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Episode 85: Zora (Arkus-Duntov)'s Domain
Episode 85: Zora (Arkus-Duntov)'s Domain
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About this episode
Delving into the legacy of the Corvette, this episode explores its evolution from a stylish sports car to an American icon of performance. The hosts discuss Zora Arkus-Duntov's pivotal role in transforming the Corvette into a serious competitor on the racetrack, while also addressing the cultural perceptions surrounding the car. They touch on the Corvette's accessibility compared to European counterparts and how this democratization affects its status. The conversation weaves in personal anecdotes, historical context, and a critique of automotive elitism, making for a thought-provoking discussion on what the Corvette represents in American car culture.
Topics:
zora arkus-duntov
corvette history
performance cars
cultural perceptions
democratization of cars
automotive elitism
affordability
american sports car
engine technology
car ownership stereotypes
Cars:
Buick Century
Chevrolet Camaro
Chevrolet Corvette
Ferrari 250 GTO
Ford Capri
Ford F-150
Ford GT
Ford Mustang
Ford Thunderbird
Mazda MX-5 / Miata
Pontiac Solstice
Porsche 911
Our long-promised song preview episode is that next one in the Patreon feed. This is kind of the first half, teeing up the subject of this pair of episodes! But before we get into the song itself, we've got updates on Rory's Porsche 911, a bunch of Corvette history, and our best guesses at what went on in peak Boomer TV.
Subscribe to the Alloy newsletter to keep up with Rory & Fernando, who are here to fix your internet: https://alloymag.com/
Pre-order Peter's new record Half-Staff Blues here: https://peterpeterhughes.bandcamp.com/album/half-staff-blues
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Chevrolet Corvette
"...d be like, no, this rips. This is great. I have a Corvette. But today, if you say this shit sucks, everyone'..."
Car
Ford F150
"But she was like, what's the performative man car? And I was like, it is, unfortunately, either a 90s F-150 or a air cooled Manila. Like destroyed space laser."
Car
Ferrari 250 GTO
"...y, you know, it's like this like E type, like the 250 GTO, like all those cars, like those 60 sports cars t..."
Car
Ford Thunderbird
"...orvette came out in in 53 and Ford introduced the Thunderbird in 55, which initially was, you know, a sporty tw..."
Car
Ford Gts
"...u know, Ford has built a couple of generations of Ford GTs that are much, much kind of rarer and higher end,"
Car
Pontiac Solstice
"...e kind of race car knockoffs. Saturn Sky, Pontiac Solstice. What's that Saturn Sky?"
Car
Mazda MX-5 / Miata
"...the Australian. Yeah, the front front front drive Miata. Like, why would you fucking buy that car?"
Car
Ford Mustang
"...ou know, not like not not affordable, like like a Mustang or a Camaro, right? But, you know, it's it's set ..."
Car
Chevrolet Camaro
"...like not not affordable, like like a Mustang or a Camaro, right? But, you know, it's it's set above that."
Car
Buick Century
"... has represented, you know, over more than half a century now is is kind of like the democratization of"
Select text to request an explanation
Couldn't sleep last night.
Oh, bummer.
So I was up until like three or something.
Yeah.
And then I woke up and it was seven and I was like, okay, back to sleep and then I woke up
and it was like, oh, it's 8.40.
That's true.
So that gives me time to make coffee.
There you go.
Reboot the computer.
I had to get up and take Christina's dad to the airport at five.
And then I dropped him off and he's like, well, should have plenty of time to get through
security and I was like, what time's your flight?
It's like 7.30.
I was like, you do not need to be up at five.
The Traverse City Airport.
Yeah, we arrived at the airport at 5.08.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You could have got here at 7.
Right.
And run fine.
I'm going to get the computer.
Take your time.
Yeah.
Rochester Airport is like that too where it's just like, you know, everybody has this fucking
two-hour thing in their heads like, dude, you don't know.
That's like if you're flying out of O'Hare or LAX or Logan or Atlanta or JFK.
Or JFK.
Yeah, it's just show up 30 minutes before my boarding and it's always fine.
I've only missed one flight in all of my travel.
I'm just obsessively early to everything so airports are just like more of the same.
But I also have had bad luck with airports.
And so I just like, I'm in a budget at the time just in case.
Yeah.
I one time was playing that game going to Sweden and got stuck in traffic and missed
my flight and then really fucked up the whole press trip that I was on because I, they were
like in Sweden one night and then they went to Germany and like it was, it was very bad
and very embarrassing.
But like I said, usually it's fine.
So.
All right.
I'm going to close my blue sky tab talking about Jordan Thompson for five minutes
because I have to get into album mode and my car and driver tab with engine.
My video, my video disappeared.
Hmm.
Can still see you.
Yeah, I can.
Yeah, I can.
I can hear it.
You guys just, oh, wait, now it's coming back.
The connection is due to problems with your network.
Um, you know, we might be having network problems.
