Legendary car designer Peter Brock, famous for his work on the Corvette Sting Ray concept that would become the C2 and the Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupe, brought his ideal C2 Corvette restomod to SEMA and gave an interesting explanation of its design along with a little history lesson.
“When I designed this car originally, with Bill Mitchell in the studio, the Corvette program had already been cancelled by General Motors,” Mitchell explained. “If Bill Mitchell had not come along, we would not have Corvettes today.”
“When Chevrolet management killed the Corvette program, the reason they killed it is that the C1s were not making any money. That’s what management looked at… without it making any money, the program wasn’t going to continue.”
The first sketches for what would become the C2 were made in 1957. They were based on Mitchell’s direction to design sports cars based on photographs of sleek sports cars that were popular in Europe at the time. Brock said his team was confused that they were designing a new Corvette even though the Corvette program was already dead. When the C2 made it to production for the 1963 model year, Brock had already left GM and was working with Shelby American.
The first thing you’ll notice about Peter Brock’s restomod is a completely smoothed-out front end. Stationary headlights are hidden in the bodywork as opposed to the pop-up headlight design of the production C2. Additionally, all of the vents you see on the car are functional. A dirty secret of the C2 is that those cool hood vents on the ‘63 model were actually fake.
Around the back, the rear end of Peter Brock’s concept looks very similar to the factory C2 at first glance. However, the concept has a slightly raised tailfin and much more glass surface area on the rear windows, allowing for better visibility.
Brock told the tale of Bill Mitchell loving the split window design as an homage to the Bugatti 57SC Atlantic with its dramatic fin over the top of the car, creating split windows in front and back. However, Corvette engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov infamously hated the split window because of its impediment to visibility, leading the now-iconic design to only last for one model year.
Under the skin is an Art Morrison chassis, a C7 Corvette-derived suspension system, and an LS V8 engine, “so you’d have all the latest engineering underneath the car with the original, classic looks that have been with us for 67 years,” capturing the true essence of a restomod.
Comment
I like all the little details except for the placement and style of the headlights. They don’t blend well with the era or cohesiveness of the rest of the car. And given this was intended to recreate a “studio concept” from 67 years ago and as Peter stated retains all the original lines unlike restomods that “widen the fenders”, I personally would have looked to see it retain a C2 chassis and period correct engine. But hey, that’s just my opinion.