Hairman gets a C2

Hairman’s C2.

Here I am at Hairman yesterday afternoon (Thursday, July 2, 2009), getting a haircut.
Haircut finished, I walk to his front desk to tender my preprinted Quicken check.
But what’s this? Hairman is acting like a little boy, excitedly scribbling on a small yellow sticky-note.
Hairman is slightly older than me.
“TurnerAutomotive.com.”
“Turner Automotive?” I say. “They sell Corvettes.
“Check 1967 — you get a red hit. That’s MY car. I bought it.”
“Holy mackerel,” I say. “Lessee. 1968 is the first year of the C3s. C2s were the best Corvettes ever made.”
1963-1967; when Zora Arkus-Duntov made the Corvette into a really great car.
Of course, he had a really great motor to work with; the high-revving Small-Block Chevy V8.
But that four-speed floor-shifted tranny was essentially him, as was that independent rear suspension.
Duntov stuck around, and retired in 1975. —He died in 1996.
During his tenure, the C3 debuted, essentially the same chassis as the C2, but a body modeled after the dramatic Mako Shark show Corvette.
Duntov made the mistake of putting a Big-Block in it, which unbalanced the car.
It was so heavy it turned the car into a chronic understeerer, an immensely powerful car that would plow into the weeds.
The Small-Block Corvette was better balanced.
And unfortunately the C3 became sort of a boulevardier.
Divorced dentists would get them in a feeble attempt to reattain their youth.
But they got them with auto-trannies and air-conditioning.
A car to strutt, but essentially a Caprice.
The C3 also hung around way too long, clear until the 1982 model-year. (1983 was skipped due to production problems.) —Restyled and cleaned up some, but essentially the same car.
The C4 came out as a 1984 model, first produced in March of 1983; a complete redesign with a new chassis.
But it looks disco, and it continued the boulevardier aura.
Two updates of the Corvette have been fielded since, the C5 and currently the C6.
But it’s still the hoary old Small-Block, although developed so much Ed Cole wouldn’t recognize it.
About the only similarity to the ‘55 Small-Block is the bore-centers: 4.40 inches apart.
Plus it’s still two valves per cylinder, and the camshaft still in the block in the valley between the heads.
I.e. it’s not state-of-the-art engine technology; overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder.
It gets extravagent power output by being LARGE, and now supercharging.
Although that’s not what sells most.
It’s the car’s appearance and image. Ladle on the air-conditioning.
A ‘67 C2 is more like it.
“327?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Coupe or roadster?”
“It’s a convertible.”
“The roadster,” I said. Although technically he’s right. The top folds down under a panel behind seats. —If it were actually a roadster, that top wouldn’t fold down. Corvettes were never made that way.
“Fuel injection?” I asked.
“Yes.”


350 horsepower (so it says).

But actually it’s not. That looks like an air-cleaner for a four-barrel carburetor.
But it IS a four-speed, not a boulevardier.
“Some day I’ll take ya for a ride in it!” Hairman said.
“If Linda was still around, he wouldn’t have that,” my wife observed, when I got back home.
“Linda” is his beloved wife who died a few months ago of mesothelioma, although probably more the chemo than the cancer.
Linda was wife number-two, but I guess they were a good match, although they always seemed to be at each other’s throats.
That is, until she contracted mesothelioma — and it became apparent she might kick the bucket.
It’s sad for me, because -a) Linda was a really nice person, and -b) my own Linda also had cancer, but survived.
Hairman is a bit like me. He has interests similar to mine; e.g. -a) cars; -b) airplanes; and -c) radio-controled model airplanes.
He’s also very interested in technology, like computers, as am I. (But not a railfan.)
I guess he once had a C2 StingRay, but sold it to relation across the Atlantic. (He’s Belgian ex-patriot.)
So now he’s got another; and a good one. A ‘67 StingRay is one of the best ever Corvettes, and it’s a proper four-speed; what I would choose.

Following is a link to his car (I hope it works; Turner will probably take it down soon — it’s a sold car): Hairman’s car. (Scroll through all the pictures, everyone. There’s 89 bazilyun.)

