(first posted 5/19/2014) It seems of late that there have been a lot of more, shall we say, prosaic cars on CC? That’s all fine and good, and if you look at the top of the masthead, every car does indeed have a story. But damn it, some cars are just sexier, and there’s nothing like a little zest in your daily fare, no? So, here we go! Time to dive deep into the beauty of the 1963 Corvette Sting Ray, in what may be my absolute ne plus ultra version of the sporting Chevys–a ’63 Coupe in red/red.
As the showroom brochure proclaimed, “Corvette steps out smartly with an exhilarating new look for ’63. A fresh look that promises to lift the spirits of any buff who takes the wheel.” Most of us have become inured to such marketing fluff, but in the case of the beautiful 1963 Corvette, they may have actually been downplaying it.
So, which 1963 GM automobile best exemplifies the classic Bill Mitchell look? The sporty ’63 Vette, or the luxurious but still sporty Buick Riviera? It’s a close match, but despite my deep, deep love of the original Riv (CC here), I think the split-window Corvette just barely nudges past the American Rolls-Royce. I mean, just look at it!
And, oh man, the colors on this one. Riverside Red, with fire engine red interior, in classic pleated vinyl. I love red/red cars, whether it is one of these, a 1980 Coupe de Ville, a 1970 ‘cuda or a ’68 AMX. Can I get a resounding “YES!” for the excellence of this color combination?
This car had it all. Beauty–such beauty!–independent suspension, capable power teams, available fuel injection, and the option of going topless. But as much as I am a fan of topless things–and not just cars–I have to tell you, if I had the means and the opportunity to sign on the dotted line for a ’63 example of America’s sports car, the car you see above is exactly what I would have gotten. A convertible is great, but this is one of those rare cases where the coupe looks better than the convertible. And the convertible is no slouch, mind!
The split window of the 1963 coupe was a clear example of Bill Mitchell’s form over function mentality. It is beautiful, but owners complained of limited rear visibility (oh, if those 1963 drivers could have gotten a gander of some 2014 models!) and so it was a one-year wonder. Indeed, many 1963 coupes were modified with ’64-’67 rear glazing–the horror! So, a small, approximately 1′ line of fiberglass can equal a healthy premium over an equivalent 1964 coupe. Crazy? Perhaps. But it’s so damn sexy.
And now, a slight digression, if you don’t mind. So many times, on so many websites, people mock and complain about red interiors on cars, especially if said car is, oh, I don’t know, a Brougham with opera windows and crushed velour. To wit: “Oh, I really don’t like the whorehouse red interiors, me not like, Mongo not like!” Well, red is a primary color, and it’s a pretty damn common color! Let’s see, fire engines, apples, fire chief’s cars, the Detroit Red Wings–they’re all red. But you never hear someone say, “Oh Bob, wearing that whorehouse red Red Wings shirt again?! Like, so unkewl!” Arrrgh! Okay, you get my point. Back to the car…
There are some cars that have classic lines, but let you down aesthetically when you slip behind the wheel. Not so in the 1963 Corvette. First off, a slim, classic three-spoke wheel with aluminum spokes and a color-keyed wheel. Ahead of it, a full complement of attractive gauges in a matte-black housing. Clock off to the right, and below it, a tres cool vertical radio. Could GM have been trying to give a Corvette touch to the 1980 X-body Citation when it included a vertical radio. If they did, it was a spectacular failure. The 1980 Citation is on a whole different constellation than this Corvette.
And under the hood? Classic small-block V8 goodness. The big blocks would come just a couple of model years later, but the SBC C2 Corvettes did just fine, thank you. And I prefer my C2 Corvette without the Hot Wheels-style side exhaust and big honkin’ hood scoop.
The current owners of this beauty helpfully had some spec sheets detailing the, well, details of this car. Options included Wonderbar radio, Positraction and whitewall tires. What price beauty? $4,599 in 1963.
