The Overview

The C3 Corvette Stingray was built 1969–1976, 257,872 cars by GM’s counts. The one-word Stingray years of the C3, 1969 to 1976: the chrome-bumper cars to 1972, the big-blocks to 1974, the last convertible in 1975 and the record-selling late coupes.

This page has every model year of the C3 Corvette Stingray in its own section with the year page’s account, the specs, the numbers and the posts; the figures by year; the colors; how it compares to its siblings; the site’s guides, videos and news; and a buyer’s guide: which year to buy, what to pay, how to verify one, what goes wrong and the site’s market reports. The C3 hub has the whole line across every generation.

The C3 Corvette Stingray Story

The 1968 Corvette had no Stingray badge; for 1969 Chevrolet put the name back as one word, and it stayed on the fenders through 1976 — the years of the LT-1, the LS6, the L88 and ZL1, the chrome-to-urethane bumpers, the last convertible and the sales records of the mid-1970s. The badge came off for 1977 and did not return until the C7.

This page is the Stingray years one by one, with each year’s account, figures, production, prices and colors; the L88 and ZR1 have their own pages, and the C3 hub has the whole generation to 1982.

MORE: THE C3 HUB

1969 C3 Corvette Stingray

The 1969 Corvette is the 1968 with the complaints answered. The Stingray name came back, as one word on the front fenders, the way Bill Mitchell had spelled it on his 1959 racer. The push-button door releases gave way to flush handles, the 16-inch steering wheel shrank to 15, the ignition moved to the column with a steering lock, the door panels were thinned half an inch a side after Zora Arkus-Duntov pushed through a $120,000 tooling change, map pockets went on the dash, the frame was stiffened, the backup lights moved into the inner taillamps and the headlights got washers and a warning light. Side-mount exhaust returned, the fender louvers could be trimmed in chrome, and the Rally wheels grew from 7 to 8 inches.

Under the hood the 327 became the 350, stroked a quarter inch, at the same 300 and 350 hp ratings with a little more torque. The four 427s carried over, the Turbo Hydra-Matic was now offered behind the solid-lifter L71 and L88, the aluminum-head L89 found 390 buyers and the L88 116. Above them sat the ZL1: the L88 on an all-aluminum block developed for McLaren’s Can-Am cars, 100 lb lighter and good for 550 horsepower or more, priced at $4,718.35 on top of the L88 package. Two were built. The solid-lifter LT-1 small block was listed for 1969 but did not arrive until 1970.

MORE: THE 1969 RESEARCH PAGE

1970 C3 Corvette Stingray

The 1970 Corvette was late. The UAW strike and John DeLorean’s decision to run the record 1969 model year into December meant the 1970 did not reach showrooms until February, and when it arrived it carried the changes previewed on Bill Mitchell’s Aero Coupe show car: an egg-crate grille with matching fender louvers in place of the four gills, square parking lamps in the grille corners, wheel openings flared to stop stone chips on the tuck-under, rectangular exhaust tips recessed into the tail and bigger side markers. Inside, the seats were reshaped for an inch more headroom with the headrests built in, the shoulder-belt reels moved into the rear quarters, and a $158 custom interior added leather, cut-pile carpet and wood-grain trim. Tinted glass, Positraction and the four-speed (or the Turbo Hydra-Matic) became standard, and the price went up $411 to cover it: $5,192 for the coupe, $4,849 for the convertible.

The engines were the news. The 427 was stroked to 454 and offered only as the 390-hp LS5 with 500 lb-ft of torque; the 460-hp aluminum-head LS7 was printed in the order guide, driven across the country by Sports Car Graphic and then cancelled before a customer got one. Zora Arkus-Duntov’s answer to the big block was the LT-1, a solid-lifter 350 with 11.0:1 compression, an 850-cfm Holley and a 6,500-rpm redline, rated at 370 hp and sold with a striped hood for $447.60; 1,287 buyers took it. For racers the ZR1 package wrapped the LT-1 in the M22 gearbox, heavy-duty brakes and suspension and an aluminum radiator and forbade the radio and air conditioning. Twenty-five were built, the first cars to wear a badge Chevrolet would bring back in 1990, 2009 and 2019.

