We all have those stories.
When we first saw a Corvette. America’s sports car. Maybe it was in black and white on the the CBS series “Route 66” with Martin Milner and pals for 4 seasons from 1960 to 1964. Or, like me a decade later when my next door neighbor roared home in a white ’73 ‘Vette convertible. It was very similar to the “soft-nose” T-Topped Corvette that Bill Bixby drive in “The Magician”. I remember ogling it and talking with him on adding flares and big fat tires on the back. Jack it up with some Cragars with a polished blower punching out of the hood. He was adamant about it being stock! “No one should destroy a Corvette with such nonsense!” he would exclaim. Needless to say, that was the last time I spoke to him.
Another appearance of a Corvette was short-lived in the 1976 movie Gumball Rally that crashed near the start in NYC. Then a custom Corvette blew my mind in Corvette Summer in 1978. At 16 years old it was like watching a tennis match between this bitchen (and another ’73) Corvette or Annie Potts. Lesson learned, pretty girls always get you in trouble… That’s a story for another time. 🙂
Then there are the ’63 Grand Sports. I thought these cars looked super tough and most likely where I got my fascination with flares, side pipes and wide track tires. At 1000 pounds lighter than stock ’63’s it was made to tackle Ford’s Cobra. After passing AJ Foyt’s Ford, the car was killed by GM execs just a few days after it was launched.
Back to this book
The Complete Book of Corvette by Mike Mueller. Can you call it the Fifth Edition? Mueller has presented four other versions of this book starting back 20 years ago ending with the 2006 Corvette. And subsequent chapters as the marque grew. Pulled out of retirement he sends this one that includes every model from 1953 C1 through the solid axle models, the Stingray’s, Manta Rays, Mako Sharks I and II, ZR1, and to all C8 models. And what a tome it is. Clocking in at nearly 350 page and weighs as much as a t-top. It is a must for any Corvette enthusiast.
Like a lot of books from this genre, it is a beautiful “coffee-table” book. One that someone could pick up and select a chapter of their favorite model, like the ’73 C3 model described above as a star on the small and big screens. All while waiting your turn at canasta. It IS a beautiful book with great photos supplied by GM and professional automotive photographers. The pages are set with easy to read typography and written eloquently as Mike introduces us to friends we may or may not have heard about like Zora Duntov or Robert Lund.
The book travels through time with stops at significant points like the 15 years it took to reach 250,000 units sold, to 8 years later doubling that figure. or in 2009 when Chevrolet built a Stingray concept for the movie Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen. If you have read this far into this review, then you might as well jump online and pick one up for yourself. Listed at $60.00 it is definitely a good buy for any Corvette enthusiast.
