Half of a century had passed since Harley Earl’s dream sports car began its first year of production. In those early days no one would have imagined that the fledgling fiberglass Chevy would become GM’s flagship high-performance car. Although Earl and Duntov were gone, there were plenty of passionate Corvette team members to carry the flame into the 21st century. 2003 was another great year for the Corvette.

By the time the 2003 year wrapped up, Chevrolet sold 35,469 Corvettes. While that wasn’t the best sales year, it was only 158 units off of the ‘02 high of 35,767 units. Actually, Corvette sales were in the 35,000 range from ’01 through ‘04. The base price for the ‘03 Vette was up $2,445 for the coupe to $43,895, although sales were off by 1,948 units. The awesome Z06 however logged in its best sales year with 8,635 units, up 338 units from ’02 with a price of $51,155. Obviously, the $1,005 increase for the Z06 didn’t deter buyers. The convertible price was up $2,395 to $50,370 and sales were up 1,312 units. By the numbers, buyers were more enthusiastic about the roadster and the hardtop Z06 than the coupe. In retrospect, Corvette sales hadn’t been in the 35,000 units range since ‘86!

The big option for ‘03 was the 50th Anniversary Edition. This was a $5,000 option that was available on the coupe and convertible models only. Sorry Z06 buyers. A total of 11,632 units were sold - 4,085 coupes and 7,547 convertibles. The 50th Anniversary Edition accounted for nearly 1/3 of all sales in ’03.

To top things off, the ‘03 Indy 500 was paced by a near-stock 50th Anniversary Edition coupe. This was the fifth time the Corvette paced the Indy 500 race. Most cars that pace the Indy 500 are special enhanced versions, but all the ‘03 Corvette needed was a 5-point safety harnesses and strobe lights to do the job, as everything else on the car was bone stock. There was no “pace car option,” like there was in ’98, but the pace car graphics were available for an additional $495.

And speaking of racing, although the C5-R team did not have its best year, they still took 5 first place and 5 second place wins out of 10 races. The C5-R and later the C6-R racing Corvettes were so domineering that by ‘06, Corvettes had restrictions put upon them so they wouldn’t run away with the show!

From the beginning in ‘53, Corvette advancement has been mostly evolutionary, with an occasional revolutionary leap. Since the C6 Corvette was already in the works, ’03 would be another evolutionary year. No changes were made to the ‘03 engine or drive train. The base LS1 engine still packed 350-horsepower and the Z06 LS6 had 405-horsepower under the hood. Many items that had been previously optional were now standard on the ’03 Vette. Fog lamps, sport seats, power passenger seat, dual-zone air conditioning, parcel net, and luggage shade were now part of the standard Corvette. No doubt, this was part of the $2,445 increase in the base price.

Thanks to tougher occupant protection standards, the ‘03 Corvette was a little safer. The A-pillars on all cars and the A and B-pillars on the coupe and Z06 were beefed up. Z06 headliners were also thicker. And to show that the new Corvette was sensitive to “family needs,” child seat hooks were added to the passenger seat to secure a child’s seat.

Visually the ‘03 Vette saw two new colors arrive and two depart. “Medium Spiral gray” replaced “Pewter,” and “50th Anniversary Red” replaced “Magnetic Red Metallic.”

The most interesting improvement for the ’03 Vette was the new F55 Magnetic-Selective Ride Control option that replaced the previous Selective Real Time option. The new system provided faster response time by using magnetic fluid in the shocks. The synthetic fluid (Magneto-rehological) holds iron particles in suspension. An electronic coil on each shock receives input from a sensor and varies the electrical charge that adjusts the fluid’s viscosity, changing the flow rate of the fluid in the shock. The system is able to adjust the shock damping 1,000 times per second. At 60 miles-per-hour, the system reacts to every inch of the road at every wheel. The new system had no extra moving parts and replaced the previous electro-mechanical version.

With just one year left to the C5 generation, the ‘03 Corvette was as sweet as can be. Customers were lining up to get new Vettes like they hadn’t in 17 years, the 50th Anniversary Edition was truly a collector car, and the C5-R team was still a powerful presence on the race track. Could it get much better? Sure!

