Summertime warmth now seems like a dream to me, now that we in the Midwestern United States are in the middle of Winter 2015 – ’16 in our lovely hemisphere. I felt that this would be a welcome time to recall a late-summer encounter with a ’77 Corvette from several years back. This isn’t my first post on the C3, so it’s no secret I’m a fan of this generation of Chevy’s Plastic-Fantastic Wonder. There’s nothing I could possibly add to anyone’s factual knowledge of a car that has had veritable volumes written about it, with much of it available on the internet. However, what I find almost as interesting as dimensions, drivelines and dollars is how an individual’s experience of a car is completely subjective, which goes along with the premise of Curbide Classic: that every car has a story. Part of that story can include what a car elicits in the eyes and imagination of its beholder.
In the case of this Corvette (which is roughly my age), my visual experience of it is married to its historical context – what was happening in the world and in popular culture when it was making its presence known on America’s roads. It was our only true, homegrown, mass-production sports car – emasculated as it was (compared to earlier Corvettes) by federal emissions regulations. I’ll go so far as to say that it by ’77, the Corvette had become as much a mere rolling fashion statement and status symbol as serious sports car, though it was still very quick for its day. A ’77 with the base L48 version of the Chevy 350 small-block V8 with 180 hp would have been good for a 0-60 mph time in the mid 8-second range. A car equipped with the 210-hp L82 would have been even faster.
I’ve read many references to this generation of Corvette (with ’77 being the first model year since ’68 not to bear the “Stingray” sub-moniker) as the “Disco-vette”. This fits. Those bulges over the front and rear wheel wells are flared out like bell-bottomed slacks of the finest polyester. The exaggerated, dramatic styling just screams “Kalifornia Kustom” like few cars of the period. This example in “Corvette Dark Blue” was one of 4,065 examples in that color produced for the model year, out of a total of 49,213. It’s as curvy as one of Charlie’s Angels, and every bit as alluring and all-American, not to mention as jiggly for all the rattles and vibration that are common to the C3.
All Corvettes of this generation featured both t-tops and pop-up headlights, both of which used to be synonymous with sporting machines, and both of which are completely obsolete in 2016. Since the removable roof panels on this car are opaque, I suppose its interior of black vinyl and leather would be less of a rolling torture-chamber in the summer than if the tops were of tinted glass. I also imagine that wind buffeting during open-air motoring would be pretty significant in this car with the lack of a removable rear window, which was standard on the C3 Corvettes from only between 1968 – ’72, and unavailable thereafter (that is, from the factory – retrofits were developed later).
The cockpits of these cars were notoriously cramped. You know this is true if Chevy substituted the smaller steering wheel from their Vega GT subcompact for ’76 in an attempt to gain a little extra space and a more comfortable driving position. (It appears the owner of this one valued the more serious-looking, pre-’76 wheel over the extra inches provided by the Vega’s smaller-diameter unit.) I look at the Corvette’s narrow interior this way: the C3 had slowly been morphing into a (fast) 2-seat “personal car” by this point, and the pinched dimensions of its cockpit (despite an overall car width of 69″, which is about the same as a 2016 Chevy Trax SUV) made it easier to slide your arm around your honey riding in the passenger seat.
I admire folks with the confidence to park their cars like this, completely open and unattended in these modern times. I mean, having watched the original “Gone In 60 Seconds” from ’74 probably close to fifty times to date, it would seem pretty easy to steal a car from this era (not that I have ever tried, just to be crystal-clear about that). But still – confidence is what you’d have to have in order to be seen in this thing to begin with. Subtle it is not. One must have a degree of bravery to rock the most outlandish of outfits, and this Corvette is clearly a car one wears as much as drives.
Much like the clothing styles of the Carter era seem to be widely maligned today, so does the music. I learned to walk, talk and ride a bike in the late 70’s, so perhaps I view these times with a bit more nostalgia and forgiveness than many who were actually old enough to process some of the more disturbing aspects of this time period. I watched and loved “Soul Train” as a young kid. Today, I also like disco and the California soft-rock sounds that were popular back then. I could very easily imagine myself in this Corvette, then or now, with the t-tops off and the Teutonic, metronomic thump of Donna Summer’s titular, 1977 classic pulsing through the speakers.
