0:00
[Music] welcome to Corvette today the show that
0:06
talks about everything Corvette with your host Steve Garrett lifetime member of the National Corvette Museum
0:13
president of the Corvette club of Kansas City Missouri and radio disc jockey at the number one radio station in Kansas
0:20
City for over 45 years here's Steve
0:27
Garrett thanks for listening and watching Corvette today the show that talks about everything Corvette and the
0:33
only current podcast dedicated to Corvette I'm your host Steve Garrett I appreciate you tuning in Corvette today
0:39
is brought to you by wheelcraft want to dress up your Corvette with bright Chrome or black chrome wheels visit
0:44
wheelcraft decom and learn about their Advanced PVD chrome finishing they can refinish your wheels or offer a wheel
0:50
exchange for most models and it comes with a 5-year warranty visit wheelcraft
1:00
4 you can listen to Corvette today on all podcast platforms you can also listen on your smart device just say hey
1:06
Google or Alexa play the podcast called Corvette today and you're connected and
1:11
be sure to visit the Corvette today website it's Corvett today.com you can access everything there including the
1:17
Corvette today merchandise store you can also join our Corvette today Facebook group there as well also make sure you
1:23
sign up for the Corvette today emails notifications and updates at Corvett today. ck. page and if you like YouTube
1:31
be sure to subscribe to our Corvette today YouTube channel see all Corvette today episodes on YouTube as well and be
1:38
sure to patronize our Flagship sponsors of Corvette today mid-engine Corvette forum.com The Forum that focuses on the
1:44
new mid-engine ca Corvette meet a lot of fellow Corvette enthusiasts like yourself at mid-engine Corvette
1:51
forum.com Soul Performance Products developed and manufactured in the United States the soul Performance Products
1:57
exhaust portfolio has been tailored to Elevate the experience of the world's most exciting sports cars including the
2:03
latest generation of the Corvette soulle Performance Products at spp.com the official performance exhaust
2:11
of Corvette today aari Wheels a true forged wheel with over 20 unique styles
2:16
to choose from for your C8 and widebody versions of the C7 C6 and C5 Corvette
2:22
it's an amazing value starting at only 2388 for a set of four fully forged
2:27
wheels and use the promo code T t111 and get $100 off your purchase visit aol.com
2:34
that's a r o l a r r i.com and use the promo code ct1111 for your $100 discount
2:42
coka Corvette if you're a Corvette Enthusiast and I know you are since you're listening and watching Corvette
2:47
today then you need to know about coka Corvette they're based in Atlantic City where you can find over 100 new and
2:53
pre-owned vets on the lot and inbound coka also ships Corvettes all over the country custom order to your
3:00
specifications they're staffed with experienced Pros who can answer all your questions so don't compromise visit coka
3:06
corvette.com that COC CCAC corvette.com and find out more Chevrolet together
3:13
let's drive and a shout out to Canadian Corvette forum and Corvette forum welcoming Corvette enthusiasts from
3:19
around the world my guest on Corvette today created and invented the head-up display for Corvette now head-up
3:25
displays have been very popular safety features in modern cars but it wasn't always that way as a matter of fact Huds
3:32
were introduced by GM 11 years before becoming enormously successful on the Corvette and we're going to talk about
3:38
that today my guest is Steve Stringfellow Steve welcome to Corvette today thank you for having me Steve you
3:45
bet you're here in studio this is great Steve lives in the Kansas City area I don't get a chance to have people in
3:50
studio that much so it's great to have you here first of all Steve let's talk about your childhood tell me where you
3:56
grew up and did you come from a car family well I was originally born in Santa Monica California in 1956 and I
4:02
grew up in palis Fes California back then it was kind of a Rancho and farmland it's not really that way
4:07
anymore right I guess my mother's first car was a beautiful white 1962 Chevrolet
4:14
cor o so close almost but at least we were in the
4:20
Chevy family there yeah and I remember there were lots of Elden and Mattel Engineers who had families and own homes
4:25
in the area so I grew up with lots of influence of Hot Wheels and slot cars and anything with a Cox nitro 049 engine
4:33
that's pretty cool yeah so was Corvette the car for you when you were growing up oh gosh yeah Corvettes were always a
4:39
childhood dream growing up and I think it was the same dream for every kid who followed the Space Race back during the
4:44
Mercury and Gemini and Apollo programs oh yeah my Cub Scout scrapbook was full of pictures of astronauts driving
4:50
Corvettes and I don't remember seeing any in the neighborhood unfortunately I would definitely have remembered that
4:56
yeah and oh by the way guess I did own a Schwin Stingray bike though that's close you know for a kid that's as close as
5:03
you're going to get to a Corvette right you beta what did you want to be when you grew up were Corvettes part of your
5:08
childhood I was kind of a tinkerer as a kid and I guess I still am I build lots of models we had a workbench and tools
5:15
on our garage and somehow I just kind of had this snack for taking things apart and learning how to fix them and just
