The 1979 Corvette

The Overview

The 1979 Corvette is the 1978 fastback with the birthday decorations taken down and the Pace Car’s best ideas made available to everyone. Crossed flags replaced the 25th Anniversary emblems on the nose and fuel door, the chrome around the rear glass and roof panels went black, halogen high beams were phased in, and the Pace Car’s high-back seats, twelve pounds lighter apiece with inertia-locking folding backs, became standard in every car. Its front and rear spoilers went on the option list as RPO D80 for $265, where 6,853 buyers found them; they cut drag by about 15 percent and were worth half a mile per gallon. Glass roof panels, in their first full year, went on 14,480 cars. An AM-FM radio became standard equipment for the first time, with the stereo, 8-track, the new cassette deck and the CB sold as upgrades.

Both engines gained five horsepower from new open-flow mufflers, and the L48 also got the L82’s dual-snorkel air cleaner, for 195 and 225 hp; the L82 went into 14,516 cars, more than in any other year, and Road & Track’s four-speed L82 ran 0–60 in 6.6 seconds and the quarter in 15.3 at 95 mph, the quickest Corvette numbers since the big-block years. Shock rates were made the same for manual and automatic cars, the fuel filler was reshaped to keep leaded-fuel nozzles out, and the ignition lock gained a shield. On May 7, 1979, air conditioning, power windows and the tilt-telescopic column, which 80 percent of buyers were ordering anyway, became standard, and the base price went to $10,220.23, the first Corvette past $10,000. Late cars got the 85-mph speedometer a year ahead of the federal rule.

Chevrolet built 53,807 of them, on two nine-hour shifts and Saturday overtime at St. Louis, a record that the 1984 C4 approached and no year since has matched. Critics measured it against the $6,395 Mazda RX-7, the Datsun 280ZX and the Porsche 924 and called the Shark long in the tooth, and buyers lined up anyway. Today the 1979 is the most plentiful Corvette there is, which keeps prices low, and the best version, an L82 four-speed with FE7, spoilers, glass tops and the 60-series tires, is the quickest and most comfortable C3 of the decade for about the price of a used economy car.

The 1979 Corvette Story

By the late 1970s, Corvette production was moving at a pace that had never been seen in the history of the car. As Chevrolet General Manager, Robert Lund, had stated in March 1977, “The St. Louis Plant is operating two nine-hour shifts daily and working overtime two Saturdays a month just to meet sales demand. Current demand is running more than 29 percent ahead of last year.”

Little did anyone realize that, after the popularity of the 1978 Pace Car and Silver Anniversary Editions in 1978, Corvette was about to set another production record – manufacturing more than 50,000 Corvettes in one year – with the 1979 model year. At the same time, Corvette was about to surpass another record – a base price of more than $10,000 – for the first time in the car’s history.

The price increase in the 1979 model year was well justified, especially given that the Corvette had been fast approaching that cost threshold for the past couple of years.

As before, Chevrolet engineers had continued adding more of the previously optional features available to consumers to the standard base package.

While in 1978, tilt-telescopic steering columns, air conditioning, and power windows had all been optional, nearly 80 percent of all the cars sold that year included all three of these options – which, when added up, cost consumers an additional $910.00 over the base price of $9,351. In early 1979, while these items remained optional for a time (now at a combined cost of $966.00), it was decided that this trio of optional equipment would become a standard part of the car.

On May 7, 1979, they officially became part of the standard equipment group, and Corvette’s base price climbed to $10,220.23. By the end of the production year, the base price would soar even higher as additional options – along with a strong inflationary spiral on the cost of some of the standard equipment – pushed the car’s price higher still.

While the fastback Corvette design introduced in 1978 carried over into the 1979 model year, there were a few, mostly subtle, refinements made to the car’s overall appearance. For one, the “25th Anniversary” emblems were replaced by the more traditional “crossed flags” which had been a key identifier of the Chevy Corvette for more than a quarter century.

Additionally, the chrome trim that wrapped the 1978 rear window and the roof panels was replaced with black trim moldings. Tungsten-halogen headlights were phased into 1979 production early in the model year for increased visibility. The tungsten-halogen headlight beams replaced only the high-beam units. Lastly, a couple of items from the 1978 Pace Car package became options for the 1979 model year.

