Corvette Production's Move to Bowling Green
As a follow-up to my “Corvette’s Turning Point” story a month ago: the success of the Corvette as refocused by Zora Arkus-Duntov created new challenges. Sales of the overhauled roadster soon skyrocketed, adding pressure to the already struggling St. Louis plant’s workforce. Production had risen from the first year’s 300 (built that one year in Flint, Michigan) to 3,467 annual units in 1956, but no one could have predicted that what was generally considered to be a small niche vehicle would spell doom for the original St. Louis plant. Production in 1960 topped 10,000 units, a record later shattered by the 1963 mark of 21,500. They surpassed building 30,000 units by 1969, and eventually peaked at an incredible 53,807 Corvettes in 1979!
In that year, GM officially announced that all Corvette production would be moved to a vacant air conditioning plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky to enable production to flourish. The doom of the St. Louis facility was now sealed.
An excellent article that chronicles the build process and the trials of production growth at the St. Louis plant was published in the April 2007 issue of Corvette Fever Magazine. Kevin Shaw draws you into the painful process so that you almost feel that you were there. A well detailed historical account!
I'm GM of the Bowling Green newspaper. We did a special section on the 25th year of Corvette in BG.
Your readers might be interested.
http://www.special-sections.com/sections/659/
I hope that I can finally buy my dream Corvette of 1978. Next week I will have the confirmation...
I am now looking for some nice pictures from the plant in St-Louis where the Corvette C3 is built.