A Real ‘Vette-Run : After Four Decades, the Corvette Still Has Lot of Fans

The 1 millionth Corvette has rolled off an assembly line in Bowling Green, Ky., an event that for you probably holds all the significance of Grover Cleveland’s birthday--unless you’re a Corvette fan.

If you are smitten by the exotic looks and thundering power of the sports car, though, Thursday’s milestone is another fact for your Corvette trivia bank, like the year that hidden headlamps first appeared.

Although the original concept remains intact, today’s Corvette is very different from the one that debuted for 1953. It is the fastest and the most sophisticated.

Handle it carelessly and it still can get nasty, especially on a wet road. But drive it with care, and the Corvette is a well-mannered machine with a surprisingly civilized ride, proof that a car does not have to be a torture chamber to perform extraordinarily.

Tire and road noise still are considerable, though, and while Chevrolet seems finally to have eliminated the squeaks that have long plagued the Corvette’s fiberglass body, the Corvette still does not feel as solid as a car with a unitized steel body. Though its handling is among the best of any car, it still feels light in the tail, especially on a bumpy road.

And, of course, the Corvette has gotten expensive. One with a lot of options can reach $40,000. Convertibles are more than that.

So if your idea of a typical Corvette owner is a beer-guzzling gorilla in his 20s wearing a black T-shirt with the words “I Eat Mustangs for Lunch,” you need some re-education. Chevrolet says the typical owner is a college grad, is in his late 30s or early 40s and has a median family income of $90,000 to $100,000 a year. And is male.

(“And,” says a wag who’s not a fan, “is having a midlife crisis.” Maybe. But in the long run, a Corvette is a less-expensive way to work it out than a divorce.)

New this year is the LT1 engine, which produces 50 more horsepower than last year’s L98. (Engines with as much as 425 horsepower have been dropped into Corvettes, and today’s $54,000 ZR-1 version has one producing 375 horsepower.)

With the LT1 and a stick shift, the Corvette reaches 60 m.p.h. in just under five seconds--and in a fraction of a second more with the four-speed automatic, a free option.

Also new for ’92 is a traction control system, which automatically applies the brakes and adjusts engine timing and throttle to help control wheel-spin on acceleration.

You Corvette people probably knew that and also that the millionth Corvette is to be displayed in the National Corvette Museum, now under construction in Bowling Green. And that hidden headlamps first appeared on the ’63 Sting Ray.