MORE: THE 1970 RESEARCH PAGE

1971 C3 Corvette Stingray

The 1971 Corvette is the 1970 again, and on purpose. The strike and the late 1970 launch left Chevrolet no time or appetite for change, so the body, the interior and the chassis carried over with a few details: an easier fuel-filler door, a lit shift quadrant for the automatic, amber parking-lamp lenses in the specifications (most cars still got clear lenses and amber bulbs), and the fiber-optic lamp monitors in their last year, missing from many late cars. The St. Louis plant, finally building one car for two years, used the breathing room to fix the fit and finish the magazines had been complaining about since 1968, and the 1971 is a better-built car than the two before it.

What changed was under the hood. Ed Cole, now president of General Motors, ordered every 1971 GM engine to run on 91-octane low-lead fuel ahead of catalytic converters, and the Corvette’s engines were detuned in weeks: the base 350 fell from 10.25:1 and 300 hp to 8.5:1 and 270, the solid-lifter LT-1 from 370 hp to 330 on 9.0:1, and the 454 LS5 from 390 hp to 365. The exception was the LS6, the cancelled 1970 LS7 reworked for low-lead fuel: aluminum heads, solid lifters, 9.0:1 compression and 425 hp, the last Corvette engine rated above 400 horsepower until the 2002 Z06. It cost $1,221 and 188 buyers paid it, 12 of them as the ZR2 package with the M22 gearbox, heavy-duty brakes and suspension and no radio or air conditioning. The ZR1 returned on the LT-1 for 8 cars.

MORE: THE 1971 RESEARCH PAGE

1972 C3 Corvette Stingray

The 1972 Corvette is the 1970 for the third year and the last of its kind. Nothing changed outside, and the changes inside were subtractions: the fiber-optic lamp monitors went, a new console took their place, and the horn-honking alarm that had been RPO UA6 became standard, armed with a key at the back of the car. The engine list shrank to three, the fewest since 1956, because the aluminum-head LS6 and the ZR2 were gone after one year. What remained was rated in SAE net horsepower for the first time, measured with the accessories and exhaust fitted, so the base 350 read 200 hp, the solid-lifter LT-1 255 and the 454 LS5 270, numbers that looked like a collapse next to 1971 and mostly were not. The LS5 was never certified for California and could not be sold there.

The LT-1 could at last be ordered with air conditioning, with a tachometer redlined at 5,600 rpm instead of 6,500 so that the belts stayed on, and about 240 buyers took it; 1,741 LT-1s were built in all, 20 of them as the ZR1 package with the M22 gearbox, heavy-duty brakes and suspension and no comfort options. Both ended with the year. On the track the Corvette had its best season yet: Dave Heinz and Bob Johnson won the GT class at Daytona and Sebring on Goodyear radials, finishing fourth overall at Sebring, and the RED/NART 1968 L88 won its class at Le Mans.

MORE: THE 1972 RESEARCH PAGE

1973 C3 Corvette Stingray

The 1973 Corvette is the first Shark that looks different, and the reason was the law. The federal five-mile-per-hour bumper rule arrived for 1973, and Chevrolet met it with a body-color urethane cover over a steel bumper on a nose two inches longer and 35 pounds heavier, blended into the fenders so well that most people took it for a facelift. The chrome rear bumpers stayed for one more year. The fender gills gave way to a single recessed vent, a longer hood hid the wipers and brought back cowl induction through a solenoid-operated flap, the coupe’s rear window was fixed in place to gain two inches of luggage room, steel beams went into the doors, radial tires became standard, the body went onto rubber-in-steel mounts and an asphalt sound-deadener, a hood pad and thicker carpet cut cabin noise by a claimed forty percent. The 20th-anniversary Corvette was quieter, softer and heavier than any before it.

The engines lost their solid lifters for the first time since 1956. The base L48 350 made 190 hp net; the new L82, with a forged crank, four-bolt mains and a hotter hydraulic cam, made 250 and cost $299, and the LS4 454 made 275 for $250, the only year the big block was cheaper than the hot small block. The Z07 off-road suspension and brake package went into 45 cars, and the first Corvette aluminum wheels, RPO YJ8, were sold to four buyers before porosity problems forced a recall. Car and Driver still saw 60 mph in 6.7 seconds and the quarter in 15.1, and the new radials, rated for 120 mph, set the top speed.