5:20
kind of seeing how they worked but I think the biggest influence a of motive wise was my childhood friend Bill his
5:27
grandfather had a family-owned auto parts store to California as we got older and began to learn how to drive we
5:33
kind of got jobs delivering parts to garages and repair shops throughout the southern Los Angeles area sometimes i'
5:39
drive across town to deliver just a small set of ignition points or sometimes I'd have to deliver a big
5:45
orange painted 180 lb Chevy short black you so we unloaded the trucks and
5:51
stocked everything we worked the catalogs at the counter helping customers find obscure parts and
5:56
fasteners and sometimes we worked in the Machine Shop you know sand blasting the surfacing heads grinding and installing
6:02
valves and springs or turning break drums there was always work to do and lots to learn about cars and even though
6:08
we were teenagers we were never bored we always got our hands really dirty and came home exhausted well that's a good
6:14
thing I think right oh yeah so where did you go to college what did you study in school well the Vietnam War was raging
6:21
at the time and I signed up for the draft at 16 and my father really didn't save for my college at all and I guess
6:27
he was a bit uncertain about what my future would be after the war ended to be honest at 18 years old I didn't know
6:32
what I wanted to do after a while my father decided to use part of his retirement savings to send me to college
6:39
I was accepted at the University of California at Santa Cruz where I took my GE classes and dabbled a little bit in
6:45
physics and architecture and environmental design related subjects although I like designing structures and
6:50
it was beautiful up there up in the trees oh yeah I could tell it just wasn't the right place for me to be I was more kind of geared towards product
6:57
and transportation things like car and airplanes yeah that makes sense so what were your degrees in Steve so after
7:04
moving I took a big student loan I moved to California State University at Long Beach and after four years and working
7:11
part-time I got my Bachelor of Science degree in product design engineering i' really finally found my calling that's
7:17
really cool well I tell you what buddy let's take our break right now when we come back we're going to talk about your
7:22
career in the business World which included Hughes aircraft along with GM that's coming up next with Steve
7:28
Stringfellow here on Corvette today we all know that Wheels make the car wheelcraft PVD chrome finish in bright
7:35
Chrome or black chrome will take your Corvette to new levels and it comes with a 5-year warranty durability is a
7:41
defining feature of the wheelcraft finish their PVD chrome is superior to traditional Chrome with a finish that is
7:46
breake dust resistant and cleans effortlessly with soap and water wheelcraft offers Factory wheel exchange
7:52
for select C4 through C8 models or they can apply the pbd Finish to your current Wheels no matter what generation you own
7:58
wheelcraft will transform the look of your Corvette with every Corvette comes a unique story and wheelcraft has
8:04
embraced this idea when you purchase your new set of wheels you receive a lifetime membership to the wheelcraft
8:09
pit crew granting you access to your own page on wheelcraft website where you can post pictures and tell your Corvette
8:15
story visit our website at wheelcraft decom or call 833 639- 4231 AR in style
8:23
with wheelcraft the radiator Grill store offers protection for your C front
8:30
radiators and side intakes they also carry front strut Tower covers to prevent rusting and pooling water all
8:35
with do-it-yourself installation get 10% off your total purchase with promo code ct10 see the full line of products at
8:42
radiator Grill store.com the National Corvette restorage Society is celebrating its
8:48
50th Anniversary this year 50 years of affirming and promoting the preservation and restoration of the Corvette 50 years
8:55
is the foremost Corvette collector car Organization for building value with its prestigious Awards have you ever
9:01
considered joining ncrs over 70,000 people have were so much more than just
9:07
the nuts and bolts the ncrs flight judging program can and often does increase the value of America's sports
9:13
car by researching and Publishing the leading Tech manuals and judging guides for the 1953 through 2007 Corvettes by
9:20
training the best judges and by hosting local Regional and National judging events and when you join you'll get
9:26
award-winning magazines like Corvette restore and drive light and all throughout the year joining is simple
9:31
and easy just go to ncrs.org and sign up there are ncrs chapters all throughout
9:37
the US and all around the world chances are there's a local chapter near you so join ncrs today at ncrs.org we come for
9:46
the Corvettes we stay for the friendships made along the way when you want to buy a Corvette or any Chevrolet
9:52
for that matter get yours from Hendrick Chevrolet Shaunie Mission located in Kansas City Hendrick Chevrolet is the
9:57
largest Corvette dealership and showroom in the midwest with a knowledgeable sales staff and Corvette sales
10:02
Specialists on hand they'll help you build the Corvette of your dreams and they ship Nationwide with Corvette
10:08
certified Master mechanics on site and a huge parts department with over 24,000 parts and $2 million in inventory Henri
