Nice cars other than x-fire

1st Vette said:
This is all I can find.
Either this image has been photoshopped or the owner suffers from a major case of gauge-envy. Either way, someone went through a lot of work to make the this midyear Corvette’s cockpit look like something that’s ready for the runway instead of the driveway.



Click here for a larger image.

The photo was posted in the C1-C2 section of the Corvette Forum. I dug a little further and found that this dash is in deed real and was found in a 1966 Corvette that was on display at a car show in Elderburg, Maryland in May, 2007. The picture was taken by by flickr user tperry111.


This ’66 Vette is not the first with flight-related gauges. When the factory built the custom 1963 Corvette convertible for Harley Earl’s retirement, engineers removed the glovebox and installed custom gauges, one of which was an altimeter.

Comments about this dash on the forum are plenty and range from pilots talking shop to the fact that the usually chrome spinner on the Corvette’s tilt/tele steering column was painted flat black. Blasphemy!
Click to expand...
Blasphemy perhaps .... but I think I can put together 3 pedals there ;)
 
1st Vette said:
This is all I can find.
Either this image has been photoshopped or the owner suffers from a major case of gauge-envy. Either way, someone went through a lot of work to make the this midyear Corvette’s cockpit look like something that’s ready for the runway instead of the driveway.



Click here for a larger image.

The photo was posted in the C1-C2 section of the Corvette Forum. I dug a little further and found that this dash is in deed real and was found in a 1966 Corvette that was on display at a car show in Elderburg, Maryland in May, 2007. The picture was taken by by flickr user tperry111.


This ’66 Vette is not the first with flight-related gauges. When the factory built the custom 1963 Corvette convertible for Harley Earl’s retirement, engineers removed the glovebox and installed custom gauges, one of which was an altimeter.

Comments about this dash on the forum are plenty and range from pilots talking shop to the fact that the usually chrome spinner on the Corvette’s tilt/tele steering column was painted flat black. Blasphemy!
Click to expand...
1717018934659.png
 
1st Vette said:
Mustang concept. Obviously the one they should have built.
View attachment 124520
Click to expand...

Yea I gotta say its pretty nice for a 'stang

But like a wise man once said about his wifes boob job .....

Just because you put new headlights on a mini van .... doesn't make it a Corvette ....

and whos that creeper in the middle of the wind shield ?....;)
 
Vettenut said:
Yea I gotta say its pretty nice for a 'stang

But like a wise man once said about his wifes boob job .....

Just because you put new headlights on a mini van .... doesn't make it a Corvette ....

and whos that creeper in the middle of the wind shield ?....;)
Click to expand...
I suppose it’s built like the McLaren F1 with the steering wheel in the middle. I do like it better than the ones you can buy. Ya , the guy in the driver’s seat does look somewhat sketchy…
 
1st Vette said:
Mustang concept. Obviously the one they should have built.
View attachment 124520
Click to expand...
Great post .... you know we always value your automotive insights ..... on the old and new

But wouldnt it be great if alot ...or even some... concept cars actually made it to production ?
 
Vettenut said:
Great post .... you know we always value your automotive insights ..... on the old and new

But wouldnt it be great if alot ...or even some... concept cars actually made it to production ?
Click to expand...
For sure. I have seen some beautiful examples that make you wonder why they never got built. A crying shame.
 
From at least the mid-1940s to the early 1970s, General Motors used a system of XP labels to designate its concept cars and other design studies - a system that, at first glance, seems rather rational, but on deeper inspection was poorly or haphazardly implemented, to the point that we're not even sure which was the first project to warrant a GM XP label.

Most automakers - at least in their early years, that is - follow pretty regular naming conventions. Henry Ford (on his third attempt to start a car company) started with the Model A in 1903 and made it all the way through to the Model T with just a few gaps here and there. Ferdinand Porsche's Typ system was fairly well organized. So one would expect something similar from a company as complex from the outset as General Motors.

But after several years of compiling all the XP labels I can without traveling to Sterling Heights to research the topic in the GM Heritage Center's archives, I just have more questions than I do answers.

For instance, nobody seems to know where the XP labels came from or exactly what they designated. XP labels were already in use for experimental aircraft by the time GM started using them, and there's a high likelihood that GM's postwar designers took their inspiration from their aviation counterparts, but to date I've seen no hard proof to back that theory.

As for their use, I've seen individual XP labels assigned to concept cars and their duplicates (see, for instance, the question about the multiple iterations of the Oldsmobile F-88), to entire-vehicle design studies not intended for outside viewing, to clay models, and even to seat and interior studies. The labels generally increase chronologically, but occasionally skip entire blocks: There's nothing in the XP-10 to XP-19 range, for instance, and there's little in the XP-100s through XP-600s, but then a ton in the XP-700 and XP-800 range. Oh, and the handful of cars with XP names either do or don't have XP labels - there's no consistency.

IMG_2551.jpeg
 

Similar threads

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top