• “Hairman” is Joseph Cotteleer, my hair-dresser. I’ve gone to him almost 20 years.
• “Tranny” is transmission; “auto-tranny” an automatic tranmission,
• RE: “C2 and C3” Corvettes........ —Six iterations of the Chevrolet Corvette were sold. The C1 was the first; 1953–1962. Although various stylings were available over that time, and the Small-Block Chevy V8 installed for the 1955 model-year — the earliest Corvettes were a hot-rodded Stovebolt inline-six with extra carburetion. The C2 was 1963–1967. The C3 is 1968–1982. The C4 was a complete revision of the Corvette, introduced in 1983 as a 1984 model. It was produced from 1984 through 1996; and I call it the “disco Corvette.” The C5 is another reengineer, although essentially the same chassis as the C4, produced from 1997 through 2004; although a major revision was to move the tranny to the rear axle differential. The C6 is the current model. —C1 through C3 are essentially fan namings; the C1 through C3 weren’t named that. But C4 through C6 are company namings.
• The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first at 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the Small-Block. It was made in various larger displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation. —The Chevrolet overhead-valve inline “Stovebolt-six” was introduced in the 1929 model-year at 194+ cubic inches. It also continued production for years, upgraded to four main bearings (from three) for the 1937 model-year. In 1950 the Stovebolt was upsized to 235.5 cubic inches (from 216), and later upgrades included full-pressure lubrication and hydraulic (as opposed to mechanical) valve-tappets. The Stovebolt was produced clear through the 1963 model-year, but replaced with a new seven-main bearing inline-six engine in the 1964 model-year. The Stovebolt was also known as “the cast-iron wonder;” called the “Stovebolt” because various bolts could be replaced by stuff from the corner hardware.
• “Independent rear suspension” was hardly the Detroit norm in 1963. Everything was tractor layout; rear-wheel-drive through a sprung solid-axle between the rear wheels, much like a farm-tractor; although a farm-tractor didn’t have springing. Independent rear suspension has the center differential solidly mounted to the chassis — it’s not sprung. And then individual half-shafts come out of each side to each wheel. The wheels are sprung, and the angle needed by the half-shafts is provided by universal-joints or constant-velocity joints. (The C2 and C3 ‘Vettes were universal-joint — cheaper but not constant-velocity. A universal-joint doesn’t provide constant rotational speed at an angle.) —The advantage to independent rear suspension (“IRS”) is that a bump to a single wheel doesn’t effect the attack-angle of the opposite wheel. Plus the arrangement took out the weight of the center differential, which with a tractor layout was added sprung weight, and had momentum.
• “Divorced dentists” is a Tim Belknap (“bell-NAPP”) description. —Tim Belknap was an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked. Belknap like me is a car-guy, so we continue to keep in contact. He has retired. He badmouths the Corvette.
• “Caprice” was the premier Chevrolet sedan model during the ‘70s and early ‘80s.
• “Ed Cole” was the primary and chief engineer that shepherded development of the Small-Block Chevy V8 motor.
• “Camshafts” are the valve (poppets) actuating mechanism. Sticking the camshafts over top the heads (“overhead camshafts”) is more direct than actuating the valves by pushrods and rockers from a camshaft down in the engine-block. Overhead-cam is less likely to have “valve-float;” valve actuation not precisely following the camshaft due to the momentum of the valve-gear; e.g. valves remaining open (“floating”) when they should close, often hitting piston-crowns and bending or breaking. “Four valves per cylinder” breathe better than only two. “Supercharging” is to force intake air into the cylinders with a compressor. Superchargers are mechanically driven by the engine; “turbochargers” are superchargers driven by exhaust-flow through turbines.
• The “air-cleaner” is a housing for an air filter.
• “Mesothelioma” is a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. There was some question how she ever could have got this, but her father was an auto-mechanic, who did brake-work; and long ago braking material was impregnated with asbestos. He probably came home with clothes carrying asbestos dust. —Hairman said many were exposed, but not everyone gets mesothelioma.
• “My own Linda” is my wife of 41+ years. She had lymphatic cancer. It was treatable — she survived.
• I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child. —Hairman isn’t.