I love it when fact sheets like this accompany the car. It is interesting to note that while a healthy dollop of 1963 Corvettes had the four-speed manual (a three-speed was standard), only 629 units had tinted glass. Well, who gives a flip about tinted glass when you’re ordering a new Corvette, for crying out loud!
And those wheels! I think this design has to be in the top five of all time best wheel designs. And I think it looks great paired with whitewall tires–yes, such things were done in America on a sports car in the early Sixties. A bit later they would be largely replaced with Goodyear Blue Streaks or the ever cool redlines.
Pretty much every car has compromises. Even a car like this Corvette may have a couple, but I can’t really think of any at the moment (drum brakes?-PN). But as far as I’m concerned, in aesthetic terms, there is not one–not one!–bad line on this car. From nose to tail, to interior, to wheel design and dimensions, the 1963 Corvette exudes excellence and beauty. Who wouldn’t love one?
At the Culver’s in West Davenport, there is an informal car cruise every Thursday between April and October. Everyone is welcome, whether they’re running a Broughamtastic Brougham, SVT Mustang, or a 1970 Dart. This vision in red appeared at one of them last July, and upon sighting it, I completely forgot about all the other cars there. It was only there once, but it was for the ages. Riverside Red Corvette, I salute you, and your most fortunate owners!
Related reading: PN’s Take On The 1963 Corvette Sting Ray
I agree 100%. American auto perfection.
Agree. Simply the best, better than all the rest.
The show judges awarded the Ambien Award to the Corolla and the Harvey Firestone Memorial Trophy to the 2nd Gen Explorer. 🙂
Nice to see one of these actually driven and enjoyed by its owners rather than hauled around on a trailer for fear of ruining it’s “originality”. “Originality” as defined by Corvette people is the how the car appeared on the shipping lot at St. Louis Assembly prior to being loaded on the truck or rail car. Plastic on the seats, grease pencil marks on the windshield, you name it. This being a St. Louis-built car, a few pebbles in the tire treads are acceptable. Had this been a ’53 or a Bowling Green car, no pebbles allowed.
you laugh…. for giggles I entered my 95 Explorer in a car show, was meeting a buddy for a road trip up to Colorado, and he was at this show with his 71 Chevelle ragtop.
I entered the 300,000 mile Explorer into the show, fully loaded for a weeklong road trip, and there were 3 trucks in its class. both modified, and mine box stock.
I managed to pull a first place in class trophy with it.
Ok, now go to the medicine cabinet and grab some blood pressure pills! 😛
Just kidding.
Can’t really fault you for going gaga over such a beauty.
I do agree, red interiors are just about the best looking ever.
My dad had a ’98 Boxster in silver with the Boxster red interior and I would just stare at it, it was so nice.
This Corvette is just gorgeous, and while my math skills are failing me in coming up with how rare this one is, the tinted glass alone would make it just one of 629, so quite rare.
I wish that split window design had stayed. Would have been cool for the C7 as rumored. Just drop one of those fancy rear view cameras and every car could have a split window.
I could just stare at it for days. Can’t find a fault, like you said. Everything, design wise, is at it should be. I really like that crease running in between the split window.
The interior still carries enough classiness (the satin metal plate) from the ’50s while also being very modern, love it.
My favorite ‘Vette of all time. Nice write up!
That is one nice looking car. Coming from me that is saying a lot. While I like the 60’s Corvettes by 1970 on up I could care less about them. When at car shows I always steer clear of them, most are newer, all parked in an exclusive group. Always wondered if their owners really knew how to work on a car and actually did any mechanical work themselves.
Was that ad copy written by David E. Davis or was he gone by then?
The ’63 Corvette is interesting because, while not the best of the C2, it is so easily identifiable. Even the dumbest car dork can tell a ’63 coupe. It’s a bit more difficult to determine the year of the later ’64-’67 cars with the arguably better looking and more user friendly (but not as distinctive) one-piece rear window.
In addition, it’s worth noting all the hoopla that surrounded the unveiling of the 1963 Sting Ray. I wasn’t there but, from what I’ve read, it was one of the most highly anticipated autos, ever.
