The Corvette SS was the first in a long line of great "what if" cars from Chevrolet. The idea of using racing to inspire sales was relatively new to Detroit in the '50s. After great press with the SR-2, it was time to take on Europe's finest and race at Le Mans.

The D-type Jaguar was "the" car to beat in '56. Harley Earl shook up everyone by bringing in the No. 3 '56 Sebring winner, a D-type Jaguar, with the intention of fitting it with a Chevy engine and a modified body, and calling it a Corvette!

Zora Arkus-Duntov was outraged and began his own plan for a Le Mans racer. Duntov's plan was quickly approved and the Corvette SS racer was born. But time was not on their side.
It was summer of '56 and a Sebring debut was only nine months away. Duntov hand picked his crew and began working day and night. Since his crew had never built such a car, Duntov bought a Mercedes 300SL tube frame to use as a model for the chassis.
When the car arrived at Sebring it was still being worked on in the transporter. Although not as refined as it looked due to little track development time, the car was stunning.

The steel blue racer looked like an exotic European. Although most of the parts were off the shelf or bought, the entire car was handmade. Parts were cast in aluminum where possible. The body was even made out of ultralight magnesium! The Corvette SS weighed in at 1850, 100 pounds less that the D-type Jag.
Things went badly on the track due to a lack of time. Duntov had a sister "mule" car that was used for testing. The mule actually ran better than the finished car. The new braking system never got sorted out and the magnesium body made the interior very hot.

The untested car had many problems and only ran 23 laps before it had to retire. In June of '57 GM decided to adhere to the AMA ban on factory-supported racing, thus ending the Corvette SS project. As a last hurrah in December of '58 at the Phoenix test track, the car ran 183 mph! If only...

The Corvette SS was the first in a long line of great "what if" cars from Chevrolet. The idea of using racing to inspire sales was relatively new to Detroit in the '50s. After great press with the SR-2, it was time to take on Europe's finest and race at Le Mans.

The D-type Jaguar was "the" car to beat in '56. Harley Earl shook up everyone by bringing in the No. 3 '56 Sebring winner, a D-type Jaguar, with the intention of fitting it with a Chevy engine and a modified body, and calling it a Corvette!
Zora Arkus-Duntov was outraged and began his own plan for a Le Mans racer. Duntov's plan was quickly approved and the Corvette SS racer was born. But time was not on their side.
It was summer of '56 and a Sebring debut was only nine months away. Duntov hand picked his crew and began working day and night. Since his crew had never built such a car, Duntov bought a Mercedes 300SL tube frame to use as a model for the chassis.
When the car arrived at Sebring it was still being worked on in the transporter. Although not as refined as it looked due to little track development time, the car was stunning.

The steel blue racer looked like an exotic European. Although most of the parts were off the shelf or bought, the entire car was handmade. Parts were cast in aluminum where possible. The body was even made out of ultralight magnesium! The Corvette SS weighed in at 1850, 100 pounds less that the D-type Jag.
Things went badly on the track due to a lack of time. Duntov had a sister "mule" car that was used for testing. The mule actually ran better than the finished car. The new braking system never got sorted out and the magnesium body made the interior very hot.

The untested car had many problems and only ran 23 laps before it had to retire. In June of '57 GM decided to adhere to the AMA ban on factory-supported racing, thus ending the Corvette SS project. As a last hurrah in December of '58 at the Phoenix test track, the car ran 183 mph! If only...

In light of the new C5 Corvette, the 1957 Q-Corvette is not only the most forgotten Corvette, but the most profound of all concept Corvettes! Mechanical designs for the C5 were actually laid out in this very unique 1957 prototype.

Early in 1957, Chevrolet was in the beginning stages of developing a completely new small car concept that would eventually become the Corvair. Corvette designers saw that the transaxle and independent rear suspension from the Corvair could be used to develop a totally new and revolutionary Corvette. With this exotic piece of hardware, Zora Arkus-Duntov and his designers saw this as a golden opportunity for a new and very different Corvette for 1960.

The rear mounted transmission/axle helped balance the weight of the Corvette. Drum brakes were mounted inboard to reduce unsprung weight. Even the starter motor was on the transaxle for weight balancing. The transaxle case was aluminum and could be offered as either a 4-speed manual or automatic.