I did notice I got an alert overnight that.
Because our thermostat has an app now because you can't because if you get a new
thermostat at some point in your house, I know, it has to have an app now.
Yeah.
Um, I have a small stockpile of dumb thermostats
that I bought the hardware clearance.
Yeah, that's a very good idea.
Anyway, but but I guess the one useful thing is that if the internet goes down
overnight or at some point when I'm not home.
I get an alert on my phone saying that the thermostat app can't connect to the
network.
And so even though like everything has gone back online by the time I wake up.
Yeah.
Um, I know, oh, there was an outage.
There's some funkiness going on.
Nice.
But it seems like we're back in business here.
Cool.
I do think I do think that.
There should be there should be a price extracted.
Any time somebody wants you to to download an app.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Like you should either pay me or you should have to,
you know, hurt yourself in some way.
I think that's fair.
I think you should you should incur you should incur some some sort of,
I think physical penalty like a little zap every time you force someone to
download the thermostat app, you coded, you get a little shock.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, like, or just, you know,
I mean, it's, you know, it's back to school time.
So it's like, oh, there's, you know, this this class is on this app and this
class is on this app and your parents have to sign up and the, you know,
the field hockey team is on this app and it's just like.
That's so hateful.
Yes.
Yes.
Enough.
Enough with the fucking apps.
What is the fear of talking to me?
If you're asking me to.
It's just I don't like it.
I don't like it.
I'm getting I'm getting it like I really am feeling my old manness
lately of just like being like, I think like, I feel like there should be
it's I mean, it's the classic old man trope of just being angry, right?
Of just being being mad that that that the world
is not like I like it.
Yeah, it isn't, you know, it's it's it's it's different now.
And
and it's like things have gotten worse.
And it's like in every every fucking generation of people,
I'm fairly confident throughout human history
has been convinced, has been convinced that
that that the world has gone to shit.
But
but I kind of feel like like if you were if you were a 55 year old man in
Russia in 1995 or six,
I think you could make
a pretty good case.
You'd be correct that that your world was in fact worse.
Yeah, like by a lot.
I think in this case, too,
the difference is like if you were an old man in 1950s America and you're like,
this sucks, these fucking sock hops or whatever.
All the kids would be like, no, this rips.
This is great. I have a Corvette.
But today, if you say this shit sucks, everyone's like, yeah, no, this sucks.
Everyone, yeah, teenagers.
We're all gonna kill everybody.
It's like everyone.
This time really going to do it.
It's not just the old people.
It's like, no, this is no one.
No one is serious.
It's kind of intergenerational, unanimous.
That's great.
Yippee.
Speaking of what are we here to talk about today, boyos?
Well, we got some news.
I got the injectors back for the 9-11.
That's good.
I don't know.
Sixty five dollars.
All in.
It was, yeah, I think it was like six five bucks.
Six times 15.
Is that 90 bucks?
Yeah.
But it was as opposed to like six hundred dollars was my initial
outlay, but it they did.
They're like painted black and I had like marked them so that I'd make sure
that I get the correct ones back and they came back unpainted.
So presumably whatever they soaked them in took all the pain off of them,
hopefully, but I installed them and they work.
There's like the fuel pressure seems low because it doesn't want to idle.
And it does the like really slow, but like you can sit and rev the car
and it runs like the engine spins at full engine speed,
which is a huge deal.
That's like that motor has not turned under its own power in
probably 10 years, 10 plus years.
Exciting.
So it sounds incredible.
It sounds very healthy and which is also funny because like I don't know how
many miles around that motor and I don't know if it's ever been rebuilt.
I don't know like it's ever been fucked with.
True. Yeah.
And my everybody in 9-11 world is like, oh,
you need to be rebuilding that every 100,000 miles or so.
And it's like, yeah, I mean, maybe I do.
Maybe I don't. Let's let's see.
You're going to make me.
Yeah, really.
I think the engine will eventually make me.
Yeah. Well, that's that's what what do you do for an engine?
I mean, you Rory.
I know that there are things that one is not what one do, but what does Rory do?
Right.
With an engine that that's been sitting well for 10 years.
There's a lot you can do.
I don't do any of it.
Yeah, that's my question.
The answer is I know I know that there would be, you know, it's like,
I mean, at a minimum,
you make sure that that new oil is in is in there.
Yeah.
And and I'm sure there are other other considerations.
Yeah, you can like, you know, put the seafoam on the on the in the cylinders to
make sure that everything is like Lucy Goosey when you fire at it or whatever.
But like I will say like my
strategy such as it is with this is like I was keeping oil fine.
Yeah, but I will I did have motor in the engine the entire time.
And then I also like
would periodically turn it on the key just
just like to keep it moving, like to keep things lubricated.
So it's like there's oil in the cylinder or in the,
you know, there's oil being circulated on all the internal parts.
And like it's not rusting in there and getting seized up.
