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Here's the story:
lIlustrated Corvette Series No. 26 - 1965
Mako Shark II - "Simply Stunning"
Bill Mitchell and Larry Shinoda scored big in the automotive world with
the 1965 Mako Shark II Show Car. It was a total original, nothing was like it,
and it just screamed, CORVETTE !
Bill Mitchell started working on the
next generation Corvette the day production on the 1963 Corvette started. He
knew that things change quickly in automotive styling , so it was critical that
he go way outside the envelope. The first step was to build a functional, single
seat, open-wheeled car that would push everything to the extreme. The "X-15",
named after the experimental U.S. Air Force jet, was never shown to the public
and was later sent to the crusher.
Shinoda and crew had to make a real
car now. The styling elements of the hood bulge and the side exhausts were taken
directly from the X-15 exercise. Back tracking from the extreme, Mitchell set
the guidelines.
He wanted the following; "a narrow, slim, center section
and coupe body, a tapered tail, an all-of-a-piece blending of the upper and
lower portions of the body through the center (avoiding the look of a roof added
to a body), and prominent wheels with their protective fenders distinctly
separate from the main body, yet grafted organically to it."
The
full-size mock-up just blew everyone away. Built on a production Corvette
chassis, the Mako Shark also had a mocked- up interior.
The Mako Shark II
had an interesting blend of soft curves and sharp break-lines. The tucked in
center section, called the "coke-bottle" gave the center of the car a taut, trim
look, while the curved fender lines made the car look like it had been working-
out. The low, pointed nose made a bold statement while the tapered and pointed
tail gave the car a high-speed, wind-swept look.
Since the Mako Shark II
was a show-car, it had plenty of gimmicks and was overdone here and there. Some
of the grille vents and other details were a little fussy. However, compared
with other cars in 1965, the Mako Shark was a vision of the future.
When
the car was shown at the New York International Auto Show in April 1965, the
press and the public went wild. It was called beautiful, embellished,
convoluted, aerodynamic, perfect, and many other things. And this was only the
mock-up. On October 5, 1965 the fully functional Mako Shark II arrived. Oh
WOW!
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