10:15
Chevrolet is well equipped to take care of your every need from sales to service to Collision Repair Hendrick Chevrolet
10:21
has you covered visit Chevy usa.com or call 913 3841 1550
10:29
and now back to Corvette today with your host and my husband Steve Garrett thanks
10:36
for checking out Corvette today on podcast and YouTube it's the only current podcast dedicated to Corvette
10:42
Corvette today is brought to you by wheelcraft you want your Corvette looking its best don't you we'll dress it up with bright Chrome or black chrome
10:49
wheels visit wheelcraft tocom and learn about their Advanced PVD chrome finishing they can refinish your wheels
10:55
or do a wheel exchange and you get a 5-year warranty so visit wheelcraft decom today or give them a call 833 639
11:04
4231 I'm your host Steve Garrett with me is Steve Stringfellow Steve created and vented the head-up display for Corvette
11:12
in the second segment we're going to talk about Steve's career in the business World Steve where did you work right after you graduated college back
11:19
in 1979 I was working part-time with a small startup called Robinson Helicopter
11:24
Company it's not that way anymore they're huge now they're huge and I was a technical illustrator well in college
11:30
by the time I was out of college and doing the R22 helicopter Illustrated parts catalog I knew every part nut bolt
11:37
and washer on that helicopter I knew how it went together and I knew who made it I became a member of the then very small
11:44
engineering staff when I graduated in 1981 that Robinson helicopter one of the first things that they had me do was do
11:50
Landing skid extensions on the R22 helicopter so it could land in snow and mud cool then I designed big floats so
11:57
it could land on Water I redesigned the instrument console for the beta model adding more gauges which is now there's
12:02
an example of it displayed in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum wow I just found that out I built an even
12:08
bigger more complex instrument panel so the helicopter could be used for IFR training that's of course flying in
12:14
clouds right I redesigned the seats to create more Headroom and improve crashworthiness I also designed an
12:20
auxiliary fuel system increase the fuel capacity by almost 11 gallons wow I did
12:25
the exhibits for trade shows I even did the paint schemes for all the our 22 models that's cool and oh I also paid
12:32
off my student loan in about 1984 I began working
12:37
directly with Frank Robinson on the exterior aerodynamics and interior layout for the r44 model which basically
12:43
was the R22 multiplied by 1.3 and remember at this time this was all on paper Robinson didn't have
12:50
computers for design back then so so it was a lot of work a lot of erasers and starting over again and redrawing lines
12:56
very complex work and very hard to do as a s note Robinson are now the highest selling civilian helicopters in the
13:02
world they are they really are now after Robinson helicopter tell me about your transition to Hughes aircraft yeah being
13:09
a helicopter company it had its proverbial ups and downs no pun intended
13:14
right we had layoffs and FAA work stoppages and sometimes us Engineers were cut back to three days a week at a
13:20
40% cut pay ouch yeah I know I needed to find something better Joe deso who is a
13:26
Robinson engineer I work with closely departed Hughes aircraft a few years earlier he contacted me about some side
13:32
Contracting work that Hugh was designing a head up display night vision helmet for an advanced helicopter program so
13:39
while I was still at Robinson I started Moonlighting at Hughes while learning about Optics and head up displays yeah
13:44
after several months I finished the helmet project which also allowed me to get to know the Hughes staff and them to
13:51
get to know me a little bit that's cool so talk about the time when GM bought Hughes aircraft and how that affected
13:56
you and your job well that was a key turning point where I really decided to make the jump in the summer of 1985 GM
14:03
bought Hughes aircraft for the purpose of transferring Technologies from Hughes to GM vehicles cool GM wanted to acquire
14:10
things like the hu satellites for vehicle emergency communication which eventually became OnStar oh no kidding
14:16
oh yeah and then satellite video streaming which became Direct TV and radar for use in a new technology called
14:23
adapted cruise control which is almost ubiquitous nowadays right to an important degree acquisition of head
14:29
displays for cars I guess then used radar systems in Elsa gundo which was
14:34
about 5 miles from my apartment at Rosa Beach called and asked me if I was interested in becoming the project
14:40
engineer for the automotive side of this new program so with a little bit of hesitation you know then came to carrot
14:46
they said GM had just provided them a new red 1986 Corvette for use as a
14:51
project development car and asked if I was interested I think I put in my two-e notice at Robinson the following day
14:58
yeah that makes sense no question I can imagine well buddy let's take our final break when we come back we're going to
15:04
talk in segment three about the nuts and bolts of the head-up display for Corvette coming up next on Corvette
15:12
today are you ready for a better insurance policy without the Corvette tax with agreed value protection the
15:18