That was kind of like my, you know, like I said, I could have done other
things, but those those 3.2 how often would you turn it like once a year?
Yeah, I once or twice a year.
And like those motors are pretty beefy.
And I was like I'm just not super worried about it.
And it's also like, I don't know.
This is very stupid, but it's like
if I did blow it up, like I can rebuild the motor.
Like I just take it apart, you know what I mean?
Like which is crazy.
Like rebuilding an analog motor is not rebuilding a small block.
But it's been sitting for so long.
Anyways, it's kind of like it's not like you're counting on it to to run.
So yeah, yeah, kind of that makes sense.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's it's fine.
And it, you know what?
Once again, it was fine.
It turned over and runs great.
So easy.
Take that universe.
Do those do those engines have like the what do they call it?
Like the Nica SIL liners or whatever that kind of wear out.
So yeah, it's like a nickel thing.
I think they I think it does.
And that's something that's something that would require a rebuild periodically,
right, just for that, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And I think like at some point I will pull that motor out and send it away
and have somebody to like a ten thousand dollar
rebuild on it.
This is this is not that time for me in my life.
This is the time where you where you cheap out on the
on the fuel injector cleaning spray some WD 40 in there and just pray.
Yeah, so I think, you know, at some point,
you know, I would like to have like have that motor built into like a bigger
like the hotter motor with more modern fuel injection and
try to get a little more power out of it.
But right now it's like, if this thing can get me up the road before it snows,
we're going to be thrilled with that.
So got to get those those injectors repainted in time for the first concor concor.
Right. Yeah.
You know, you don't want to get docked.
Yeah, that would be incorrect.
There's a couple other things on there.
Injectors that would maybe get me before they got to the injectors.
But
that thing, it is all reversible.
I haven't cut anything, which is more than a lot of people can say.
But it is
very different from the way that it left Stuttgart.
I mean, I think that's that's
I think that's in keeping with the with the the
philosophy of all air cooled porches.
I agree. I think one that is completely stock is is like, what are you doing?
Yeah. And I also think like my
it's like I already feel like it air cooled porches like not
a great representation of like
my personal taste in automobiles.
Right. But a really nice one would be like way, you know what I mean?
Like like a scruffy one.
Right. A beater.
A beater fits. Yeah, that works.
You don't you don't have to.
That was the lull put on
Instagram a few weeks ago.
What's the new performative man car?
You know, Maddie, are you familiar with the performative man
trope or like the performative man?
It's like the guy who has a the
Japanese tote bag, drinks matcha, has the crop, crop T-shirt.
Yeah, you know the guy.
But it's like a man who are performing
the role of like sensitive, emotionally in touch type of guy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But she was like, what's the performative man car?
And I was like, it is, unfortunately, either a 90s F-150 or a air cooled Manila.
Like destroyed space laser.
I think that's
yeah, it's like the Silver Lake guy drives the F-150 and the Brooklyn guy
aspires to drive the air cooled 9-11.
I'm glad an old I'm glad an old sob is
now sobs are too no, we're nowhere near that that list for the real heads.
So an old sob is not any kind of man's car anymore.
Like I don't you don't see sobs at all.
Like you see him.
It is weird how they really disappeared.
Like even car shows and like
you would expect, you know, you'd expect
like you see 10 10 air cooled 9-11s to to zero sobs.
Yeah, which is very strange.
But what does it say if you are 65 and you buy a mid-engine Corvette?
What is that projecting about a man, Peter?
That's a good question.
Well, we should we should get into that.
Before we do that, I just the thing that you were talking about
Rory with the the performative man, man car.
It just it just reminded me of this
this Tumblr post that I screen capped and was was meant to send you guys.
I forgot because I was in the middle of making dinner and it just reads.
And I don't know who this person is that posted it.
They say you watch a car commercial and the car is presented as a masculinity
carapace and this idea persists as if we don't all know that the car is actually
a second womb and every arrival and subsequent exit from the vehicle is a rebirth.
Well, it's obvious why straight men feel such an attachment and doubly obvious
why they don't want you to know the trained eye can locate the mother wound
of every car driver within seconds.
Holy shit.
So good.
Air horn, air horn, air horn, you don't you don't get that on on other social.
Can't get that on Blue Sky.
No, that's a killer.
That's great. That's good shit.
Destroyed there.
Perfect.
The inherently yonic nature of the car user.
I I fit.
Uh huh.
I don't know what else I've I've I've a genia complex if a genia complex.
I'm sure that's a reference to something I can't call up on the idea.
People on Tumblr like I went to grad school and I'm like, that's great.
I'll just I'll take whatever you got.
I educated people into very arcane shit.
Yeah, I I I have to
studiously avoid people with that kind of insight because they feel like I'm
always right around the corner of someone pointing something like that out to
me and being like, oh, fucked up my whole life.
Like I'm like, I love it.
I'm seeing the world a different way.
And I know less employable than ever.
