All Corvettes Are Red
By: James Schefter
Publisher: Pocket Books
Price: $14.00
When I spoke to El Presidente, John Hunter about doing a book review in the newsletter, he asked, "What do you think this is, the New York Times?" Undaunted, I moved on - I've always wanted to be a critic of somebody else's writing.
With this book, there isn't much to criticize - it is a fascinating inside look into the power structure of General Motors, and specifically the development of the C5 Corvette. Shefter was West Coast Editor of Popular Science magazine, and for eight years, he had almost unprecedented access to the halls and secret rooms at GM Design.
The one-millionth Corvette would be built in the next year or so and be painted in the old shop. At an earlier meeting, a discussion of paint quality and paint colors for future years had dragged on so long that John Heinricy, then leading Corvette's development group of test drivers couldn't take it any longer. "Why are we even having this discussion?" he asked. "All Corvettes are red. The rest are mistakes."
Ok, all you Pewter Pilots, White Knights, Tweetie Birders, and Blue Bombers - don't get mad at me - Heinricy is the one who said it.
Early in the book, Shefter writes:
The story of Corvette mirrored the story of General Motors. A new Corvette was long overdue. The model on the road, introduced in 1983, was a moneymaker. But its 100 million or so in annual profit was puny by GM standards. Teams of artists and engineers had been working secretly on a new design since 1988. They lived a roller-coaster existence. The budget for doing the new Corvette, up to $250 million, had been granted, trimmed, partly restored, cut again, even wiped completely from the books. As GM sank into its sea of red ink, the ripple effect on Corvette was like a tidal wave. On a Monday morning in mid-October, 1992, the tidal wave made landfall.
Like the company itself, Corvette was dying.
These few lines set the stage for the fascinating account of the development of the C 5. More than once, Corvette went on life support as chaos reigned at General Motors through high-level management shake-ups and profit recovery efforts. It is frightening to read some of this because one realizes that not only did a car we all love nearly die, but through the bungling and political in-fighting, senior management at GM was playing Russian Roulette with thousands of jobs and the futures of many families.
Several times, those within GM who loved Corvette risked their careers to keep the dream alive. A Detroit company, TDM was contracted to build test models of the C5. The problem was that there was no funding to do so. With the knowledge and support of Jim Perkins, Joe Spielman who was in charge of the mid size vehicle sector of GM (which included Corvette) funneled small amounts of money from other areas in his domain to enable TDM to build the test vehicles. None of TDM's expenses reflected that it was in any way related to Corvette.
Schefter also recalls a division within GM design where some factions wanted a mid-engine C5. While this sounds exotic, the reality is that the cost of producing a mid-engine C5 would probably have been so much that it would have never happened, and caused the likely demise of the car altogether.
In between recounting the struggles a small handful of designers, engineers, and executive staff management went through to save Corvette Shefter intersperses accounts, which reminds us of how Corvette is a deeply rooted fixture in the American culture. One excerpt deals with Fred Gallasch of Chevrolet's Sporty Car section telling of the gathering at Bloomington Gold in Illinois.
In 1992, Gallasch said he rode in the number six car during the Saturday evening road tour - 1,609 Corvettes led by the local cops with lights flashing and winding through miles of countryside and small Illinois towns.
As the tour stretched across mid-Illinois, it passed crowds gathered everywhere. Where the seamless line of Corvettes crossed over Interstate 55, cars, pickups, and eighteen-wheelers stopped on the shoulders for a half-mile in each direction; people gawked and cheered at the unending procession. Truck drivers stood waving their caps from the tops of their cabs, their cross -country schedules be damned.
"Along some of the back roads," Gallash said, "farmers had pulled their pickup trucks into the fields, put out ice chests and picnic snacks, and sat with the wife and kids, watching from lawn chairs." Many of them waved American flags at the passing parade.
"You see those good-old-boy farmers waving the flag at your Corvette and it's hard to remember that there's anything wrong with the world," said Gallash.
The book also talks about the human element where a few people with passion for their work were determined not to let an American icon fade away. Shefter recalls the end of a meeting during which the mid-engine or "momentum" architecture question was finally settled. Momentum called for a front engined car, a rear transmission, an evolutionary body style, and a backbone structure. This meeting brought unanimous agreement, and the momentum architecture concept went forward thus ending months of internal strife. As this meeting closed, Joe Spielman rallied and united the key players on the Corvette team:
And then Joe Spielman did something strange, almost certainly never done before in side the conservative environment of General Motors. It was a defining and emotional moment that bound people in the room in ways none of them understood at the time. But as the months and years went by, it was the single moment that indelibly settled the future of C5.
Spielman rolled up his right shirtsleeve and exposed his wrist. "I left the knife at home," he said, "so this is symbolic. We're in this together, bonded in blood."
He made an imaginary cut on his wrist, and held it put to Cardy Davis. Cardy bonded his own wrist to Spielman's in a slapping movement. Spielman moved on to Russ McLean, who had observed the day's events and McLean put his wrist against Spielman's. The big man went around the table and around the room. Bare wrist to bare wrist, the Corvette people took that blood oath to bond together - one team, one architecture, one goal.
Spielman fixed the room with a stern glare. "If we walk out of here and anybody says, "Yeah, we sort of decided, but I've got another idea that I want us to look at, ' then I say we get the firing squad, give 'em a last cigarette, and shoot 'em."
Once the C5 was reaching its middle and latter stages of development the cat and mouse game evolves where the manufacturer tries to keep the new car secreted, and spy photographers attempt to capture photos of the yet to be introduced product. Jim Dunne was one of those spy photographers. He brought car companies to grief, and forced them to spend thousands of dollars on camouflage and subterfuge. Wanted posters were placed on bulletin boards. More than one carmaker has held lengthy executive meetings dealing with the "Dunne problem." It is rumored that Security at General Motors produced a video for their staff entitled, "How Jim Dunne Does His Job."
Shefter recounts how Corvette's Chief Engineer, Dave Hill, was driving a C5 in a test session in Arizona when he runs smack dab into Jim Dunne. It was Dunne though who was baffled. He knew of course who Dave Hill was, but the car that Hill was driving was an ordinary looking Camaro. What Dunne didn't realize was that he was standing a few feet from a C5 Corvette, because with the exception of the body shell, the vehicle Dave Hill was driving was all Corvette. The test team called this car a Cormaro.
The book is a fascinating account of how a car is developed from clay models to testing in arctic conditions in northern Canada and the summer heat of the Arizona desert, and finally to the point that the first vehicles roll off the assembly line. It's an insight to the workings of a major corporation, and finally, it's a tribute to a relatively small group of people who persevered through the six years it took to make the C5 a reality. At a price of $14.00, it's a bargain, and a must read for all Corvette lovers.
If bookstores don't carry it, most of the online sellers like Amazon have it in stock, and can ship it within 24 hours. A hardcover edition is available for $28.50, and an unabridged audio book version is available for $69.95.
The last paragraph of the book tells of Dave Hill going to the Bloomington Gold Show a few months after the new Corvette finally became a reality, and saw a shiny red '97 C5 with a vanity plate that read, ACAR - All Corvettes Are Red.