Chevy's Shark: Behind The Creation Of Corvette's C3
The Chevy Corvette has enjoyed eight generations of success, culminating in the current mid-engine C8. The C1 was the first ever to bear the name "Corvette." The C2 saw the introduction of the Stingray, and is considered one of the greatest American cars to ever exist, and so on.
Every new generation of Corvette has something going for it that makes it memorable. But aside from the C4 which was redeemed by the introduction of the ZR-1, the C3 sometimes gets lost in the shuffle of talk about split rear-windows and LS engines.
The C3's first model year was 1968 and, although it was mechanically similar to the earlier C2, it was very different aesthetically. Namely, it looked like a shark — and that was no accident either, as a large portion of the design was borrowed from the General Motors Mako Shark concept.
The front half of the car featured pronounced wheel arches and a significantly more "muscular" appearance compared to the classically handsome C2. The earlier Corvettes were American sports cars during a time when that simply didn't exist. The C3, on the other hand, became a muscle car seemingly overnight, and the addition of a huge 427 cubic inch V8 under the hood sealed the deal.
Originally a mid-engine sports car
During early stages of C3 development, both Zora Arkus-Duntov and Frank Witchell — designers working for GM — really had their minds set on making the new Corvette a mid-engine car, something that would only come to fruition many years later. The design teams even got as far as making a rough mockup of a mid-engine 'Vette, but the idea was ultimately destined for the trash bin.
Despite the prevalence of other mid-engine sportscars in the 1960s, General Motors simply didn't have the parts available or the monetary capacity to make a mid-engine car feasible. The earlier Chevy Corvair was rear engine, but making a transaxle for a relatively small displacement flat-six is a different undertaking entirely than making a part that can handle a huge fire-breathing V8.
The engine was eventually moved to the front, and the sharpened edges of the Mako Shark concept were smoothed out into the C3 that we see today. While it may have a more aggressive and angry appearance than the C2, the C3 has become an icon in its own right. The fact that astronauts from many moon-treading Apollo missions drove leased Corvettes only cemented the C3's status as American automotive royalty.