I crave a horrible epiphany every second of my life.
I want them all more and more every day.
I've had a few of those.
You crave it.
I crave it. Give it to me.
They're pushing me down.
I think I've I've had a few too many.
You read Minima Moralia because you just want to like gorge yourself on horrible
little epiphanies. I
I think I yeah, I think like I said,
each one of the big epiphanies pushes you further and further into
unemployability and and every every step.
Yeah, sometimes literally.
Yeah.
No, for real. Yeah.
But yeah, we don't need more of those.
I don't need to be more actualized and more aware of my own.
Problems.
We're good on that, as I say.
The pod is tired.
The car podcast for people who understand that cars
are bad with your friends, Rory Carroll, Manny Riley, me, Peter Hughes.
But yeah, let's should we should we talk about
some some some some some Corvettes?
Let's get into it in some songs.
Yeah, it's funny.
It's
we are coming up on.
Well,
it's Tuesday as we're recording this
a week from this Friday will be the day that
the album comes out and is the album that I made.
And
but that Friday is also and this was not planned.
It's also the day of the the Watkins Glen Festival.
How do we find Gramp Grand Prix Festival, which is the
we talked about it last year.
Oh, yeah, first up that yeah, the fun
thing that they do in the village of Watkins Glen, New York
in conjunction with the historic races, the vintage races that they have there
every year, the Friday before that they have this big kind of Grand Prix
festival celebrating the history of racing in Watkins Glen.
And it's it's one of my favorite automotive events, something I try to make
every every year that I'm in town, which now that
is every year, which from going forward should be every year.
But it's also the last year when when I went to to this thing,
it it inspired a song.
And it was actually on the drive home that I started composing it in my
noggin while under the influence of the day's events.
I mean, the Corvette
and the Corvette came out in 1953 as General Motors,
Chevrolet's kind of.
I mean, it was it it was like an upmarket
kind of sporty car, I think kind of, you know, European inspired, you know,
inspired by the European sports cars of the day, but kind of an American take
on it.
I mean, initially a six cylinder has not always been been V8 to speed
automatic.
Right.
So I mean, so the original that the the what we now refer to as C1 Corvettes,
I think we've talked about this on the pod before, but it is funny how at
at some point during my lifetime, that convention of referring to the the
generations of Corvettes as C followed by a number
became a thing that was not always the case.
I mean, when I was when I was getting into cars,
nobody was talking about C3 Corvettes or C4.
You know, when the when what we now call the C4 Corvette,
which came out in 1983 and a half,
nobody was calling it the C4
that that I think happened some some time around.
I think it was C5 was the first five or six.
That that might be that might be right.
Yeah.
And that might be the way that it kind of snuck into my consciousness because
that was at a time when I wasn't paying a ton of attention to car stuff.
I remember when that car came out.
I remember when it was in the showroom of the Chevy dealer right down the street
from Casa de Badger, where I lived with my bandmate, Franklin Bruno.
And
it's like, oh, new Corvette kind of looks like the old one.
But but yeah, so so so the Corvette was
it pretty quickly became I mean it it quickly changed from from being this kind
of like sort of sophisticated upmarket thing to being having a little bit more
aspirations to being like an actual sports car, right?
I would say like the the the in the second half of the fifties that got,
you know, with with the introduction of the of the V8 and
got got a bit a bit sportier.
And then
there was one one guy really behind that Zora
Arcus Duntov, who is a Russian, very interesting character in his own right.
But he he was the one who kind of like
pushed this from like a styling exercise to like, OK, this is going to be a
performance car, but he was the V8.
He was the manual transmission like he was like,
you know, driving that within General Motors to make this into like a
very serious car and and pushing it into into competition at a time when
when General Motors was not doing that officially.
So it's kind of like kind of figuring out these ways
to to to get the Corvette into racing.
But yeah, so so as later fifties like
Zora kind of moved it pushed it in this this kind of like
more legitimately sporting direction.
And then with the the the second generation Corvette, which came out in in
sixty three, a lot more.
That was a fully fledged sports car.
That was yeah, it wasn't like a cute car that they made into a sports car.
It was like this was a sports car from the jump.
Exactly. Yeah.
I mean, the whole plan, I mean, you know, and and and fairly, you know,
had some some advanced technology for for the day, you know, four wheel discs
at a time when when that was, you know,
unusual.
Yeah, still still far from being
standard practice.
I mean, just even even just disc brakes
like two wheel discs were not were not a fully adopted thing at that point.
Yeah, fully independent suspension when when that was a pretty advanced thing
and would still continue to be for a long time.
And yeah, that was that was in and, you know, in that car.
Yeah, that was a fast car and had some real competition success.
I think this is this is something I think like it's really to like part of the
Corvette thing.
But because C2 Corvettes, this generation of Corvettes are so.
They were so popular, they sold a lot of them.
They're everyone probably listening to the pot has probably seen one in real
life, but they're very like
they're common, right?
