First introduced in 1953, the Corvette has gone through several styling and model changes in the intervening half century. The 3rd generation (or C3) Corvette was in production from 1968-1984, making it the longest lived of any Corvette derivative to date.
When it was introduced, the motoring press were vicious in their condemnation of it, "Car and Driver" magazine going as far as saying it was "too dire to drive". The main reason it was so disliked by the motoring press was that it replaced a car that was much loved, the 1963-67 Sting Ray 'vette. It was a good car in it's own right but the press did not think it worthy as a Corvette. Interestingly, the press were very much out of synch with the public, who loved it, and it went on to become one of the most successful versions of the Corvette in terms of numbers sold.
All featured a V8, most being the "small block" 5.7 litre version, while a small number of 7 litre (427 cu in) engined models were sold prior to the first fuel crisis in 1973. The earlier versions tended to be the best performers, as they did not suffer the progressive loss of grunt that came with the addition of emissions control equipment and increased attempts at improved fuel economy that affected all American performance cars in the 1970's.
This model represents the 1978 version of the Corvette. It has the removable roof panels that mark it as the T-Bar roof model and an all black interior with metallic silver paintwork.
One error that UT have made is that the seats used in this model were only seen on the Pace Car special edition of the '78 Corvette, and were not seen until '79 on the regular production Corvettes. This was pointed out to me by an owner of the real thing, who is also a fan of this model. Despite this, it remains a good model which is currently hard to find (as of Oct 2005) as UT models were closed down in 2000. New owners AUTOart have re-released this version of the Corvette under the AUTOart brand, and in fact there is also a 1982 Corvette which is very similar to this version already released by AUTOart. The AUTOart versions are better models overall, with added detail such as headlights that actually pop up, and more brake detail. They come with a larger price tag than the UT version had when new of course! The price of progress!
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