Desirable Cars
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Desirable Chevrolets

Corvette chief engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov reportedly called his own design chief a "red-faced baboon" over the 1963 split rear window — and won. It was gone after just one model year.

America's Sports Car, Fully Realised

A reputation that's held remarkably steady across six decades of subsequent generations. Design chief Bill Mitchell insisted the new Sting Ray needed a raised centre spine running the full length of the car, continuing straight through the rear window as a genuine styling signature, but chief engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov argued furiously that splitting the glass dangerously obstructed rear visibility. Mitchell won the initial argument for 1963, but customer complaints and safety concerns proved Duntov right, and the split window was replaced with a single pane the very next year — making the 1963 coupe, of which just 10,594 were built, the single most collectible year of the entire C2 generation today.

That same tension between styling ambition and genuine engineering discipline defined the whole era, running straight through to the Camaro Z/28's genuinely track-focused reputation by the end of the decade. Below is the model we've covered so far.