value of your collector vehicle will never change plus you'll save money get a quick quote at NCM
15:25
insurance.com Yogi bar once said if you don't know where you're going you probably end up there at true wealth and
15:31
Company we take that to heart see at true wealth and Company we believe your retirement lifestyle travels through two
15:37
doors door number one The Blue Door gives you more options Financial Freedom your money outlives you every happiness
15:43
you wish for in life is through the blue door door number two the red door is where you outlive your money you rely on
15:49
family friends or even the state to take care of you at true wealing company we're not just financial planners the
15:55
best way to walk through the blue door is to have a written plan make a work optional lifestyle or reality with our
16:01
proprietary true lifemap formula look towards your future with anticipation not apprehension having a rock solid
16:07
fiduciary partner like true wealth and Company is essential to effective financial planning there's no winging it
16:13
there's nothing left to chance look we don't want you to become another Yogi bar ISM give us a call today at 913 653
16:20
true visit us online at retire with.com start your financial Independence and
16:25
work optional lifestyle today 913 653 8783 visit us online at retire with
16:31
true.com investment advice oper through true wealth and Company LLC a registered investment adviser in the state of Kansas vet finders.com is the internet's
16:38
original Corvette classified ads website with classified ads starting at just $25
16:44
and every ad runs until your Corvette is sold if you're in the market for a Corvette vetf finders.com has over 500
16:51
Corvettes for sale from all around the USA and Canada and covering all eight Generations visit vetf finders.com the
16:58
internet's destination for buying and selling Corvettes that's V finders.com
17:07
you're enjoying the only current podcast on Corvettes Corvette today thanks once
17:13
again for listening and watching Corvette today the show that talks about everything Corvette Corvette today is
17:19
brought to you by wheelcraft you want your Corvette looking its best we dress it up with bright Chrome or black chrome
17:24
wheels visit wheelcraft decom and learn about their Advanced PVD Chrome finishing they can refinish your wheels
17:31
or do a wheel exchange and you get a 5-year warranty so visit wheelcraft decom today or give him a call 833 639-
17:40
4231 I'm your host Steve Garrett with me is the man that created and design the head-up display for Corvette his name is
17:47
Steve string phillow in this final segment we're going to get into the nuts and bolts now Steve you tasked with the
17:53
job of adapting the Hues technology into the C4 Corvette talk about some of those hurdles that you encountered during that
18:00
adaptation well at first I just joined Hughes aircraft and I had a lot to learn I had a great mentor named John ferer
18:06
who was a guru with Optics and he loved to build models like me John had some ideas on how we might do this but we
18:12
needed to use the Corvette to see if the concept worked I needed to get drawings from GM get the windshield angles and
18:19
driver's eye position and any information I could about what the space was underneath the dash the HUD had to
18:25
fit I must admit that I had to do a little bit of automotive product evaluation drives while I waited for the
18:30
drawings to arrive that was a lot of fun and I guess the the rush of adrenaline really proved to me that the Corvette
18:36
really needed to have a Hut in it yeah so that kind of enthused me to go along with the job and kept me going of course
18:42
this was super exciting but I guess when the drawings arrived I started drafting the design on my board this was getting
18:48
great I actually had a Corvette on my drawing board and I was designing a HUD for it wow this was so cool yeah I
18:54
couldn't think of a better job I put together a list of specifications from our human factors folks and Drew a box
18:59
around the Optics that could provide the right size of image and the right position yeah John showed me the sight
19:05
lines and we calculated the reflection angles and put where the HUD needed to reside to fit properly but from the
19:11
drawings I could see that the space was being occupied by the frost ducks and structural brackets and wire harnesses
19:17
too many things in the way which concerned me a little bit we moved the C4 up to the top floor of the radar
19:22
systems parking structure where facilities had fenced off a secure area for us to use as an Automotive
19:29
Development Area we had a glass company come out and remove the windshield for us and we ordered several spares just in
19:35
case out came the tool boxes and it was time to remove the dash and get started starting to dig into it besides cutting
19:41
a hole in the dash pad you know it's pretty obvious that there was a few ducks and steel brackets that needed to
19:47
be sacrificed to really get the Hut in but that was my job it was funny cuz I was working late one night and security
19:53
saw sparks flying in the Upper Floor of the parking structure and rushed up to see real
19:59
quick what was happening and there he was wearing a lab coat and goggles holding a die grinder cutting into a
20:05
Corvette you should have seen the questions that looks on their face were just Priceless anyway I kept on going
20:11
after that but I had to come down and tell management what happened in the night before sure but they were glad I
