History of the Corvette Sting Ray: The Founders - Mitchell, Shinoda, and Duntov

The notion of the Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray sprang from the fertile mind of William "Bill" Mitchell. He was short, loud, profane; and, according to some, an occasional racist. But he was also an automobile design wizard, the head of design for General Motors from 1958 to 1977. He wielded much power and influence in the world of the automotive business during this time, but is rarely remembered today -- and he should be remembered. In 1958, he was Harley Earl's successor at GM, -- and those were giant shoes to fill.

Bill Mitchell, however, was Earl's design opposite. Harley Earl believed in innovating with all the splashy customized bells and whistles that were emblematic of the fifties. For the sixties, Bill Mitchell stripped off all chrome, tailfins, and the like. The operative word; and most frequently heard description for Bill Mitchell's brand of car styling was "tailored." His design philosophy: create a car that looks like it's (in his own words) "going like hell standing still."

Mitchell was also a big fan of European car styling. Inspired by the Rolls Royce, his first design masterpiece (with Ned Nickles) was the Buick Riviera. It was created in "Studio X", Bill Mitchell's secret experimental lab under the lobby of Detroit's GM headquarters. So was the Corvette Sting Ray.

Larry Shinoda

Bill Mitchell put Larry Shinoda in charge of designing the Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray.

During World War II, Larry Shinoda and his family were part of thousands of Japanese Americans interred at U.S. government-run camps. His family was sent to California's Manzanar Camp. After the war, back in Los Angeles, Larry Shinoda was a street racer, flunking out of the Art Center College of Design. His automotive design ideas didn't conform to the school's curriculum, but this didn't stop Shinoda. He plunged onward, converting a 1924 Ford roadster into a hot rod that won the first NHRA (National Hot Rod Association) Nationals race.

In 1955, Shinoda was hired as a senior designer at GM's Chevrolet division.

One night in 1956, Larry Shinoda was driving home from work in his self-customized 1955 Ford, when General Motors head designer Bill Mitchell pulled up at a traffic light next to him. Mitchell's car was a customized Pontiac with a supercharger, a muscle car forerunner.

They raced from the light. According to Shinoda, he waited for the Pontiac to shift into second gear. To Mitchell's surprise, Shinoda's Ford then easily passed the supercharged Pontiac in first gear. At work the next day, Mitchell approached Larry Shinoda and asked to look at his Ford. Shinoda showed him the customized 352 Ford stock car racing engine. Mitchell hired him to join the Studio X team.

In Studio X, Mitchell, Shinoda, along with race car designers Peter Brock and Chuck Pohlman went to work on a race car that didn't set out to become a Chevrolet. It was a kick-ass race car initially called the "Q Corvette" and then the Sting Ray.

In 1961, Bill Mitchell put Larry Shinoda at the head of the team. His main task was to integrate the Sting Ray's streamlined race car body style onto a Corvette production sports car SS chassis. This would be the 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray.

Zora Arkus-Duntov

Zora Arkus-Duntov was the engineer who designed the Corvette Sting Ray's signature fuel-injection system, four-wheel disc brakes, independent rear suspension, and limited slip-differentials.

In 1934, as a Belgian-Jewish engineering student in Germany, Duntov fled the Nazis for France, where he became a combat pilot for the Free French. When France fell to the Nazis, Duntov left for England, where he became an engineer for a British car racing team. In 1941, he immigrated to the United States where he continued as an automotive engineer as well as a highly respected race car driver. Zora and his brother Yuri then opened an auto engineering shop where they helped develope the Flathead V8 engine for Ford.

Besides being an automotive engineer, Zora Arkus-Duntov was also an auto racer. In 1953 and 1954, he won his divisions at Lemans.

Duntov attended the General Motors Show in New York where he saw the Chevrolet Corvette for the first time. He loved the Vette's body styling but not its modest 150-horsepower engine. This spurred him to write a letter to GM's chief engineer Ed Cole. In this letter, Duntov offered suggestions on how to improve the Corvette's design as well as the company's marketing approach. At the time, General Motors was considering shutting down production on the Corvette because of lagging sales due to stiff competition from Ford's Thunderbird.

Ed Cole hired Duntov to redesign the Corvette engine. At the top of the line, Duntov designed a 265ci engine with a "Duntov Cam" that resulted in 240-horsepower.

Duntov vs. Mitchell

While Arkus-Duntov was a well-respected engineer, he had no political clout and was a strong critic of the Sting Ray's design. He claimed that the body shape wasn't aerodynamic, and he especially thought that the tiny gap in the split-window was dangerous.

Duntov favored his own more aerodynamic wedge design for Chevrolet's second generation of Corvette that would be emblematic of the 1960s. Bill Mitchell touted his Sting Ray, his Studio X race car that was destined to be Corvette's second generation. This led to a small war between GM's engineering and design departments. There were even screaming matches where Mitchell would call Duntov "Zorro" or "f*cking white Russian"; and Duntov would call Mitchell a "red-faced baboon."

Bill Mitchell had the clout and the Sting Ray became the Corvette Sting Ray, split-window included. To Duntov's satisfaction, however, many Sting Ray buyers wound up removing the split-window and replacing it with a solid piece of glass. All Sting Ray models after 1964 did not include the split-window.

The Fathers

Bill Mitchell died in 1988.

Zora Arkus-Duntov went on to design a legendary racing package for the legendary 1963 Z06 Corvette. In 1996, he died in Grosse Pointe, Michigan at age 86.

In 1997, Larry Shinoda died in Farmington Hills, Michigan. A few months later, The Industrial Designers Society of America gave him its annual award posthumously.