America's 1996 A Grander Corvette

The Chevrolet Corvette rolled out of Flint, Michigan in 1953 and has never stopped—eight generations, no domestic rivals left standing. It nearly didn't happen. Fiberglass over a 3.9-liter straight-six, two-speed automatic, Chevrolet's answer to the lean British roadsters of the postwar years—it debuted at GM's Motorama in the Waldorf-Astoria and promptly sold almost none of its 300 hand-assembled units. A quiet beginning for what would become Model year 1996 brings the LT4—one year only, never repeated. The optional 5.7-liter V-8 wrings out 330 horsepower and refuses any transmission but the six-speed manual. That same year, the Grand Sport arrives. It reaches back to the Corvette Grand Sport race cars of the 1960s and comes out swinging: Admiral Blue only, LT4 only, no exception. It comes as a coupe or a convertible, though the convertible surrenders the coupe's flared rear fenders—the one concession in an otherwise uncompromising machine.