20:16
was putting in the extra hours and working light in the following days we got the coated glass mirrors and we mounted them into the box an electrical
20:23
engineer had wired up a bright blue green vacuum fluorescent alarm clock display to accept the vehicle speed
20:29
signal okay kind of put all this together and then I snugly mounted the HUD model into the car which really
20:34
consisted of only two mirrors and a display got that into the front of Dash and I made all the necessary power and
20:40
Signal connections turned it on and it worked amazingly that night I drove up and down the six-story parking structure
20:47
doing 180 degree turns at each ramp level and I think there were like two turns at each level so there was about
20:53
12 turns over this whole thing I was using the HUD to see how fast I could go between the next turn i' start out at 25
20:59
and maybe get up to 28 or 30 and pretty soon I found myself stopping on the breaking hurry up and making the turn
21:05
but I could see what that speed was when I hit the turn going around that area of the parking structure luckily it was
21:10
night and there were no cars in there yeah one time I looked down big mistake I looked down at the speedometer
21:17
really to see what the speed was that way and I scared myself to death I realized never look down in critical
21:22
situations huh and it really told me that I learned the safety benefits of the headup display you this is the
21:28
coolest thing and gu one thing I did notice on the HUD at that time this one of the first times that we really kind
21:33
of thought about this was there was a second ghost reflection behind the first one that had kind of come and go
21:39
whenever I moved my head around we really had to find a fixure of this it wasn't right to have that two ghosts in there sure so the next day I showed Ron
21:46
Smith who was one of our holographic scientists what was going on with this and he calculated that there was a very
21:51
small set of waves in the windshield glass and the ghosts would appear and disappear on one side of the wave and
21:57
pop out on the other side and go up and down depending which side of the wave you were on huh then he calculated the
22:03
angle of the wave which is a very small number kind of intensive Miller radians a Miller radian is about 5,000 of a
22:09
degree wow so these are very small numbers and the calculations were very dependent on the windshield angle and
22:15
the thickness and the curvature yeah and it really required the anti-active layer that's between the two layers of glass
22:21
to be thickened at the top about the thickness of a garbage bag and so that's about all it took wow so he eventually
22:28
applied for a patent on the wedge windshield which is found in all the hug cars nowadays it was kind of fun because we organized management reviews after
22:35
that we had test drives my management confidently reported to GM that we now had a HUD to show them the CEO of
22:41
General Motors Roger Smith who was key in the purchase of Hughes aircraft arrived and witnessed it for himself he
22:47
gave it the thumbs up for a production program wow that's pretty cool to have Roger Smith there and give you the
22:52
thumbs up I mean that's the big guy right you bet you he was very important wow now since it didn't fit in the SE
22:58
four what other GM cars got the HUD at that time Roger saw how simple it was
23:03
compared to other Huds that he'd seen that were more expensive than the whole car and I think he saw that this design
23:08
was Within Reach and could be affordable since the Corvette was GM's leading technology platform it was really a
23:15
shame that there had to be too many changes that were necessary to make it fit sure but the next cars in the GM
23:20
pipeline were the W platform 1988 Olds Cutler Supreme and pony at Grand Prix
23:25
yep so myself and several other Hugh's managers traveled to Detroit to see the new car we wanted to see what this W car
23:32
was all about we gathered some information we talked to the platform engineers and we even had our HUD
23:37
Corvette shipped to GM for them to see what all the excitement was all about while we were at the GM Tech Center I
23:43
had the opportunity to show the car to Pete Collegian who is the interior designer for the Corvette okay we drove
23:48
around the lake and I could tell that he was thrilled the best part was parking in the design staff garage Pete said
23:55
that the biggest complaint that he had about the co4 Corvette was parking he could never see the front of the car
24:01
when I told him that the HUD was calibrated to the front bumper and he could use it as a parking Aid he was thrilled so I told him to park the car 4
24:08
in from the wall he stopped got out and looked sure enough 4 in from the wall he
24:14
was literally in tears that's so cool you can see the influence of the Hut on Peter's 1991 Corvette interior redesign
24:21
that lower Notch that you see in the middle of the instrument panel up on the top that's where he visualized the future HUD being he was a true visioner
24:28
he was amazing that's a cool story talk about how Delco Works into this HUD story wow well in about 1986 we learned
24:36
that GM had merged us Hughes with Del Electronics we really created an independent subsidiary called GM Hughes
24:42
electronics or GM Hughes a and I guess the thinking was that Hughes didn't really do high volume Automotive
