Why this is the only 1983 Chevrolet Corvette

Photography Courtesy National Corvette Museum

Go through the 70-plus years of the Chevrolet Corvette and you’ll notice one year missing: 1983. That year Chevrolet intended to debut the C4 Corvette, but problems arose.

Chief Engineer Dave McLellan led the effort to redesign the Corvette. The C4 represented a large leap in technology from the C3 created before man landed on the moon. For example, the new Corvette had a computer-controlled liquid crystal instrument panel, high strength/low alloy galvanized steel one-piece uniframe and sheet-molded body panels (instead of fiberglass). It may not seem it, but this was cutting-edge stuff for the early 1980s.

“They built 43 pilot cars for 1983,” says Bryan Gable, National Corvette Museum Curator and Content Producer. “They had some delays in getting those cars built and some inconsistencies in the quality of the assembly.”

With those issues, Chevrolet General Manager Bob Stempel called off production for 1983. But what happened to those pilot cars? Bryan tells the legend of how the one 1983 Corvette survived.

“The pilot cars were all supposed to be destroyed,” Bryan says. “The story goes that they brought in a crusher to destroy all the cars. All of them got crushed–except one. It was the end of the day and it started raining. The gentleman who was running the operation had a new pair of cowboy boots and was afraid of the rain ruining them. He told the rest of the crew, ‘Well, we’ll just come back and get this last one tomorrow.’ The surprise was when they came and took the crusher away. The crew came back, the crusher was gone and the car is still there.”

The car wound up being pushed into a corner of the Corvette assembly plant until it was rediscovered years later. It then was displayed at the factory before moving into the National Corvette Museum.

The sole 1983 Chevrolet Corvette is presented with a white exterior and medium blue interior. It’s powered by a 350 cubic-inch L83 V8, rated for 205 horsepower, and driven by a four-speed automatic. The following year, 1984, would be the last for the L83, replaced by the L98 in 1985.