I am not an expert, but I consulted my Corvette books. The 64 no longer has the split rear window, but still does not have the vents behind the front wheels or look like the 63. The 65 gets three vents behind the front wheels and still has a vent behind the door windows. The 66 and 67 models no longer have the vents behind the door windows. The 67 vents behind the front wheels increase from 3 to several.
The concept for the Tucker Torpedo had a split-window boat-tail rear, and that was 1946. Anyone know of an earlier version?
’63 Corvette is easily top 5 American car in styling.
The 1938 Phantom Corsair has the fastback and the split window, but is not really a boattail. I suspect that this would have been influential to a young Bill Mitchell.
This Bugatti from the mid-30s is fully split.
The origin of the split rear window goes back to the first Tatra 77 streamliner of 1933, which had a dorsal fin, and whose design influenced a huge number of subsequent cars thereafter, including the examples shown here, as well as the Volkswagen of 1936. The very first Tatra didn’t actually have any windows, but later ones did. But everyone jumped on the dorsal fin bandwagon, and it reappeared again on the Sting Ray.
Here’s a post on the car (a later Tatra 603) whose windows are almost a dead-ringer for the Sting Rays’. https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/1963-corvette-sting-ray-split-window-fastback-and-where-exactly-did-that-come-from/
The split rear window was on several American cars in the mid-1930’s. Here’s a 1937 Ford from Google Images.
I agree – there’s no Corvette like a red-on-red 1963 coupe.
Very nice ’63, and red/red is perfect for this car. Interesting note on the wheels, I had heard rumours that none ever came from the factory that way in ’63. The ’65-’67 cars were superior to the ’63-’64 cars in a number of ways but the split window is the iconic Sting Ray and always will be. Quite a bargain for what works out to maybe $35,000 today. I’ll bet they didn’t have to put any cash on the hood to move these back in ’63!
Love it in red, theres a yellow 63 locally it doesnt quite have the presence of this, limited rear visibility some steerers really need to take driving lessons and learn how to use mirrors.
Drat, Tom – I have one of these captured that I actually got a ride in. Maybe later, after we have all moved on, I may take another shot at this most iconic of Corvettes.
I am not usually a red/red fan, but it looks good on this car.
Just wait a couple of months; memories of what we previously ran tend to be on the short side 🙂
You actually got a RIDE in one of these and you haven’t written it up? Shame, shame JP. 🙂
Let’s just say that being 10 in 1963 made this and the ’63 Riviera pretty much the highlight of my year. I obsessed on the Sting Ray fastback endlessly back in its day, all the way to 1967. And while the C3 ’68 Vette made a bit of a jolt, it was a short-lived one.
I tend to think very little was wrong about most ’65 offerings from anybody, but ’63 was a banner year at GM. I know you are an early Grand Prix fan, and I agree. Grand Prix, Riviera, Corvette – simply wonderful.
People talk about remembering where they were when JFK was assassinated, etc. I have a very clear memory of the first 63 Sting Ray fastback I saw in Fort Wayne, IN at age 13. That silver blue car was so stunning it seemed not to belong on the same streets with ordinary cars. Somewhere around here I have an AMT model of the Sting Ray fastback that I painted – you guessed it – red. Red on red cars were not that uncommon back in the day – I recall quite a few owned by friends and family, including a gorgeous little 62 Cutlass coupe that sticks in my memory. Thank you Tom, for this most enjoyable piece.
Considering how cool many of the 1963 cars are (especially the Vette) it makes me particularly proud to have been born in (you guessed it) 1963.
This and the ’63 Riviera – the two best-looking American cars of all time?
Did General Motors produce one single badly styled car in 1963?
I don’t believe so!
(and this coming from a life long Mopar Man)
Interesting question. I would nominate the 63 Tempest as the least attractive vehicle to come out of GM that year, and it was by no means an ugly car.
Pretty car. I read somewhere that Zora Arkus Duntov hated the split and was the main instigator of its demise. Not sure how true that is given Mitchell’s corporate heft. Maybe it was pressure from both outside and within.