24:48
Productions like Delco right the merger might help bring Hughes Technologies like the HUD to Market quicker so now we
24:55
had two really large companies and one HUD for the the W car that became a key
25:00
project suddenly my little HUD project now became huge conference rooms full of suits and
25:06
ties and I know there was a lot of negotiation and organization that needed to take place and I could tell there's a
25:12
lot of dollar signs flying around in there sure but eventually Delco Electronics in cooko assigned a great
25:19
team of really talented production Engineers to work with us everyone understood that the world had never seen
25:25
a real Hut in a production car before now the race was on to make this the first when I say real HUD I mean
25:32
optically projected to the front of the car not just a reflection off the inside of the windshield like Nissan tried
25:38
gotcha much of the Gen one HUD work was done at the advanced vehicle engineering center in Pontiac and in cook with he
25:45
was surprisingly kind of taking more of a technical advisory role interesting the world's first production Automotive
25:51
HUD was introduced in the 1988 old Mobile cutless Supreme Indie pace car
25:57
which was driven by famous test pilot Chuck jger who of course was the first to break the sound barrier yeah that's
26:02
pretty cool oh yeah this HUD was soon to be followed by the W platform 1989
26:08
Pontiac Grand Prix following all that excitement I began working with the windshield suppliers and was also tasked
26:14
with designing a small HUD based on the automotive design for the Hughes corporate jet oh wow it's a cessa
26:20
citation beautiful jet they had me designing various Advanced Huds did several one-of aind Huds for different
26:26
cars I did the first Bonville HUD Proto type and I even did a HUD for a land speed record sruck wow the biggest issue
26:33
with the genwood Huds when they first came out was the bump that it created apparently the negotiations that were
26:38
made later on with the HUD space and the IP with the w Engineers wasn't very successful huh and the Hut became a
26:45
large styled box on top of the IP the images were not exactly shaped and positioned as planned because the
26:51
windshields didn't really match the drawings that Hughes was provided to do the Optics there was also a considerable
26:57
hi up between oldmobile and Pontiac twin windshields basically from the same platform they were supposed to be but
27:04
since they were made at two different glass plants the shapes were entirely different one glass plant was an electric oven and the other one was a
27:10
gas oven something like that but as it turned out they were completely different that kind of created further
27:15
misalignment between the two cars wow so the Gen one HUD became the first ever Automotive HUD but it had Growing Pains
27:23
so what happened after that in 1989 I was sent back to Detroit and to the glass plant several times to assist with
27:29
a lot of the problems then eventually with the carrot of the HUD and the future Corvette I was asked if I wanted
27:36
to move from the beaches of California to Detroit as a resident engineer for Hughes technology transfer oh I kept
27:43
thinking Corvette Corvette yeah and my fiance's parents lived in Pennsylvania
27:48
which is close by so she agreed to making that move to Michigan might be a good thing for us sure we got married
27:54
and we made the move and I guess after several years I had spent a lot of time with the Design Studios you know doing
28:00
high-tech looking Optical displays for show cars which was a lot of fun but my attention was grabbed by rumors of the
28:06
C5 Corvette that was being conceptualized at the advanced stages about then the GM Advanced electrical
28:12
group asked me if I would consider becoming a michigander and want to know if I wanted to join GM full-time they'd
28:18
give me a company car and everything and wow this was great and so my wife and newborn daughter they both agreed we
28:24
would stay nice so now was my chance you know I guess the Corvette being my goal I knew we had to plan ahead no bumps on
28:30
the dash no brackets or ducks in the way no vibration and a windshield that was a really good Optical match you know now
28:37
is a chance that we could do it and do it right nice so ironically GM had other cars with a Hut already let's talk about
28:43
them and how they fared with the HUD well by now several years had gone by and Delco had done a smaller bump Gen 2
28:50
for the Grand Prix Bonville and the Park Avenue by cutting the glass mirrors down to about 60% of the original size so
28:57
this thing got a lot smaller but had a compromise of eye box and image size sure also they were doing a larger gen 3
29:04
HUD that was underway for the 1994 Grand Prix besides vibration the problem was
29:11
all the Optics the main Mirror the full mirror the cover lens they were all made of injection molded plastic oh the
29:18
design was good but the tools and the molding processes introduced lots of adative distortion between all the parts
29:24
so Huds were not getting the preise and the sales that I would have expected I was watching all this really closely I
29:30
attended many meetings involving the future cars only to see the HUD scratch from the content list due to high price
29:35
and perceived low demand huh so to keep the HUD technology alive then you needed to do a HUD in the next Corvette and it
29:42
