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1984-1996 Chevrolet Corvette (C4)

There are still plenty of fourth-generation (C4) Corvettes running around. You see them with paint splotches on their giant front hoods, with cheap, decades-old window tints peeling away and their suspensions drooping. The C4 is the Vette no one cares about right now. And it deserves better.



As the 1982 model year wound down, the C3 Corvette had become a joke. The C3 had been around since 1968 and slowly devolved into a boulevard cruiser unworthy of being called a sports car. It was an open question whether GM would replace it with another half-serious machine, let the Corvette die altogether or step up and build a true sports car. The C4 was, if nothing else, a true sports car.



There was a lot wrong with the first C4 when it went on sale in March 1983. The digital instrumentation was stupid, the suspension was brutally stiff, the Doug Nash "4+3" manual transmission needed a sledgehammer to shift, the Cross Fire–injected 5.7-liter small-block V8 only made 205 hp, and it took a block and tackle to successfully lower one's self over the high side sill and into the car. But on the racetrack it was an instant sensation, completely dominating most every showroom-stock or production-modified road race it entered. And by 1985 the C4 got much better with the adoption of the tuned-port-injected 230-hp L98 version of the 5.7-liter small-block and a significantly softened suspension.



Compared to its contemporaries, the C4 was always a dominating performer. And even today it's a car of towering ability. It deserves to be recognized as such.