The champions of the Chevrolet Corvette have included Bill Mitchell and Ed Welburn — Mr. Mitchell of the Sting Ray and Mr. Welburn of the Stingray, the difference in the rendering of the model names reflecting the different eras in which they worked.

Mr. Mitchell, who died in 1988, was a showman, a flamboyant ringmaster given to wearing silver riding leathers when piloting his motorcycles. As vice president for styling at General Motors for 19 years, he influenced the designs of millions of automobiles.

Mr. Welburn’s personality is quite the opposite, the sort of executive often called classy and no more likely to wear a silver leather outfit than a Carmen Miranda stack-of-bananas hat. Mr. Welburn has been the head of global design at G.M. since 2003, influencing cars built all over the world.

Mr. Mitchell oversaw the design of the best-known Sting Ray, the much admired Corvette redesign that was introduced for 1963, as well as an earlier racecar called the Stingray. Mr. Welburn is the man who resurrected the name for 2014, the seventh-generation Corvette arriving this fall.