had to be the Best Optical quality possible I'm sure you bet Steve the world is going to see this car and this
29:49
seemed to be like the last chance to get it right huzzard generational if it didn't get into one generation of
29:54
vehicle architecture it might be 5 to 10 years before the there be another chance to get one in sure luckily in 1992 the
30:02
advanced Vehicle Group heard I was the HUD guy and asked me to work with a designer to try and package a HUD into
30:08
the future Corvette architecture now is it this is really getting exciting yeah I was told that they had been given a
30:14
cad model of the HUD from Del electronics and that's what they were required to use but it didn't fit oh
30:20
they were told the Corvette couldn't afford to Tool a new HUD because the sales volumes were going to be too low
30:26
huh I didn't think that was really the case because 25% or so of 32,000 cars is
30:31
8,000 Huds which seems like a lot but back in those days you had to have a good business case and had to be able to
30:37
make a lot of parts to make the business case work sure a Grand Prix HUD wasn't going to work in the next Corvette so I
30:44
started a new design just for the C5 no more Huds on drawing boards we were Now using high-end computers with accuracy
30:50
and speed and the designer that they gave me was really talented on the computer and was able to follow my
30:55
directions really closely the design was looking really good and there was a big crosscar beam originally in the way of
31:01
the perfect position where I wanted to put the HUD which got kind of frustrating I didn't know what to do then but then I found the structural
31:07
engineer and his name was Roger Johnson fantastic guy and he told me that his wife had a Hut in her car and she loved
31:14
it and so he offered to change the beam shape and create a pocket for me in the front of dash for the HUD to fit nice
31:21
his main reason he was that someday he could take a Corvette home to his wife and shore of the HUD yeah yeah so thank
31:27
you Mr and Mrs Johnson if you're out there if you're listening to Corvette today thank you very much they were very
31:33
helpful anyway I had successfully designed a low and flush HUD package for the C5 with no big bumps or
31:40
interferences and presented my effort to the vehicle integration team following that meeting Fred gash from the
31:45
Chevrolet central office sent a voicemail to chief engineer Dave Hill encouraging that i' be maintained in the
31:52
Y platform saying that when others had said the HUD couldn't be packaged I had found a way to do it than thank you
31:58
again Fred if you're listening that HUD design became the critical placeholder while I was brought into the Corvette
32:05
electrical group in 1993 I took over the C4 cluster responsibilities and then we
32:10
transitioned to the design of the new instrument cluster for the C5 and I knew very well that the HUD was literally
32:16
right behind it there was a lot of debate over digital versus analog speedometer and at the launch Center
32:23
there was a big decision made to have the cluster be analog and the HUD would be provided to provide the digital speed
32:29
okay then I needed to Bear my soul to the team about the windshield shapes and timing I was concerned if we introduced
32:35
the HUD the first year that we wouldn't really understand the new windshield shape and in time to design and Tool a
32:41
new Hut optic to be able to match it we bring the HUD Optics to the Bowling Green and designed to match the computer
32:47
Surface and the glass would come to the bowling green plant having its own kind of unique shape sure they wouldn't match
32:53
each other and the optical quality would probably suffer from that point on I guess the analogy to that was kind of
32:59
like you're investing a lifetimes worth of prescription glasses for a baby that's not even born yet yeah yeah
33:05
everyone of the meetings understanding that I got the nod and it was decided that the second year being the
33:10
convertible the HUD would be offered in 1999 as a new feature that would give the glass plan in Elizabeth Town plenty
33:17
of time for the glass shape to settle down okay I could then laser scan the actual production glass surface to
33:24
design the optics for a perfect match plus I had accurately know the radius of curvature the angle and the thickness to
33:30
be able to calculate the wedge and the glass to eliminate that ghost I was concerned about right out of the gate this was fantastic wow next was the
33:37
sourcing what supplier was I going to trust and select for the HUD this was really important to me for me it was the
33:44
optical quality delivery timing and cooperation to do whatever it takes to make this HUD the best for purchasing of
33:51
course it was price I think we had about a half a dozen qualified biders I work with Delco and nipon SEI who were the
33:58
chosen suppliers to work for the CI blackl instrument cluster okay and we had a lot of others from Germany and
34:04
Japan who were all very qualified but I guess during the technical interviews We Had Each supplier bring an example of
34:11
their best quality main mirror for all of us to review to see who was really going to be able to do the best parts
34:16
delko and SEI brought actual HUD likee examples but the delko part was still the injection molded part from the Gen 3
34:23
huh the siky part was like nothing I'd ever seen before it was a perfect surface with no Distortion at all nice
