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Here's the story:
Illustrated
Corvette Series No. 116 - 2003 Corvette
"Another
Banner year!"
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!
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