In the late 1970’s, while out on the town or on the way to a hot nightspot, this car would have been an active participant in someone’s summer fantasy. Its faults be darned, the tunnel-back C3 rightfully belongs on my “lottery list”. Parked across the street from my favorite local pizzeria, Gino’s North, roughly five years ago, this ’77 Corvette made special what might have been just another hot Saturday night in August.
As photographed by the author in Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois, on Saturday, August 27, 2011. Titled with respect to Donna Summer and George Gershwin.
Nice shots as usual. I’m curious, what sort of camera do you use?
I tend to prefer the earlier chrome bumper C3s, but wouldn’t turn down one of these.
Thanks, Dan. These shots are just from an entry-level Canon SLR (EOS Rebel XS from 2010). It was a great camera before it busted with the repair costing more than it was worth. I shoot with a T3 now.
Beautiful, although I usually like more the earlier ones or the late ones with the bubble glass in the back. Wouldn’t turn one of these either.
The curves on that car are voluptuous.
The lack of power could be easily solved then as now. Plenty of toys available for that 350
No substitute for BB power, in the day. I remember driving my friends ’67 with a 475 hp(balanced, polished, blueprinted, tube headers) 427 tri-power on the highway at 130 in third and then shifted into fourth. I let off at 150. Fastest I have even been, before or since.
The standard tops were solid fibreglass with deep tint glass as an option. I’m not sure what’s meant by this car having “opaque” panels – the roof is off on the car in the photos.
Fiberglas is opaque.
Opaque simply means, light doesn’t transmit thru it… Meaning not transparent, like glass panel T-tops are.
Joseph is correct.
I think Stumack was referring to the tops not being in place, so how could he tell which type they were.
This car reminded me of the yellow on in The Junkman, but apparently that was a later model. I like the early C3’s, but the later alterations make it look worse IMO.
It actually did occur to me that perhaps that’s what Stumack meant. But then I got to thinking, and couldn’t remember ever having seen a non-customized, tunnel-back C3 with glass tops before.
So I checked it out, and here’s why: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1977-corvette.htm.
They were supposed to be an option for ’77, but GM cancelled them. They arrived as an option on the bubble-back ’78+ models. This is consistent with everything I remember seeing on the road.
I feel love for these as well, nice pictures…I didn’t realize that they came with chrome outside mirrors, I always thought they came with body color sport mirrors.
Good point; I hadn’t noticed. You’d think a sports car would come with sport mirrors, not something that looks like it came off a Bel Air. But I suppose there had to be options; it was the seventies…..
The chrome mirror struck me too,but oddly in a positive way. Like the thumb button door handles on certain Cadillacs into the 1990s, A bit of an anachronistic touch, along with the pre 1976 steering wheel, made me like this veteran ‘vette even more!
These came out when I was 9 years old. I still considered them really cool through 1972, but then both the car and my own tastes started evolving. From 1974 until the end of this series, these struck me as the paunchy 40 year old ex high school jock of the automotive world, driven exclusively by older guys with toupees and lots of gold chains.
I have softened a lot towards these, and would own one today. There is a lot of mechanical goodness about these, and they have aged better than a lot of stuff from the late 70s (in my estimation). I have some shots of one of these in my cache of pictures, and need to write it up some time. But you have captured a really pretty one and have done it some justice.
When I was a kid, my mom’s cousin owned a C3 ‘Vette. It was a later one with the glass fishbowl rear window instead of the earlier tunnel-back like this one has.
I guess she would’ve been in her late 30’s (maybe early 40s?) and divorced at the time, so she didn’t fit your stereotype. Now that I’m thinking about it, I suppose “cougars” are probably another ‘Vette owner stereotype.
You might be correct. At the boat shop I worked at in the late 1980’s the office cougar, prob early ’40s and well stacked in addition to being drop dead gorgeous, drove a ’82 Cross Fire Injection C3.
And here I thought the Cougar stereotype was more of a Mercury thing 😉
So true. I had an older friend who bought a ’78 shortly after a divorce. He fit your demographic perfectly.
By this time most of these were automatics with A/C. Not exactly the big block screamers of a decade before, but what was at this time? Hard to believe a current Camry or Accord would blow its doors off.
Awesome photos and great article, as always, Joseph. 🙂
I was, also, a little kid, when this Corvette, roamed the streets back in the day.
