General Motors Tried to Build a Four-Seat Corvette in 1962

For nearly 60 years, America's car magazines were of a firm belief: General Motors seemed to be no more than 18 months from replacing whatever their Corvette of the day was with a completely new mid-engined offering. This did not actually happen until the 2020 model year, but it did eventually happen. Thankfully, the same cannot be said about GM's other attempt to put something behind the driver's seat in the early Sixties.

This is a four-seat C2 Corvette, modeled in 1962 and shown in color this week on GM Design's official Instagram page. While the final C2 line ended up focusing heavily on serious sports car performance at a surprisingly low price point, the four-seat variant shown here previews a world where Corvette instead pivoted toward a grand touring future in response to Ford's then-successful Thunderbirds that had already grown significantly larger by 1958.