Like there's a car that you've you've seen, you see them online all the time.
They really
it's like hard, hard to appreciate how insane they look in real life and how
insane they must have looked in 1963, like in the context of 1963.
Like it is a phenomenal looking car
and really, really exotic.
Like if you if you want to one of Bill Mitchell's like, like straight up fucking
masterpieces, yeah, I think like, yeah, one of the one of the all time best looking
car, they just like it, but it's hard to appreciate again, because it's like
you've been seeing them since you were three years old or whatever.
But they really are stunning.
And like as a product, this is like the other thing that like
these 60s Mitchell
GM cars that we've talked about on the pod before, but it's like the idea that you
could just go to a dealership in 1963 and buy a car that looked like that is
bonkers, like and like even like the the working day
Chevrolet's and stuff like also look bonkers.
But like this is a really, you know, it's like this like E type,
like the 250 GTO, like all those cars, like
those 60 sports cars that the Corvette is not
worth anywhere near what those cars are worth from a value standpoint, from a
monetary standpoint, but like and I don't think it's really appreciated in the same
way, especially by Americans as those cars are, but like really as a design
statement, yeah, absolutely, absolutely shocking looking car and like still to
this day looks gorgeous.
I mean, just just an incredible, incredible, like you said, work of art.
Like it's a very, very pretty thing.
But it's just like that's the thing with the Corvette thing is like, you know,
there's no reason why these cars should not be appreciated on the same level
as an E type or whatever.
But they're not and they're like they're just not.
It's just like, you know, it's just at the end of the day, it's just a
Corvette, like it's a car that you could buy from Chevy and like they made
whatever hundreds of thousands of them and like you see them everywhere.
And yeah, it's just not.
Doesn't it doesn't have that that that aura of rarity.
But yeah, and and and I think it was probably around this this time.
And we're talking about kind of early 60s that
and I just thought thought of this just now.
But to talk about it to
talk about it as as as kind of its its cultural meaning
started started coalesce and I think a big a big factor in that.
And this is this is kind of secondhand
boomer stuff.
This is not anything that I grew up with with
awareness of other than just, you know, reading about it.
But but that show Route 66, which was
which I've never watched, but a
early American TV show about a couple of
buds, a couple of dudes, young dudes who
you get in a Corvette and and drive back and forth on Route 66.
I don't know.
Do they just make like one trip?
I don't know what several years.
Yeah, I don't know what the conceit of how the show actually worked.
But I think one of them's name was Buzz.
And I don't remember the name like Buzz and Tad or something like that.
But
but yeah, the show kind of follows their their adventures
on the open road as like young men in search of of of, you know, fun and excitement.
You know, you know, a very kind of American conceit of
the the lure of of, you know, I mean, nothing a bit of
you know, just the fucking, you know, the
the ancient tired trope of, you know, the automobile equals freedom, right?
I think I think this was a big a big part in in kind of cementing that idea.
And
and yeah, and the and the Corvette
being being pretty integral to to this this show.
And and
I think it kind of kind of cemented the the idea of of this car as being like
this this kind of
aspirational thing like a vehicle, no pun intended,
you know, to
to adventure and excitement and and the the lure of the open road and
and kind of a celebration of of all of these these kind of, you know,
American ideals that that we hold dear
and
and and and at a time when when there was
there really wasn't any other
American car that that
suited that in quite the same way.
I mean, Ford Ford kind of, you know,
I mean, the original Corvette came out in in 53 and Ford introduced the Thunderbird
in 55, which initially was, you know, a sporty two-seater kind of in the in the same
mold as the original Corvette, but but very quickly kind of steered that to in
another direction, kind of towards, you know, your your classic personal luxury
thing, whereas the Corvette kind of
went from being kind of a boulevardier
to to being like more to being like an actual sports car.
And so so it it kind of quickly
was, you know, just just kind of came to to be regarded as America's sports car,
you know, in quotations.
And and and I mean, really, to this day, I mean, has has kind of, I mean,
for for for many of the years since that was that was a pretty uncontested
position.
Periodically, there have been there have been, you know,
additional sports cars that that that that you would have to consider,
whether it's, you know, a Viper or,
you know, Ford has built a couple of generations of Ford GTs that are much,
much kind of rarer and higher end,
you know, pure kind of race car knockoffs.
Saturn Sky, Pontiac Solstice.
What's that Saturn Sky?
Yeah, let's not forget about those.
Fierro, don't forget Fierro.
Yeah.
What else is in there?
Maybe. Yeah.
The Mercury Capri.
Oh, right.
The the Australian.
Yeah, the front front front drive Miata.
Like, why would you fucking buy that car?
Yeah.
But yeah, the the.
Yeah. And over.
So in the sixties,
like, I feel like that's where that really kind of solidified that that idea
of of of the Corvette as as that.