If someone mentions the word, Corvette, the C3 Corvette, ALWAYS comes to my imagination. It was THE car to aspire to own, when we were in grade school.
It also appeared on many TV shows, on lunchboxes, school notebooks, Trapper Keepers and many a young tykes’ wall posters.
Of course, cheesy movies, like Corvette Summer, with Star Wars’ Mark Hamill, didn’t hurt either. When you said “Kalifornia Kustom”, the Vette in that film, comes to mind:
Me too, I’ve long considered the C3 the quintessential Corvette, at least in terms of styling. It certainly had its faults, but they were less egregious than most cars of that era IMO. And I still find them beautiful today.
I remember watching Corvette Summer as a kid when it came on TV. Today that particular car is not to my tastes, to put it politely, but that movie fueled my interest in custom cars.
Did you see last week’s Fast N Loud? Tricky Ricky and Deep Pockets Dennis apparently scored one of the movie cars, and STOLE the thing. Still looks fresh, and had like 24K miles. Wild cars, the over the top look is just awesome!
That was not the movie car, the movie car was converted to RHD and the rear end treatment was as custom as the front end, with a giant bow tie and “Stingray”, the car on the show just had a regular 72 rear section. I think it looks fresh because it’s a clone
They were touting it pretty hard as one of the movie cars….apparently there was more than one. But you might be right…
It strikes me as more of a promo car if anything, or the original was wrecked and what was savable was salvaged onto a regular 72 shell. I’ve seen that movie several times since I was a kid, and the car I saw on the show was definitely not the one in the movie.
Here’s the Ass Monkey car http://www.barrett-jackson.com/Archive/Event/Item/1972-CHEVROLET-CORVETTE–190295
And the real car… they’re not even close :
Maybe the monkeys got some poop flung at them…
Here’s what that website says:
“It is a piece of Hollywood history, but it is not the actual right-hand-drive car as seen in most of the scenes in the movie.”
Who knows what “piece of Hollywood history” means. Perhaps, as you mention, a promotional car.
This car looks OK, but at the time I felt they appealed to an older demographic and they didn’t interest me. That was until 1978, when a city councilman in my hometown purchased a new ’78 with the bubble window. I was surprised by how appealing I found that black car. I last saw it when it was 30 years old and it still looked like new – and just as beautiful.
Another great write-up and photos, very evocative of the era of these cars, though I came along a bit later; the C4 ‘Vette is the one of my childhood. I still find the early C3 to be the ulitmate ‘Vette despite that, in particular the chrome-bumper cars before power started to decline. Even the later, somewhat strangulated C3s like this one still have a certain charm though.
Whenever I see a C3 ‘vette, I think of bellbottoms, disco balls, gold chains and coke spoons. Had a chance to buy a 1980 with a 4 speed. Complete and total rattletrap despite being a one owner, garage kept car that had never been wrecked. And I thought 5K was too much for it in 1997.
This is my favorite Vette body style. Though they are narrow, they have more leg room than the new one. I have driven a lot of Vettes (my brother gave a lot of rides to Vette owners in his 8 sec Mustang while I drove the Vette and the girlfriend) and so I got to put my 6’4″ frame into the Vette that included 63 to 83 models.
Can’t help it…I still prefer the pre-’73 C3s. Those were pure fantasy.
But GM hung in there through the smog-choked, Disco Apocalypse 70’s and they deserve credit. There was a time when it was thought the V8 might soon be a thing of the past – even in ‘Vettes.
One redeeming factor was steadily improved handling thru the decade with their Gymkhana suspensions and the like.
But the overhangs hiding the safety bumpers leave me cold.
Still, it’s a relatively inexpensive way to get into Corvettes.
Great writeup, and awesome pics as usual, Joseph! I have a soft spot for these mako’s also. One of these in a bass boat metalflake blue was one of the first cars that really wowed me when I saw it as a kid. To my 5 or so year old eyes, it looked like it was from outer space, and even now this is the last Corvette that really stuns. Performance wise, they were a product of the times but as others have said, that can be rectified.
My ex g/f’s best friend’s dad let me drive his ’76 t-top coupe with a factory 4spd even! He’d stripped all the emissions garbage (a suprising move, since he was a rampant environmentalist) and put some work into the 350 so while it wasnt a total death machine, it definitely packed a punch. That cockpit though…my 6’1 250 lb frame must be the absolute practical limit for that car, and thankfully he had the T’s removed that day.
