*photos by: John Machaquerio
Timeless Muscle Pays a Visit to the 2015 Corvettes at Carlisle Event
You could argue all day long that Corvettes have no place in a musclecar magazine – a publication solely dedicated to the large bore, big-inch, carbureted behemoths from yesteryear. You could argue that Corvettes are technically sports cars, with two seats, usually with a removable top and are typically purchased by those who wouldn’t be caught dead in a “lesser vehicle.” If those are your thoughts on America’s sports car, you’re wrong.
There’s no way that you can ignore the car’s passion, its beauty and the performance that they’ve emitted from their small- and big-block V8s over the years. Sure, the 6-cylinder cars from ’53-55 were a bit pokey and the emission regulations left the low-compression examples from the mid-seventies in the dust of their predecessors, but the beautiful lines and the sole of the Corvette remained at its core.
Fast-forward into the modern era, and General Motors is pumping out 650 hp Z06s and 455 base model Stingrays – there fastest Corvettes ever produced. While the new cars are certainly waving the flag for performance today, the Tri-Power 427s, LS-5 and LS-6 454s and even the LT-1 were certainly musclebound performers in their own right. As much as they are typically regarded as “wine and cheese mobiles” or stereotyped as being owned by those gold chain/Memebers Only jacket wearing graybeards, there’s certainly something that needs to be said about the bar they set for GM performance, overall.
Recently, we sent one of our own to visit the premier Corvette gathering; Corvettes at Carlisle, in its hometown of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. With over 5,000 Corvettes on hand (not a typo), there were examples of The General’s plastic fantastic, spanning all seven generations, for as far as the eye could see! Sporting various show fields, a car corral, swap meet, rare GM concepts and even the Chevrolet Performance display, highlighting all of today’s hottest from GM, there was certainly something for everyone!
Rick Seitz is the owner and founder of AutoCentric Media, the parent company to Timeless Muscle Magazine, and has a true love and passion for all vehicles. When he isn’t tuning, testing, or competing with the magazine’s current crop of project vehicles, he’s busy tinkering and planning the next round modifications for his own cars.
