1977 Chevrolet Corvette 4-Speed

The Chevrolet Corvette  is a sports car that was produced from 1967 until 1982 by Chevrolet for the 1968 to 1982 model years. Engines and chassis components were mostly carried over from the previous generation, but the body and interior were new. It set new sales records with 53,807 produced for the 1979 model year.

This is America’s heavy-hitter sports car of which we speak. As a racer, it beat back Mercedes-Benzes and Jaguars on American road courses in the late 1950s. As a street machine it was the freestyle trolling-for-girls champion in any American town you can name. If you are a real Corvette Guy, you can remember when this car was the latest and greatest thing wherever it went. Talk about adulation. Corvette drivers were celebrities, even if they had holes in their socks.

So how come the new model is so cautious and conservative? If America loved Corvettes when they were wild, why is Chevrolet making them dignified?

It turns out that America loves Corvettes any way it can get them. Chevrolet is building them in record numbers, raising the price to unprecedented heights — and the entire model year’s production still sells out before the spring thaw. We must conclude that, even though the Corvette is a barefaced composite of old ideas, it has little competition in the American marketplace.

This 1977 Chevrolet Corvette is finished in yellow over a brown interior and powered by a 350ci V8 mated with a four-speed manual transmission. Features include body-colored removable T-top panels, power windows, chrome rocker trim.

Slotted 15” alloy wheels are mounted with 225/70 BFGoodrich Radial T/A tires. Work in May 2020 including overhauling the front suspension and replacing the steering box as well as the front brake rotors and pads.

The interior is trimmed in brown vinyl along with matching door panels and carpeting. Amenities include power windows, matching seatbelts, a map pocket in the dashboard, air conditioning, and a Delco eight-track tape player linked with aftermarket speakers mounted in the rear cargo area. A leather-wrapped steering wheel fronts a 160-mph speedometer and a 7k-rpm tachometer, along with auxiliary gauges housed in the center stack.

Despite the Corvette’s reputation as the behemoth of sports cars, it is a highly maneuverable car with hair-trigger steering. Until you get used to the quickness, which is even more abrupt than the 2.9 turns lock-to-lock would suggest, you carve a notchy path down the freeway. And some folks are not going to like that.

But we’re not “some folks,” and if Corvettes were perfectly acceptable to every little old lady with a driver’s license, they wouldn’t be much as sports cars. This latest Corvette model may be more accommodating than its predecessors, but it’s not that accommodating.