Tinted roof panels (RPO CC1) became available to consumers, as did the front and rear spoilers (RPO D80). The spoilers were functional, decreasing drag by about 15% and increasing fuel economy by about a half-mile per gallon.

Despite this, sales of Corvettes with this option in 1979 accounted for just under 13% of total sales that year.

Moving inward, the interior received slightly more refinement than the exterior. The biggest, most notable change centered around the introduction of the new “high back” seat style previously introduced on the 1978 Pace Car Replicas. These same seats were now standard equipment for the 1979 model year. The seats used an extensive amount of plastic in their frame structure which resulted in an overall weight reduction of about twelve pounds per seat.

Did you know? The 1979 Corvette was the first model year to offer an AM/FM Radio as standard equipment. Prior to 1979, if a Corvette owner wanted to include a radio, they ordered it at an additional cost to the base price.

At the same time, the new seats offered improved side bolster support to its occupants. They also featured seat backs that folded at a higher point (than most conventional seats) to permit easier rear storage area access.

Inertia locks were introduced that restrained the seat backs during sudden deceleration, which negated the need for manual locks on these new, folding seats. Despite all this, the new seats did not offer reclining seatbacks, which were becoming increasingly available in most vehicles – even the cheapest Japanese cars being built that year.

While the seats received a great deal of attention, the rest of the interior was subject to a number of other small changes as well. The driver and passenger seat tracks were redesigned to provide an additional inch of forward travel.

The ignition cylinder lock received additional shielding to reinforce it, making it more difficult to access in the event of an attempted car theft. The previously optional AM-FM radio became standard equipment, while an illuminated visor-mirror combination for the passenger sunvisor became an available option on the 1979 Corvette. An 85 miles-per-hour (max.) speedometer, which would be officially introduced as standard equipment in the 1980 Corvette, was installed on some late-production 1979 models. This was the result of a federal mandate that was slated to begin in September, 1979 and would remain in effect until March, 1982.

Mechanically, both the base L48 and optional L82 engines received a 5 horsepower increase due to a new “open flow” muffler design. Additionally, the low restriction, dual snorkel air intake that had been introduced on the L82 engine was added to the L48 engine, which gave the base engine an additional 5 horsepower boost, resulting in an overall output of 195hp for the L48 and 225hp for the optional L82 engines, respectively.

Elsewhere on the car, shock absorber rates were standardized so that they were the same, regardless of the type of transmission (manual or automatic) installed. Automatic cars used a 3.55:1 final drive, with 3.36:1 behind the L48 four-speed and 3.70:1 behind the L82 four-speed. The fuel filler pipe was redesigned to make it more difficult for consumers to modify for leaded-fuel access.

Automotive reviewers and critics remained skeptical of the car’s value given its steadily rising prices and the availability of comparatively priced sports cars like the Mazda RX-7 (with base pricing starting at just $6,395), the Datsun 280ZX ($9,899.00), and even the 1979 Porsche 924 ($12,025.00).

Still, none could argue that the Corvette was not an impressive straight-line contender in this field of European and Asian imports. Road & Track Magazine test drove a 1979 Corvette equipped with an L82 engine and recorded a 0-60 time of just 6.6 seconds, a standing quarter-mile time of 15.3 seconds at 95 mph, and a top speed of 127 mph.

Still, most critics agreed that the C3 was again getting long in the tooth and, while the prestige of owning a Corvette continued to flourish amongst consumers, serious automobile enthusiasts were beginning to question how much longer it would be before Chevrolet introduced the next generation of the beloved sports car.

With more than a half decade to go before the actual arrival of the C4, the speculation would continue, though the engineers behind Corvette still had a few tricks up their sleeves, as would be seen in the coming years as the production of the third-generation Shark started to draw to a close.

Production Volumes

In total, Chevrolet manufactured 53,807 Corvettes in 1979, which set the record for the most Corvettes built in a single year of the car’s 26-year history – a record that still stands.

It was the height of the Corvette’s acceptance, which was ironic given that General Motors had once been convinced that the C3 model would never sell half as well. Instead, the car’s popularity was stronger than ever, despite an increasing number of competitors vying for consumer attention. It had proven to be indispensable as both a high-profit personal car as well as a showroom sweetheart.