Up front an all-aluminum, fuel-injected 283 engine with a dry-sump oil system was proposed. There were to be no steel valve guides, valve seats or piston sleeves. This was to help achieve the target weight of 2,225 pounds.

The proposed structure of the Q-Corvette was a steel platform similar to the 356 Porsche. Because of the transmission location, the interior would have been larger, even though the length and height were smaller than
the production Corvette. The fastback roof had a permanent arch behind the cockpit and removable roof panels. At the leading edge of the windshield, there were no A-pillars.

Bill Mitchell suggested to stylists Bob Veryzer and Pete Brock that the styling should come from the slimness of the Pininfarina / Abarth cars with a strong horizontal line and bulges over the wheels in the upper surfaces. The pointed nose had driving lights in the grille opening and manually operated pop-up headlights. Mitchell's Sting Ray Racer used most of the same styling ideas.

By the late 50's the economy was in bad shape, so GM killed the expensive Q-Corvette. As it was, Corvettes were hardly profitable. So the Q-Corvette was an on-paper and clay-only prototype with some great ideas that took 30 years to produce.

Here's the story:
Kit Car Profile No. 24 - 1957 Corvette

1957 was a pivotal year for the Corvette. Chevy's little beauty queen became a brute! America became a car-culture in the '50s. Hot rods were born and sports cars were coming from Europe. Chevrolet got into the act with the Harley Earl-designed, American sports car, the Corvette.

In the early '50s, American car makers knew very little about building sports cars. Earl's Corvette blew everyone away at the 1953 Motorama Show and it was rushed into production, using off-the-shelf Chevy sedan parts. Because no one was sure that the public would actually buy the Corvette, it was decided to use a new material called "fiberglass." If the car was a flop, GM wouldn't be out big-bucks for steel tooling.
A fiberglass body could be built from easily molded parts. Thus the Corvette became America's first production fiberglass car.

Unfortunately, the Corvette's performance wasn't on par with its looks. They tried, but the little Blue Flame-Six and 2-speed Powerglide transmission weren't making it with the sports car or hot rod crowd. Sales were dismal. In the first three years, Chevrolet only sold 4,640 Corvettes. Ford, on the other hand, sold 16,155 Thunderbirds in 1955 alone! Clearly, the Corvette needed something big. The best thing that Chevrolet did to ensure the Corvette's success, was to hire Zora Arkus-Duntov, and to name him to the position of "Director of High Performance Vehicle Design and Development." The Corvette never had a better champion. In a few years, Duntov turned the beauty queen into a brute.

When the new 265 V-8 small-block Chevy came out in '55, Duntov made sure there was a juiced up version for the Corvette. As wonderful as the Motorama Corvette was, the restyling of the '56 Corvette was better. No one noticed or cared that the styling cues were picked up from the Mercedes 300 SL. The new Corvette was taught, aggressive, and hot, because it now packed a dual-quad 265-cubic-inch engine with 255 horsepower. And thanks to the back-door racing efforts of Duntov, the Corvette was beginning to be taken seriously on the race track as well.

When the '57 Fuel Injected Corvette was released, it was as if the Vette was finally "finished and complete." Fuel injection was exotic stuff in '57, and only found on exotic race cars from Europe. It was the ticket for serious road racers because it eliminated the problem of carburetor "slosh" that racers would experience in hard cornering and when slowing down. The system gave a smooth and even inflow of gas under any condition.

More efficiency means more horsepower. The 283 '57 Fuelie engine made 283 hp at 6,200 rpm. The high-winding, high horsepower engine put the Corvette on the performance map. Duntov also made sure that the suspension was up to handling the extra power. One magazine tested a Fuelie and ran 0-to-60 in just 5.7 seconds, the quarter mile in 14.3 seconds, and hit a top speed of 132 mph!

Duntov cast in stone the Corvette's racing tradition by taking four race-prepared Corvettes to Sebring where they set records against Europe's finest. The '57 Fuelie option cost $484 and was only ordered on 1,040 of the 6,339 Corvettes sold that year. Corvettes were now "performance cars" that were somewhat affordable to the average person, and they make a great replicar.