But the the other part of it, though,
that I think it's it's important to to
to mention is
is the fact that
while it was aspirational,
it was always something that
was
within the realm of affordability for a working class person.
This was not like a rich guy's toy.
Like a Ferrari.
Right. Or or, you know, or or a Jaguar.
Yeah.
We're getting to like Corvette's
best, biggest advantage and also its greatest flaw.
Like this is like this for this reason.
It's like it's it's everything that's good about Corvette and also everything
that's bad about Corvette in this one, in the idea of it being affordable
and accessible, like that's that is the trouble with the Corvette and also
like what's great about it.
But that was like the the era like
because it was something you go by at a Chevy dealer and it was not exotic.
And you could get one if you wanted one, you could get one.
It's always explaining itself.
So like the Corvette, even in this era, it was like,
you know, with the V8, you could get a Corvette.
And you can go stomp the Ferrari guys.
You can go beat the Ferrari guys, you can go beat the Porsche guys.
Like you have a faster car and then like and for less money.
And then like through the 70s, less so the 70s and not as much in the 70s.
But definitely like into the 80s and 90s, that was the same thing.
Like the value proposition.
Right. It was it was it was always kind of like this this this bargain value.
It's a value. Yeah.
Of of of a car that that that is meant to to
compete and run with
much more expensive, much more expensive, more prestigious, have have more kind of,
you know, like social cachet or whatever.
So so so the Corvette, it's it's it's it's a bit of kind of like a working
class hero, you know, I mean, still not not cheap, you know, not like
not not affordable, like like a Mustang or a Camaro, right?
But, you know, it's it's set above that.
But but it's it's the kind of thing that like,
you know, a working class person with a union job in the 60s
could aspire to to owning if if they stretch a little bit, you know, or or
it might be the kind of thing that like when you cash out,
you know, when you sell your construction business or when exactly when you're
also hurts. Yeah.
That also hurts the reputation of the Corvette.
It's like it is the it is the car you buy when you retire.
So like all the owners are recent retirees.
Exactly.
And so and I feel like like that's something that kind of,
I mean, in the evolution of the Corvette's history, I think initially
there was that that idea
that that that we we associated it, you know, like the Route 66 thing with youth,
right, with with youth and vigor and and adventure and and freedom, right?
The the the freedom of being like a 20 something kid with with no
responsibilities or or obligations for you to just fuck off in your Corvette
and, you know, drive from Chicago to L.A. back and forth.
Again, I've never watched the show or once we don't actually work.
That's boomer shit, man.
No offense to any boomers listening to this.
Sure. The two the two of you.
But
but yeah, it's at some point in and I think
there was also like the the moment that
or maybe the kind of general period when when we start to see this transition is
also the period
from the the kind of 60s into the 70s.
The the third generation Corvette is introduced in 1968.
Again, very wild from a styling perspective,
you know, like incredibly swoopy, dramatic.
And these were the Corvettes that I grew up with as as a kid.
They were the Corvettes that were that were new in the 70s.
And
and initially, I mean, these these kind of continued in the the, you know,
pretty legit performance,
you know, tradition that had been established by the the previous generation cars.
They were also like,
you know, they were still seen as as very like,
you know, like I mean, these cars had had swagger, you know, and and
kind of I mean, famously, the Apollo astronauts
were all issued like Corvettes.
That was part of their their their deal, you know, when you when you signed up for
the program, you know, that and there's there are there are these amazing
photo like portraits of like the various Apollo crews, you know, going
the Moon landing crews with their their matching kind of his and his and his
Corvettes where where they're all a little bit different, you know, like one
guy gets the, you know, they're like red, white and blue or whatever.
And then they have like the cool gold accents.
And
yeah, if you just look up, I don't know what the Google for that, but just, you know,
astronaut Corvettes or something, you'll see those pictures and and they're
they're very evocative of the era for sure.
So it was it it's it had those kind of associations too that like this is,
you know, I mean, I guess that's the that's the
10 years on from from Bud and Buzz and Tad or whatever their names were.
Todd Styles, now you now you have Buzz.
Yeah, now you have now you have Buzz Aldrin.
What were the names?
Todd Styles and Buzz Murdoch.
Buzz and Todd. I was close.
It was really close. Yeah.
Todd Styles.
But yeah, but the other thing that that happened around that time is,
of course, as you get into the 70s,
you got you got your fuel crisis.
You've got your
you know, increasing environmental awareness
and emissions controls, regulations.
And so like like all cars of that era,
the Corvette got a little bit
de choked, detuned
and and kind of and as as it as, you know, you get further into the 70s,
the car kind of
circles back to a little bit like what it was initially, which was this this kind
of like flamboyant styling exercise.
That really is is.
Making making visual promises that it can't really
can't really keep as far as performance goes.
And and you know, and by the time that, you know, I'm an adolescent
young man getting into cars, I mean, it really was kind of a bit of a gutless
wonder and and what had been that the kind of radical styling when it was
fresh and new in 1968, you know, by by the early 80s,
was just looking like pretty tired and embarrassing and and and and like.