34:30
it was very impressive I think to everybody we did everything we could to lower the price of this HUD you know we had to make this whole thing work and if
34:36
it was too expensive it may not fly sure you know we even removed the need for a processor and we ended up plugging the
34:42
HUD into the back of the instrument cluster since they share the same information the cluster could run the HUD and the data would always match that
34:49
makes sense I guess in the end nipon SEI came in with the lowest price and they agreed to match all the purchasing
34:55
targets and they were very intent on learning and following my directions really closely coincidentally I think
35:01
they're now the world's largest producer of Huds wow and the C5 HUD started production in 1999 and Grew From really
35:07
a predicted volume of 25% to over 90% when we offered it as a free flow option
35:13
this is before the HUD was packaged into a lot of the higher trim levels right HUD was not offered originally on the C5
35:20
Z6 but became standard equipment due to the popular demand I recall Dave Hill being asked during a meeting one time
35:27
how come the HUD was not there for the first year of the Z06 we were concerned about weight the second Year Dave I know
35:33
you were concerned about weight why did you put the HUD back into the Z06 and he said how much does the HUD weigh about
35:39
as much as a hot dog and a beer that's funny so we foro the hot dog in the beer
35:44
and you you'll have your weight savings there you go as far as a most requested option C5 HUD became second only to the
35:52
manual transmission wow that's really cool what was the display on the final version of the head-up display for the
35:58
C5 we tried to add all the important content into the C5 how to made sure we had a good way of being able to display
36:05
it all so of course we started out with speed and because the speedometer went up to 200 M an hour we had to be sure we
36:11
had an extra two-digit in there so the speedometer actually when it goes into kilomet per hour we put in the
36:17
speedometer that would go all the way up to 299 km per hour we also have of course turn signals highbeam tachometer
36:23
and shift light check gauges warning fuel gauge oil pressure gauge coolant gauge all these are reconfigurable you
36:30
can add and subtract content as you need I bet there was a lot of great content from some of the Corvette websites about
36:35
the HUD as well weren't there oh that was really fun I'll read some of these for you that I have written down here I get a kick out of reading these things I
36:41
guess the first one here it says at first I figured it was just gadgetry but really is nice from a use standpoint
36:47
here's another one this one's great my HUD saved me from a bunch of tickets I can see that yeah yeah I can too here's
36:54
another one here it's possible the best option offer on Corvette without a doubt it is not only a convenience to the
37:00
driver but promotes safety every moment you're behind the wheel of the car that's a great statement I agree with
37:05
that 100% a Corvette keeps one eyes where they're supposed to be on the road yeah here's another one once you've
37:12
driven a car with a Hut option cars without it seem to be missing something definitely and everybody has told me
37:18
that it's said gosh I got into my other car and I didn't have it and I missed it yeah here's another one here the Hut is great it takes a week or so to get used
37:25
to but after that you won't want to drive without it it as others have said it makes driving safer since you do not
37:31
have to take your eyes off the road to see the speedometer and the other gauges yeah that all makes sense now at the
37:36
last count head-up displays are found in how many vehicles well last I heard there were over 130 different models and
37:43
now I've had up displays from over 30 different car manufacturers that's pretty amazing buddy that's really cool
37:49
Steve thank you so much for taking the time to be on Corvette today this has been so much fun and so cool thank you
37:55
for having me Steve it's been a pleasure thanks again for listening and watching Corvette today and be sure to tell your
38:01
family friends and other Corvette enthusiasts about the Corvette Today Show and thanks to our sponsors
38:06
wheelcraft want to dress up your Corvette with bright Chrome or black chrome wheels visit wheelcraft decom to
38:11
learn about their Advanced PVD chrome finishing they can refinish your wheels or offer a wheel exchange for most
38:17
models and it comes with a 5-year warranty visit wheelcraft
38:24
docomo Performance Products at s lp.com the official performance exhaust of
38:30
Corvette today coka Corvette at COC CCAC corvette.com true wealth and Company at
38:37
retire withth true.com also aari Wheels get $100 off your purchase with the new
38:43
promo code ct1111 at AOL.com and Hendrick Chevrolet in Kansas City at
38:48
Chevy usa.com thanks for checking out Corvette today on podcast and YouTube if you'd
38:55
like to contact Steve with ideas for Corvette today you can email him at Steve Garrett DJ atgmailcom Garrett has
39:03
two RS and two T's that's Steve Garrett DJ atgmailcom also sign up for email
39:10
notifications at Corvett today. c. page follow Steve in the show on social media
39:17
on Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn and threads at Steve Garrett DJ thanks
39:23
again for listening and watching Corvette today [Music]