I LOVE THE C3!
Mostly I love it because it is a cheap way to get into a Corvette and it has now become the equivalent of a GM Lego set. You can remove the engine and transmission it comes with and replace it with just about any V8 and transmission combo from the Generals large catalog of pieces. Heck you could probably even build one with a Duramax diesel and Alison automatic if you wanted to.
I’m loving the pop culture “Period Correct” vibe of this piece.
This is the car I think of when I hear “Corvette” too. The C3 was the ‘Vette of my formative years, and everyone’s dream car in junior high at the height of the Disco era.
My youngest brother may still have a 25th anniversary edition in pieces in a storage unit somewhere. Silver over silver leather, with the deep tinted glass T-top, if I recall. One of Dad’s “It’ll be worth something someday” fire sale purchases that languished in cobwebs for years. I wonder if he ever got it put back together.
The 25th anniversary is still pretty cool, in my opinion. The silver leather is a very nice touch though. A friend’s dad did a light restoration on an ’80 Vette back in 2002 or so, black over silver leather. I was quite impressed that was a factory option!
This generation of Vette came out in fall 1967, for ’68 MY. Long before the 70’s disco era. And at that, disco didn’t become a big fad until fall 1977, nearly the end of the decade. The whole decade wasn’t “disco music”, kiddos, 😉
The nickname has as much to do with how they were customized, which would’ve happened after they hit the used market, coinciding with the disco era. Google image search “disco vette” and you’ll see what I mean.
This is like arguing that the VW microbus shouldn’t be nicknamed a “hippie van” because they were introduced in 1950, and the hippie movement didn’t get rolling until the mid 60’s.
Not to mention that the Corvette’s three best “normal” sales years (’84 was an extended run) were the absolute height of the disco era – ’77, ’78 and ’79.
I don’t think people call the earlier C3s ‘disco Vettes’ do they?
These are still cheap today, which is great, and so long as you don’t go down the Bloomington Gold rabbit hole you can take all the anemic out and have a fast Vette that looks great. And yes, great, IMO these were the last great looking Vettes until the C7(not that it’s great but it at least stopped plodding through the C4 design themes the 5 and 6 religiously clung to), I know a lot don’t like the front and rear facias but I really struggle to think of better executions of that stupid bumper law than these and Firebirds. The C3 became the true discomobile in my eyes when Chevy lopped off the beautiful 68 Buttresses and installed that enormous fishbowl on the back for the next, oh, 25 years. These 77s still had a lot to offer in the aesthetic department, and I’m quite fond of those alloys.
It’s interesting. As far as the bumpers go (chrome versus body-color), when I first noticed these C3’s as a kid, I used to think the chrome-bumper models looked old-fashioned. So few cars of the late 70’s had body-color bumpers or bumper-covers, and I thought the later models looked fresh by comparison.
Now I’ve see-sawed in the other direction, having an aesthetic preference for the earlier models.
great story and pictures joseph! I usually just start in reading and not look at the author of the piece until I am done. with this, the pictures had me thinking you as soon as it popped up on screen and within the first paragraph I didn’t even have to look at the author’s name.
if you ever get bored with your current occupation, may I suggest a career change to auto journalist? you would be an awesome addition to just about any magazine out there!
good work!
Still dreaming of the day my ’75 hits the road again…
If any car had a disco vibe, this is it. Was one of these in “Boogie Nights”? I test-drove one of these one time (probably a ’77) when it was already 20+ years old, and I couldn’t believe how harsh the ride was. Not the car for me, but I love the look, although I echo a few others here who seem to prefer the earlier ’68-72 and later wraparound window versions. All Corvettes are cool, though, and such icons.
Disco and California sound. Can’t get enough of that.
Nice one Joseph.
My sincere thanks, everyone – I’m glad you enjoyed this piece. Now to queue-up “Corvette Summer” with Mark Hamill and Annie Potts on Netflix.
A more plaintive take on feeling love:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DomLXOiLRCY
(perhaps better suited to the C5 Corvette though)
I like it! Completely reimagined. Another download I think I need to purchase.
I used a 1982 as my daily driver for three years in a row, white, red interior, glass tops. It would not fit my life these days, but I loved that car dearly, and it never let me down. Maybe some day I will buy one again, because love.