette by Bill Mitchell, then current VP of Design, to be called the Stingray. The following year, Brock worked with Mitchell to design a racing version of the Stingray. Renamed Sting Ray, the C2 Corvette was put into production four years after Brock left GM.
The Sting Ray was offered as a convertible and coupè with a spine running down the center of the rear window. Ludvigsen had a very positive opinion of the coupè, saying “When the Sting Ray coupè appeared in the fall of 1962, with its hidden headlights and spined rear window, it created a sensation. In spite of its excess of surface gimmickry its basic shape was powerful and new – as we could see more clearly on later dechromed models.” A cost saving decision resulted in an inconvenient design that lasted for many years – the elimination of deck lids for both models of the Sting Ray, making storing luggage or groceries a chore.
The new Corvette was enthusiastically received, so much so that Chevrolet had to put on an extra shift at the plant in St. Louis to meet the demand. Ultimately, 21,513 Sting Rays were produced in the 1963 model year, over 7000 more than in 1962. The clamor about rearward vision, despite the popularity of the coupè by buyers of the 1963 model, led to the removal of the spine in the rear window in the following years of Sting Ray production – 1964-1967.
There was one more version of the Sting Ray to come. Knudsen gave permission to Arkus-Duntov to create a full race version of the car. It was to be called the Sting Ray Grand Sport, and the intent was to race and win at Le Mans. The plan was to build 100 Grand Sports in order to homologate it for racing, but only five were built before GM decided not to participate in competition in February 1963.
“Sting Ray” only lasted as a model name for the C2 years. It was dropped when the much-restyled C3 was introduced in 1968. The 1969 model of the C3 was called a “Stingray,” one word. Possibly to honor the major change that was made when the C2 was produced, the C8, another significant change for Corvette, was again called “Sting Ray,” two words.
Phil Higgins’ 1963 Split Window Sting Ray
One hot summer Saturday, I took my new-to-me Alfa Romeo GTV6 to a local cruise-in. I found a shady spot to park, and looked around to see what interesting cars were nearby. That’s when I saw Phil Higgin’s beautiful, red ’63 Corvette Split Window Sting Ray coupè. I approached Higgins about doing a profile of his car, and he accepted. I was a little disappointed when he told me that it was not stock but “better than new.” Some weeks later, after we had done the photo shoot and interview, I was reading the July/August 2023 issue of Linkage magazine.
The theme for the issue was “Preservation,” a topic that I find very interesting. Inside was an article by Jim Pickering titled “Out of Touch – But In Time.” The subtitle was what got me: “If you squint and tilt your head just right, modification is preservation.” Here are a few quotes from his article:
“For a lot of people, something with higher miles, or with a replacement engine could be a better fit for less money spent. No fear of diminished value, not nail biting over damaging a piece of history. If use is the point, those cars can be the answer.”
“Modified cars, clones and replicas are fantastic drivers and serve a very important purpose at the entry level. Resto-Mods – long disliked among collector car purists – are going to play a much larger role in the preservation of the collector car than most people realize.”
“But preserving the spirit in which something was used – even with modern parts sprinkled around in the name of cool factor, performance or just reliability – is one heck of a good entry point into the collector car world. Maybe more important than that, it bucks the typical, aged pathways that purists treasure and new eyes and ears can’t contextualize.”
Well, it turns out the Higgin’s Vette is exactly what Pickering was talking about. Here’s Higgin’s story: “When I was 16 years old, a friend and I were out riding around and were near a little town, sort of out in the country. The car quit, and we couldn’t get it running. I flagged a guy down with a brand new ’58 Corvette, and he gave us a ride back home. That was like setting the hook.” Higgins got married and had kids. His job took him to Toledo, Ohio, then to Tennessee. “When I came here, one of the Vice Presidents had a ’69 Corvette as a company car, and they offered me either that or a new Caprice. It took me about a half a second, and I said, ‘I’ll take the Corvette.’ I wound up buying that car, and since then I’ve owned seven Corvettes. This one [the ’63 Split Window] I bought in 1978. It was white with a black interior. It was pretty much a ‘rag.’ Each year I’ve done something to it, and it’s finally getting pretty close to done after 45 years.”
Even up close, it looks very original, then Higgins points out that all the gaps and seams are correct, unlike when the car was new. It has a very slick paint job, and it looks exceptionally good in the red he picked. Under the hood, if has power rack and pinion steering, coil over suspension with QA1 shocks, disc brakes on the front, and composite rear springs in the rear.
The drive train is a Chevrolet 350 with a four-bolt main and a roller hydraulic competition cam that drives through a Tremec five-speed transmission to a “355” gear in the rear. It has non-factory air and a big radiator with twin electric fans. The interior is along stock lines but is in leather. It uses 15 inch wheels which are 7.5 inches wide rather than the original 5.5 inches. With series 65 tires, the tire diameter is the same as the originals.
Pickering said, “If use is the point, those cars can be the answer.” It has certainly been the answer for Higgins. He shows his Vette, he’s autocrossed it, and he drives it, including round trips to California, Key West, and Canada. His car is comfortable, a great performer, and very useable. It also looks like the 1963 Corvette Sting Ray Split Window Coupè it was originally. It’s just “better than new.”
Stock Specifications
- Body: Fiberglass two-door coupè
- Chassis: Stock passenger car front end and a fully independent rear end
- Engine: OHV V8
- Displacement: 327 cid
- Bore/Stroke: 4.00 inches / 3.25 inches
- Horsepower: 250 hp @4400 rpm
- Torque: 350 ft-lbs @2800 rpm
- Compression Ratio: 10.5:1
- Induction: Single Carter 4-barrel
- Transmission: Synchromesh 4-speed manual
- Length: 175.3 inches
- Width: 69.6 inches
- Height: 49.8 inches
- Wheelbase: 98.0 inches
- Front/Rear Track: 56.3 inches/57.0 inches
- Weight: 3015 lbs
- Wheels: 15×5.5
- Tires: 6.70×15
