Aug
27
Both cars date back to 1953, and both were sensibly based on reliable components well tried in day-to-day saloons, but while the Triumph was aimed at the driver for whom wind, water and imminent death were masochist delights, the Corvette’s driver was to be a softie, even a woman for whom, as one American reviewer put it, ‘three-tone colour schemes and frilly curtains” must be among the accessories demanded by ‘the lady of the house”.
No motoring journalist now, not even Jeremy Clarkson, would dare to affront the thought police with such misogynist sentiments, but there was serious substance in these political incorrectitudes, for Chevrolet’s panjandrums had funked the decision to build an out-and- out sports car, and had forced a compromise on the Corvette’s engineers and designers. It was to be a ’sportster’, a boulevard cruiser, and the most dashing of shopping-trolleys at the supermarket, but ” and Chevrolet’s official brief was clearly couched in the negative ” ‘it is not intended to be a racing sports car”.
