JoinedJanuary 16, 2023
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Karl E. Ludvigsen is a journalist, author, and historian of the automotive industry and motorsports. Karl Ludvigsen is the author of the definitive history of Porsche. His Porsche history, Excellence was Expected, is considered to be a model of the researching and writing of the history of an auto company. Ludvigsen is an honorary member of the Vintage Sports Car Club of America and the Corvair Society of America. He is also a member of the council of the Historic Automobile Group.
Every great initiative has to start somewhere. This one began in the spring of 1989 in Southern California when PR consultant Peter Mills was chatting with Stuart “Stu” Hayner, who had been racing sports cars professionally since 1987. Out at Bonneville, said Mills, in July 1940 Ab Jenkins set a...
GM’s Design Staff created the Corvette 2-Rotor to flaunt the Wankel-type rotary engines that the Corporation was developing in the early 1970s. Ultimately lacking both an engine and an in-house sponsor, however, a brilliant design was lost. It was the summer of ’73 and GM’s Wankel fever was in full...
Ed Cole fought to keep his Corvette alive. Some 1955 models were powered by Chevy’s new V-8. Zora Arkus-Duntov arrived but he would need time to defend and enhance a sports car that many in GM considered was ready for the chop. “Considering the statistics, the American public does not...
The Corvette’s very existence stirred Styling Staff designers to create new ideas based on its design. The 1954 Motorama showed the results—a triple play of Corvette derivations that suggested how the model could evolve in the future. While Chevy’s engineers tinkered with the new Corvette’s anatomy, GM’s stylists explored Corvette...
Chevrolet put its heart and soul into the production and marketing of its new sports car, with Mauri Rose demonstrating it to the press. But problems with the bodies and slow market acceptance made Chevrolet doubt its new baby’s future. The Corvette’s enthusiastic reception at its Motorama launch in January...
For the original Corvette nothing was more important than a drive train that would do justice to a true sports car. Working with the available material an authentic racer, Mauri Rose, extracted enough horses delivered through a controversial transmission. Chevrolet’s R&D Department, under the leadership of British suspension expert Maurice...
After Harley Earl and Carl Renner created the shape of the first Corvette, Maurice Olley had the task of putting a chassis inside it. His design matched the standards of the day and continued to underpin Corvettes during their first decade. That Chevy’s engineers were able to fit all the...
It took Harley Earl to envision the idea of a GM-built sports car, Bob McLean to create a European-style package for it and Carl Renner to fashion the sleek and appealing lines that created the Corvette’s unique character. He was a big man, six-feet-four and slope-shouldered, slow, deliberate and imprecise...