MORE: THE 1973 RESEARCH PAGE

1974 C3 Corvette Stingray

The 1974 Corvette finished what the 1973 started. The federal five-mph standard now applied at the back, and Chevrolet answered with a body-color urethane cover over an aluminum impact bar on telescoping brackets, tapering down instead of up like the old Kamm tail, with the license plate and taillights recessed into it and the exhaust moved below it. The cover was moulded in two halves with a vertical seam down the middle, which lasted one year and is the quickest way to spot a 1974. The alarm switch moved to the left front fender, coupes got integrated lap-and-shoulder belts with inertia reels, the inside mirror grew to ten inches, the radiator was redesigned, the power-steering pump got magnets to trap debris, and resonators quieted the exhaust. The Gymkhana suspension, RPO FE7, offered the F41 springs and shocks for seven dollars.

Under the hood it was the end of several things. The LS4 454 made its last appearance, 270 hp and 380 lb-ft for $250, in 3,494 cars, and no Corvette since has had a big block. The 1974 was also the last Corvette to run on leaded fuel and the last without a catalytic converter, which means the last with true dual exhaust; from 1975 both banks fed one converter. The base L48 crept up to 195 hp and the L82 stayed at 250, good for 0–60 in about 7.5 seconds and 125 mph on 14 miles to the gallon, which mattered when the Arab oil embargo of October 1973 to March 1974 had drivers queuing for rationed gasoline.

MORE: THE 1974 RESEARCH PAGE

1975 C3 Corvette Stingray

The 1975 Corvette looks like the 1974 with black rubber pads on its bumpers, and almost everything that mattered happened out of sight. The catalytic converter arrived with unleaded fuel, so both exhaust manifolds now fed a Y-pipe into one converter before splitting again into twin mufflers, and true dual exhaust was gone. Delco’s breakerless High Energy Ignition replaced points and drove an electronic tachometer. The 454 was in the early order guide and cancelled before a car was built, leaving the 350 alone for the first time since 1967, and the detuning for the converter took the base L48 to 165 hp, 155 in California, the lowest rating a Corvette has ever carried, with the L82 at 205. Zora Arkus-Duntov retired on January 1, 1975, after twenty-one years, and Dave McLellan, fresh from MIT, took over an engineering job that would not let him change the car for another eight years.

The body changes were the one-piece rear cover in place of 1974’s seamed pair, a honeycomb core in the front bumper, shock absorbers behind the rear one, a headlights-on buzzer, a bladder in the fuel tank, kilometers on the speedometer and L82 badges on the hood of cars that had the engine (not all of them got the badges). More important was what ended: this was the last Corvette convertible until 1986, built because Chevrolet expected rollover rules to ban open cars and because only 4,629 buyers wanted one, the fewest of any year the body was offered. Many were bought as investments; it did not work. It was also the last year of Astro Ventilation and the last time a Corvette convertible cost less than the coupe.

MORE: THE 1975 RESEARCH PAGE

1976 C3 Corvette Stingray

The 1976 Corvette is the first with no convertible and the last with Stingray on its fenders, and in between it is the 1975 cleaned up. The rear-deck grilles went with the Astro Ventilation system they had served, the cowl-induction flap that whistled on the 1973–75 hood went too, replaced by a duct that drew air from above the radiator (the hood grille stayed for one more year), and the rear ‘CORVETTE’ letters changed from the wide 1975 style to small recessed ones part-way through the run, so both are correct. A partial steel floor pan went in as a heat shield over the catalytic converter and stiffened the structure, the lighter Delco Freedom battery became standard, and so, from mid-year, did power steering and power brakes; 173 early cars left without power steering.

The interior got the change nobody wanted: a four-spoke sport steering wheel shared with the Vega GT, which lasted exactly one year. The aluminum wheels came back after their 1973 recall, now a set of four Kelsey-Hayes castings made in Mexico for $299 with a steel spare, and 6,253 buyers took them. Horsepower moved the right way for the first time since 1969: the L48 to 180 and the L82 to 210, helped by the new induction. California buyers could not have the L82 or a manual transmission, and the automatic behind the L48 was now the lighter TH350 rather than the TH400, which stayed behind the L82. The Z07 package disappeared and the Gymkhana suspension went to $35.

MORE: THE 1976 RESEARCH PAGE