I feel like like it's kind of like the bloom was off the rose a little bit
and and and maybe maybe now is when the the connotations of
the connotations of Corvette ownership shift from being a car that is owned by,
you know, young, virile, you know, virile young, young men on on the come up
and comes to be more closely associated with
with with older dudes retiring, you know,
moving to Florida to get tan and wear their gold chains and
and just cruise up and down to go get ice cream or whatever on on cruise night.
And and and and I feel like since then.
Even as the Corvette in in subsequent generations has has kind of moved back
toward being a legitimate performance car
and and for the last several generations, I would say, I mean, really, I guess,
like, starting with the the C five.
Like really being able to back it up and especially like like from the C six,
which is kind of mid aughts and and and and onwards, like.
The car, the Corvette is is now
what it always, I think, had been for a big part of its history had been posing as,
which which is like a legitimate sports car that can compete on an equal footing
with the best that that that the Europeans
could could produce, you know, whether you know, I mean, it's natural rivals
being like a Porsche 911 or or your kind of entry level
Ferraris or British, British sports cars too, I guess.
I do I do think there is something weird, like throughout the entire history
of Corvette, there's something in car people.
And in like certainly like influenced by like the David Davis era car and driver
stuff where there's like an anti-American
bias, like when it comes to like it's always cooler to have a Porsche
because they're European or like it's always cooler to have a and it's like
it's like coastal elitism.
But it is like a tweed jacket.
Yes.
You know, driving gloves type of
vein in car enthusiasm, like those guys always look down on the Corvette guys
and to a lesser degree, like Mustang Camaro guys.
And honestly, like
that always really bothered me, like I really hate that type of guy.
Because like it's like you're from here to like, you know what I mean?
You eat the fucking slob hamburger.
Like, what are you fucking talking about?
Yeah, like, you're not some fucking count.
You know, like
you're a you're a slob, just like me.
And like there is also like a decided from fucking nobility.
Yeah, yeah, you're a you're a mongrel just like I am.
Like you've got it.
Yeah, I feel like this ties into what you guys were saying earlier about the
perception of Corvette because of the affordability.
Like we're getting into a kind of constellation of ideas of like
the old world and the old money versus like the new world and the new
money and like the like a Corvette is inherently more tacky and more new
and more new money for Tite Bourgeois sort of like
it fits into that set of ideas the same way that like the European stuff is older
and for old money and for like big crazy pervert money that comes from doing
stuff where you are above the law, whereas you can buy a Corvette by just
being like a regular with a good job for 50 years.
Yeah, like I think that all ties together.
I think we're hitting on a bunch of things that all sort of map to the same plane.
Yeah. And I for sure.
I mean, go ahead.
Oh, I was just going to say, I mean, I mean, I mean, I think what the Corvette
did like or has represented, you know, over more than half a century now
is is kind of like the democratization of
performance car of a sports car and and
you know, in a way that that that that does feel
American in in, you know, the kind of what we like to think of as being American
values, which of course are completely false and bullshit.
But it's a nice idea.
Yeah, there's also go ahead.
I was going to say, yeah, and it's it's that sort of it's it's the very American
sense of democratization of like, you know, you you you dangle the thing in front
of someone and say, ah, if you succeed in what we're telling you was a meritocracy
for sure, then you also too deserve to have the very fasting that goes very fast
and has a certain amount of status associated with it.
Even though it's not fully democratized in the sense of like, you know,
you still have to find your way up through the rat race to get it.
But, you know, you're still closer than having to have been born into,
you know, the super sicko world.
The there's also, I think, like a fetishization on the part of like that
that era of the car and driver reader, Peter, I guess, which you probably
were that era of current driver, but you were you were 13.
You are a little baby.
But like of those guys, like for for complexity.
So it's like the Corvette,
for all its its power and like, you know, like legit performance has always been
a very simple machine compared to like the comparable Jag or Ferrari or whatever.
You know, it's like the
the pushrod small block V8 is the same V8.
You can get in a pickup truck.
It's the same V8.
You can get in your mom's sedan or whatever.
And it's like that's the Corvette motor.
And so there's always been like, oh, it's not this is like not exotic enough
to be tantalizing, but like I always like like the current
small block Chevy V8 motors are very technologically advanced,
but they are very simple.
They're still a small block Chevy at their core architecture.
But I love one of the things that I love about Corvette and about that engine,
whether it's in a Cadillac or whatever, is
they are they're very lightweight, they're very fuel efficient,
they're very simple and they can make equivalent, if not greater,
power than their European counterparts in the the European, you know, Porsche
and Audi and Ferrari.
Everybody have built these like monstrously complex engines over the years.
Like the old example is the Audi with the 17 foot timing chain that you need
to like remove from the car for like basic services.
Like these monstrous like plastic, plastic tensioners or whatever.
