That Time Forgot: Corvette Stingray III
Wait, you’ve never heard of this Corvette? Well, that’s honestly to be expected since this car is practically forgotten among most circles... I think. So why don’t you grab a drink and sit down with me as I tell you the story of this Corvette concept. (and no, this isn’t the CERV)
The Corvette Stingray III was one of three entrants into a GM design contest staged by Chuck Jordan, GM’s vice-president of design at the time, in 1992. He had asked three studios to pen down their ideas for what would become the C5 Corvette... which would end up looking nothing like this. But back to our story.
Jordan’s favorite was what would be christened the Corvette Stingray III, as penned down by Chevrolet’s Advanced Concept Center based in California, led by John Schinella. It explored a radical rethink of the Corvette’s proportions, featuring a stretched wheelbase and being wider than the C4, along with the windshield pulled far forward and the tail bobbed. The fact that it was designed in California gave it the nickname of the California Corvette Concept. The car would be showcased at the 1992 North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
The car featured active suspension using four optical sensors to shine beams of light down on the undercarriage to adjust it automatically. Four-wheel steering was also featured as standard. The car has fixed seats, which may seem like a problem to some, although the low side sills and an instrument panel which articulates up when the doors open aids the driver or passenger in getting into the car and allowing for better knee clearance. The car also had an adjustable steering wheel and pedals to make up for the fixed seats.
The seat backs were raked to nearly a recumbent position, and the car featured a rather basic steering wheel; what was behind that steering wheel was far from basic, however, with an analog and digital dashboard.
Powering the car originally was a “high-output” V6 of an unknown capacity. When the car was showcased at the NAIAS, it wowed the crowds, but the Detroit-based design firms weren’t as pleased, especially when it came to the V6, which they felt was a step backwards. The engine may have been replaced by a 300 horsepower GM 5.7L LT1 V8 at some point, likely around the time the NAIAS rolled around.
The car was actually very close to seeing the light of day on the production side, although the $300,000 price tag for the thing really did not help the car’s case, even for a Chevrolet that could purportedly do 225 mph (362 km/h). As such, production plans were canned and the Corvette Stingray III remained a prototype. It now sits among a whole host of other GM cars at the GM Heritage Center, and various elements of all three Corvette designs were used in the final design of the C5 Corvette, which received rather lukewarm reception.
After its auto show debut in Detroit in 1992, the Corvette Stingray III got its big break on the big screen, where it made its movie debut in a car chase scene in the 1993 movie Demolition Man; the Stingray III only appeared very briefly in the movie as one of the “background cars”. The car was featured alongside some seventeen other General Motors concept vehicles lent by GM to the production crew for the film. After filming ended the car returned to the GM Heritage Center.
Okay, now that we’ve got all the history out of the way, let’s talk about the reason why you’re here; the history of the Hot Wheels version of the Stingray III.
This casting was introduced in 1993 in the Demolition Man series, alongside eight other cars that appeared in the movie: these were the Oldsmobile Aurora, Olds 442 W-30, GM Ultralite, GM Lean Machine, Pontiac Salsa, Pontiac Banshee, Buick Wildcat and the Chevrolet ACC Camaro (’93 Camaro), intended to represent the Chevrolet California IROC Camaro Concept. The designer of this casting is not known with any certainty, although I suspect it was done by Larry Wood.
This casting has a plastic base, although it seems at least one of the versions has a metal base. Early versions will say "'93 WARNER” instead of “Sting Ray III”; I presume the license with Warner Bros. had expired, so they just scrubbed off the Warner licensing information and put their own on.
This casting was last known to have been released in 2004 under the Track Aces series in this paint scheme. This casting may have been seen as late as 2007, although I have not been able to find any documentation or pictures of this release. The car has had a total of sixteen known releases; this number could possibly be seventeen because details of the 2007 release is unclear.
I hope you’ve learned something about this slick, streamlined concept car like I did while researching this. I’d write something like this again any day.
- Grunty