Here's the story:
Illustrated Corvette Series No. 117 - 2003 50th Anniversary Corvette
"50 years of Fun"

I’m certain that by the end of 1953, no one in GM imagined that the Corvette would still be in production 50 years later, or that it would have evolved into a world-class sports car. When you look back at what a parts-bin car the ‘53 Vette was, it’s amazing it lasted even a few years, let alone 50-plus. The Corvette was GM Chief of Styling Harley Earl’s home-grown answer for the many GIs who had just returned from the front with a taste for European sports cars. There wasn’t a single American-made sports car in 1953, and frankly, most Americans just didn’t understand the little Chevy.

Were it not for a new material called fiberglass, the Corvette would never have been more than a color rendering. While it was more labor intensive to hand-build all of the body components from fiberglass, it was much less expensive than making tooling for a steel body. Even if the car was a flop, GM’s investment in the project amounted to little more than some wooden molds and a few improved off-the-shelf Chevy parts. What initially looked like a big gamble for GM was really a low-risk wager.

Not everyone inside GM was thrilled with the Corvette, and many wanted to see it go away. Fortunately for the struggling Vette, a passionate Russian engineer named Zora Arkus-Duntov was hired to apply his considerable skills to the car’s development. In short order, Duntov whipped the Corvette into shape and issued a resounding call to action: “Let’s go racing!” Almost overnight, the Corvette went from being a beauty queen to a street-fighting tough guy.

Thanks to his passion for road racing, Duntov was able to imbue the Corvette with a performance bent that never went away. By the time the ‘63 Sting Ray came along, sales were in the 20,000-per-year range, more than enough to ensure the Corvette’s continued existence at GM. With the arrival of the big-blocks in ‘65, Corvette performance achieved legendary status. The Mako Shark-inspired ’68 to ‘82 Corvette was the longest-running of the five generations, and the ’79 model sold an all-time record of 53,807 units. The C4 cars were the ultimate comeback Vettes. Their domination of showroom-stock racing was so complete that they were forced to run in their own series, the Corvette Challenge. In ‘90 we saw the most outrageous production Corvette ever - the double-overhead-cam ZR-1. Costing just over $68,000, it was also the most expensive Vette to date.

When the fifth-generation Vette arrived in ’97, it was like the Sixties all over again. The lightweight, 345hp C5 was as quick as (and much faster than) a ‘66 427 model, got much better gas mileage, and was a lot quieter and more refined. Incredibly, the design of the C5 used some 1,200 fewer parts than the C4. Unlike the ’86 C4 convertible, the C5 was designed from the beginning to be a convertible, making the topless car as rigid as the coupe version. Road testers were astounded at the rigidity of the C5 roadster. The hardtop model that came along in ‘99 as the “affordable” Vette became the “performance Corvette” in ’01, as the 385hp Z06. Corvettes had never been quicker, faster, or better.

The $5,000 ‘03 50th Anniversary option was available on all coupes and convertibles, but not on the Z06. Although the car didn’t have loud, pace-car graphics or add-ons, you couldn’t miss the special Anniversary Red paint, which was designed to glow, rather than sparkle. The exterior included unique front-fender emblems and champagne-color painted wheels. The package also included GM’s latest active-suspension option, the $1,695 Magnetic Selective Ride Control System, as well as the 1SB Preferred Equipment Group. This sub-package included the heads-up display, power telescoping steering column, electro-chromic mirrors, memory package, and Twilight Sentinel.

From the driver’s seat, you couldn’t miss the Anniversary package’s interior trim. The shale-colored cabin featured lighter gray-beige seats and carpeting along with a darker gray-beige console, instrument panel, and upper door panels. Also included were special embroidered logos on the seat headrests and floor mats. Somewhat confusingly, all ‘03 Corvettes had the 50th Anniversary emblems on their hood, rear deck, manual, and key blanks, as well as on the tachometer and speedometer.

Despite the option’s $5,000 price tag, an astounding 11,632 50th Anniversary specials were sold. That’s 32 percent of all ‘03 Corvettes. A loaded Anniversary coupe cost just over $52,600, while the roadster went for just over $58,700. The 50th Anniversary Corvette may not have been the baddest Vette ever made, but it had top-shelf trim and 350 horses under the hood. Sweet!