Yeah, that explode.
But but they they've built these insane
Rube Goldberg motors and it's like they're heavier and, you know,
oftentimes less powerful, oftentimes about as fuel efficient as the very simple
Chevy motor. It's like, you know, my contention has been like that
motor, the small block Chevy, you know, maybe you could say the same thing
about the Ford motor really represents the like height of industrial capitalism
where it's like they really just nailed a product.
It's like a thing that like we can build
exactly with that like it has not been improved upon.
It's been 50 years and it has not we can we can iterate it essentially forever.
70 years even. Yeah.
And it's like it's just one of those like really special little
developments in the auto world where it's like you can really like and they've
people have tried a million different ways to better that power train or
that that basic package and it really is not, in my mind, been super successful.
Like it's just like still still the fucking truck motor still still can
accept the Nurburgring laps.
It still can go to Le Mans and when like it's like, you know, it's it's very funny.
And like, you know, there's also like cases where Europeans
recognize that in the 60s and we're like, why are we building
these insane two and a half liter V12's?
You could just go buy a truck motor from Chevy.
Like, let's pull one out and send it to you like it makes the same power.
So there are, you know, European cars using that that same motor.
But
but there is something I think, like I said, that like keeps
the one thing I will I will this is a different different car.
But I heard from
an anecdote from a woman who had done a
focus group with Cadillac in pretty recently, like in the teens.
And she was given a Mercedes and she was given a BMW and given a Cadillac to drive
and like to look over to like
to to evaluate.
And at the end of the day, she had scored the Cadillac highest in every category.
She's like, I like the design better, like the interior better.
I like the drive better.
Like she she was much more impressed with that car.
And they're like, OK, but which one would you buy?
And she's like, well, I'd buy the Mercedes because I don't ever.
She's like, I don't have to explain to anyone why I bought a Mercedes,
which is like a thing in car world where it's like the valet at her country
club expects her to be in a Mercedes.
And, you know, she may like the Cadillac better and the Cadillac may be
better in a lot of meaningful ways.
But you don't ever want to be as a purchaser of a luxury good or a class
signifier, you don't ever want to be in a position
where you have to explain why it's good.
Like people like the whole point of a signifier of that is that people
understand immediately that it's good.
If you pull up in a Ferrari, everyone, no matter what they know about cars,
knows it's a Ferrari.
And like the Corvette thing is always like you have to be in the know.
You have to read car and driver.
You have to understand like, oh, they took these four cars to VIR and the Corvette
was a second and a half faster per lap than the Porsche.
It's a better car.
It's a better performance product.
But it's like it is very funny because there's so much about cars in car
world that's about numbers and about
data and about like quantifiability.
But there's also the other part of that, the vibe,
which is like it's cooler.
We have returned to the use value argument that if you're rich, it doesn't matter.
In fact, it's worse.
It's worse to have use value on the thing because you prove you don't need it.
You prove you're rich enough to not need the better thing.
And that's the that is a conversation that I've had it, you know,
dozens of times over the course of me being in cars or whatever.
It's like, well, why don't you just buy the Corvette?
Like if you're if you're going to track days, it's cheaper to run.
It's faster and it's like, you know, it's it's probably easier to live with
day to day and they're like, yeah, but
Porsche kind of has a certain cache to it.
You know what I mean?
It's like, but that that is always like the C8, the new C8 is like
and really since C5,
there's been a Corvette or Corvette variant that is like the fastest,
most capable car in its class at one point or another.
You know, like there's always like jumps in capability from like variant.
You know, it's like, OK,
the new 911 GT3 comes out and like that's faster and then everyone has to catch up
and then like, you know, that's that's an actual part of it.
But there's always been, like I said, since since those cars since the late
nineties, you've been able to make that argument that like
a Corvette ZO6 or or whatever, ZR1 or is like the
from a technical standpoint, from a quantifiability standpoint,
the best car that you could you could own.
Top dog.
But it's a car you always have to explain and you always have to know that.
And the other thing too is that they are cheaper.
Like they're like everyone knows that it's a cheaper car.
So like everyone knows that you bought even like the ZR1 X,
whatever, is like two hundred and forty thousand dollars
and, you know, we'll outperform pretty much anything
anything within a hundred thousand dollars that, you know, like of its price.
But everybody knows it's cheaper and it's like that that does at a certain
level hurt the the perception of the car where it's like
because you got a value on it, because you got a deal on it,
it's worse, which is like.
Right. Yeah, that's the argument of the tacky or just classy thing.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's you are maybe it performs better,
but like you you were supposed to pay more for a worse thing to prove you can do
that and you failed that test.
It's it's the flip side of the democratization of of performance or of of a good thing.
Yes, is that because it's accessible to more people.
It's not we think less of it.
Yes.
Yeah, which is it's yeah.
So so it's I mean, it it's I mean, which maybe is also emblematic
of of a certain American way of thinking.
Yeah.
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