An epic battle it was, but ZAD managed to win it. No engineer would ever approve of such an affectation!
Thanks Paul. To have been a fly on the wall…
I’m really into the Riviera, too – and almost everything else that rolled out of a GM factory in ’63, but there’s no doubt that this car was the absolute pinnacle of the American automobile. I think a strong argument could even be made for it being the best car in the world at the time, but I don’t really have the energy to make it right now.
The C2 Vette is another car where I can’t pick what year is my favorite. It’s between ’63-’65 for me because I’d want the fuel-injected 327/wide-ratio 4-speed rather than the big blocks. The split window and knock-offs are so cool, but I like the colors that were available later on (all those metallic blues that look so classic on mid-60s Chevys with red line tires) and they got disc brakes in ’65. This is total fantasy, because I will never, ever be able to afford one of them.
Like someone else said up above, as much as I’m batshit crazy for early Corvettes, I have next to zero interest in them from the mid-70s onwards. I had the chance to work at a really cool Corvette shop once when I was younger and blew it because I expressed this sentiment on the interview, haha. Honesty is the worst policy!
The world we live in right now is a much better one than what existed 50 years ago in so many ways, but who doesn’t wish we could have held onto a little bit of the culture that the Stingray epitomized? At least in the automotive realm. Detroit is building many great cars once again, but we’ve still never recaptured this kind of magic. Will we ever? I wouldn’t bet on it, but I hope so.
One of my all time favorite cars. I don’t think that those louvres on the hood are original though?
Those are correct–used only in ’63.
Hmm, an ad for the long-forgotten Bostonian edition? Not only a winnah, but a real lookah, too!
You made me think of a ’90s Cougar with a landau top with that Bostonian comment. It made me picture a ’63 split window with a landau top. Ugh!
Ha, somebody, somewhere has probably done it.
Did you get “Bostonian” Cougars too? I thought that was just a special ticky-tacky treat for New Englanders.
We got them, but they obviously weren’t called “Bostonian.” I remember seeing a dark blue ’96-’97 Cougar with white top and–a spoiler. Blech!
In looking at the info sheet with the prices…can you imagine paying $174.35 for a radio? That same money today would buy you a lot more.
I was thinking the same thing. The “Wonderbar” radio option cost more than upgrading to the 340 HP engine!
Stunning, truly timeless car. One of the best ever to see production.
Compare this…..to the visual atrocity that is the current ‘Vette. Performance-wise, on a different planet, but man, what a missed opportunity for a re-emergence of timeless styling….
“And now, a slight digression, if you don’t mind. So many times, on so many websites, people mock and complain about red interiors on cars, especially if said car is, oh, I don’t know, a Brougham with opera windows and crushed velour. To wit: “Oh, I really don’t like the whorehouse red interiors, me not like, Mongo not like!” Well, red is a primary color, and it’s a pretty damn common color! Let’s see, fire engines, apples, fire chief’s cars, the Detroit Red Wings–they’re all red. But you never hear someone say, “Oh Bob, wearing that whorehouse red Red Wings shirt again?! Like, so unkewl!” Arrrgh! Okay, you get my point.”
Amen!
Great write up and love the pics – automotive porn at its finest!
I know it’s so overused…but…if any vehicle ever exuded TIMELESS BEAUTY, it’s this one. The red-on-red makes it more so.
And just for the record, I’m also a fan of the new one and the previous generation C-6’s.
The best looking Corvette ever.A beautiful car up there with the E type Jaguar and Italian exotica.
Once again, Paul and I agree on a car!
I cannot tell you HOW MANY times I doodled this car’s body and dash board during grade, junior and high school in my notebooks.
The only option that I would add to this awesome car would be factory air conditioning; MOST coveted here in Hot & Humid New Orleans.
Absolute perfection, but how DARE you use “Corvette” and “Citation” in the same sentence! Shame on you! THAT is an unforgivable sin.
