Somewhere along the line, many Corvette drivers decided that a lettermen’s jacket made of stonewashed denim was an item of clothing they’d prefer never to take off. Has there been a more unfortunate flip in stereotypical-owner style in an automotive nameplate’s history? After all, in the 1960s, the Vette was the land-based velocity machine of choice for America’s astronauts.
Fifty years ago today, Alan Shepard strapped himself to a de-weaponized Redstone missile and was shot into outer space. You know, for a partial orbit. A short hop. It wasn’t a Yuri Gagarin–grade Magellan maneuver, but it was a hugely important piece of the American race to catch up to the Soviets. And Shepard was a Corvette guy, having brought his ’57 along when his training began. We imagine that Gagarin had something a little nicer than a Zaporozhets, but it sure as hell wasn’t packing a 283 or a 327. It most certainly did not read “TURBO-FIRE” on the air cleaner. Although now that you mention it, we would like to see a hot-rod Volga with a “ОГОНЬ-ТУРБО” topping its Framski.
In appreciation of his historic flight, GM presented Shepard with a new ’62 Corvette (above). Later astronauts purchased their cars from Indy 500 winner and Melbourne, Florida, Chevy dealer Jim Rathmann, who set up special lease deals with the astronauts, leading to a series of mild customs caned around Florida by the Apollo crews, including the Dick Gordon/Charles Conrad/Alan Bean black-and-gold two-tone jobs (bottom) and the red, white, and blue cars of Jim Irwin, Al Worden, and Dave Scott (top).
By 1973, power ratings of the plastic-nosed Corvettes on showroom floors were falling. In 1975, a joint mission with the Soviets marked the end of the Apollo program, and the U.S. wouldn’t send a man to space again until 1981. At that point, the C3 was on its last legs, hobbled by emissions controls and down to one engine option (unless one counts the even-more-pathetic 305-cubic-inch, slushbox-only 1980 California car — we try not to). The modern 638-hp ZR1, of course, is tailor-made for astronaut duty, but the space shuttle is going out of service in a couple of months and, honestly, in this economic and political climate, who really knows when Americans will return to space piloting American-built machines? So celebrate the ’60s confluence with fondness, you denim-swathed lettermen, as it may never come again.
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