A red car with a red interior? Put me down for a “yes”, even if I would prefer a saddle tan…
My favorite Vettes are the 1958-59 models, but this would be my second favorite. When this car was made, it was popular to have interiors that matched the exterior colour. The red on red certainly looks good to me. My favorite paint colour for these ‘Vettes is Milano Maroon, but I think they look good in any of the factory colours.
SOME cars are just a “natural” in red.
I’ve created a series of altered “What if…” images for vehicles that Detroit perhaps should have made. Here’s my rendition of what the ’63 Vette might look like at as an El Camino.
Fuel Injected StingRayMino? I like it!
Great car – one of the few American cars Id actually want to own.
A former colleague left his job in the UK about 20 years ago for an opportunity on LA, and the next time I saw him he was driving a convertible Stingray in Santa Monica……aaaargh!
These C2s are great to drive as well – they handle and ride surprisingly well and are very reliable. Even the Rochester fuel injection works great if maintained properly, apart from poor idling, which the fuelies were known for. Those drum brakes are ok for the first stop, but d fade on Alpine descents (ask me how I know!) and the ventillated discs from ’65 on are a huge improvement. Mine will be getting a Willwood disc conversion soon – being 100% original is nice, but beig able to stop reliably is nicer…
My Tuxedo black with red interior ’63 runs the fuelie 360hp motor with the 4 speed (mandatory on these) and 3.70 rear end. Mine has the steel wheels and trims as most ’63s did – the Kelsey Hayes knockoff aluminum wheels were found to be porous and recalled by Chevrolet. Therefore, most ’63s with the centerlocks are wearing re-pops or ’64 wjeels. Beautiful wheel design though…
I still think the C2 is a high point of automotive design and wish the C8 had some of it’s elegance and originality…….
Hre’s another view…
Here’s another view…
Er, let’s try that again…
The ’63 split window Corvette is simply the best looking version of this vehicle ever! Forget the mid engined version-this is the greatest Corvette period!
I loved your comment about the colour red. There was a commercial on TV recently where a past middle aged guy was pitching his own company, wearing a red shirt. It did not suit him, and I think he knew it too. He never wore it again, since it has been orange (again only once), then over to blues and white more regularly. He got our attention though. They have since adjusted the camera angle to a more complementary angle also.
Great article on a great car. I can’t say I have ever seen one of these in the wild.
BTW, Duntov’s complaint to Mitchell that the window split would hide a motorcycle cop in the rear view mirror is true (ask me how I know!).
That opening photo is magnificent.
I’m really liking that third pic down where the rear bumper is so shiny it almost disappears, and the reflection makes it look like there are four taillights instead of two.
To each their own but I’d note the Riv as signature Mitchell. The Riv interior is just amazing – a work of art! Corvettes are just not unique save for C1s. They all kind of look the same and are way too ubiquitous here in middle America…
Those skinny whitewalls do look good.
QOTD – will whitewalls ever make a comeback?
Not unless sidewalls over an inch tall do first…
I was alone in a hotel parking lot with a red 1963 Corvette Sting Ray. It could have been this car. No one was around. This gave me a chance to stare at this vehicle in person.
The entire car is supremely outrageous. The design is stunning. The nerve of these designers to shape this machine and the gall of fitting it with a split window rendered me speechless.
I stood at the rear of the car and just looked at that rear window. How ridiculous, impractical and artistically perfect. The spine running down the back of that car, the shapes of those back windows, the perfect lift of that tail over those perfect tail lights – the entire appearance was hypnotic. In red.
Those silver vents in the hood. The shape of the flip-up headlights. The knock-off wire wheels. Impractical. Non-functioning. Nothing but brilliant emotion.
Stupid car. Stupid perfect car. I want one.
Great looking car, would have loved to own one. It is weird though how these cars and the next generation all look a little like 4×4’s now, especially the 68nand newer C3’s. They looked low back in the day but compared to new stuff it looks like they all have air shocks on them. I have to go for the new mid-engine model, finally Zora gets his car, he can rest now.