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CORVETTE TODAY #260 - We Celebrate The Career Of Kirk Bennion
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Jul 12, 2025
In this special episode of CORVETTE TODAY, we celebrate the career of Corvette's Exterior Design Mnager, Kirk Bennion. Kirk spent 41 years at General Motors and 37 year with Corvette. Your CORVETTE TODAY host Steve Garrett, reminisces with Kirk about his career, how he got his job at General Motors, how he started working on Corvette and the development of the C5, C6, C7 and C8 Corvettes! Kirk shares some of his favorite stories about Corvette and GM and talks about some of the icons he's worked with over the years as well. It's another very special edition of CORVETTE TODAY that you don't want to miss!
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[Music] Welcome to Corvette Today, the show that
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talks about everything Corvette with your host Steve Garrett, lifetime member of the National Corvette Museum,
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president of the Corvette Club of Kansas City, Missouri, and radio disc jockey at the number one radio station in Kansas
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City for over 45 years. Here's Steve Garrett.
0:28
Thanks for listening and watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything Corvette and the only
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current podcast dedicated to Corvette. I'm your host, Steve Garrett. I appreciate you tuning in. Corvette Today
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is brought to you by Wheelcraft. Want to dress up your Corvette with bright chrome or black chrome wheels? Visit
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Canadian Corvette Forum and Corvette Forum welcoming Corvette enthusiasts from around the world. On this episode
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of Corvette Today, we celebrate the career of the man who designed what your Corvette looks like today. Kirk Ben has
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worked at GM for over four decades, three plus of those on Corvette. He was on Corvette today number 34 way back in
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December of 2020. Today we look back at his illustrious career. Kirk, welcome
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back to Corvette today, buddy. Steve, so happy to be here. Thanks for having me. You bet. It's always good to have you on
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the show. Kirk, before we celebrate your career, let's talk about your education career. Where did you go to school? What
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was your degree in? I went to the Cleveland Institute of Art. That's a 5-year private art
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college. Very high-end, much like CCS, Art Center. Those are all great schools
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for young designers. So, my major was industrial design. I have a minor in graphic design. I also have a minor in
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figure painting, which you might think is kind of strange, but I had a really good art teacher when I was in high school. And the thing that she would
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push is building your creativity was part of it, but also developing a keen eye. And if you want to have a keen eye,
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obviously drawing or painting the human figure, that was part of that equation. At Cleveland, I would go in, I would
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paint a portrait every two weeks. I could pretty much knock him out in six hours. Wow, that's pretty amazing, buddy. I've
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learned something new about you today. Yes. Yes. That's really cool. All right. So, after you graduated school, what was your
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first job? So, my first job was being hired in at GM. Oh, okay. I was still at Cleveland Institute of
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Art. So, we had Chuck Jordan, the Chuck Jordan. Wow. Come down to our school to interview
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myself and my other, it was about 20 of us. And actually, Chuck was the main guy who hired all the creative designers,
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you know, back into the 60s and the 50s and that. He knew what he wanted in a designer. You know, he wanted passion.
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He wanted conviction. He wanted designers that were going to work hard for him. He really set the bar.
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That's really cool. I love these backstories about your conversations and your interview with GM. Tell me more
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about when you and Chuck got together and how you got hired. So, for me, we had Chuck come down and
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Chuck drove one of his Ferraris down. Wow. you know, he's a very passionate car person in that and obviously doesn't
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have anything against Ferrari in that, but that was just part of his passion. As you can appreciate, being at a
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five-year school and everything like that, I did not want to leave anything up for question. So, I was working very
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hard on a portfolio, getting ready for Chuck's interview. What I ended up doing was securing the art gallery for myself
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and my friends so we could put our artwork up in this really beautiful scenario in that. So he's looking at
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everything because these are vice presidents. We wanted everything to be high-end quality in that. Chuck comes up to me and he looks at everything I have.
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I had 350 sketches on the wall. I had four portfolios and I had two
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mid-engineed hard models. And I'm going to tell you, one was a typical side by side mid engine, but the other one was a
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4 and a half mid engine. So it was kind of more missile-shaped. You know, we wanted him to see stuff that he'd never
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see before. Chuck stood there and he looked up and across. He waited about 5 seconds and he says, "You're hired."
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Wow. I think it was probably the fastest interview you could have at General Motors at the time.
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That's amazing. What a story, Kirk. Yes. That's incredible. Now, you spent 41
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years with General Motors. What was your first job when you got into GM? Obviously, I don't think you started
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with Corvette, but what was your first job once you got into General Motors? So once I got hired in in those days we had
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five advanced studios. I was being placed in advance three. Now lo and behold when I walked into advance three
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there's Tom Peters there. Wow. You know Tom had been hired in for about a year and a half closer to two
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and Jim Beak was our design manager. That's where my career started with Tom Peters. Tom and I would exchange
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different spots depending on what we were doing. There was a time where I was in Pontiac. So then he went to Pontiac
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and then I went to Chevy 3. So we swapped back and forth. After that, like 1999, I would be by Tom Peter's side for
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the rest of my career. That's really cool. Now, you did a lot of exterior design for more than just Corvette. Talk about some of the other
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GM vehicles that you did design for. Okay, so when I was in Chevy 3 and like
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I said, we were actually sketching C5s and we were doing C5 scale models. the
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C5 was getting its architecture and its business case restructured, things like
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that. So, we we kind of put that on hold for a little bit. So, I transitioned to Bill Davis. Bill Davis was our chief
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designer. He had basically everything that wasn't already big trucks. So, we
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ended up working the next nine years on S trucks, on the full-size van, the
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Suburban, the Tahoe. There's a little S truck in there that had the sport side.
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Those were real popular at the time was working on those with John Moss within your portfolio at GM. You know, they
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always like you to have truck experience and like I said, having that experience for nine years was pretty eventful. It
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also led to some of our crossover vehicles like the Traverse, you know, that was huge, right? The Outlook, the Acadia, and I was happy
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to say that at that time we were actually ahead of the curve with our crossovers. That's really cool. Now, you also worked
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on Camaro, didn't you, Kirk? Yes. Yes. And actually when I was in Chevy 3 and here again we were under
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Lloyd Royce in those days and you know Lloyd was really great. He'd come in and he loved seeing the new guys in the
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studio. You know he's very passionate but he knew that we were going to bring in new energy and new ideas and he just
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loved to see that collaboration. That's really nice you know and especially a guy like Lloyd coming from
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him. That's really cool. Yeah. So while in that studio, we were sketching on, like I said, C5, but we
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were also working on what you know as the 91 Camaro and then the 93 Camaro. That was a big deal for me. I was a lead
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designer on that. Did all the arrow work, you know, under Randy Waten, guys in the studio. All those guys would
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eventually be Hall of Famers. But yeah, I still have one of those 93 Camaros today. It's heartfelt. It was neat to be
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a part of that. And the car is still relatively modern with its rear hatch, things like that. You know, I call it my
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Home Depot car. I can go to Home Depot and just put anything I want in the back. Yeah, that's true. That's really true.
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That's a great car. That is for sure. Well, buddy, let's take our first break. When we come back, we're going to dig
10:05
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And now back to Corvette Today with your host and my husband, Steve Garrett.
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Thanks for listening and watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything Corvette. Corvette
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I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me is Kirk Benyan, the former exterior design manager for Corvette. We are celebrating
13:43
his career with General Motors and Corvette. In this segment, we're going to talk a little bit more about his time
13:48
with Corvette. Kirk, you really started with the C5. When you came in, C4 was already done. Talk about some of the
13:55
highlights of the C5 generation. C5, there were some challenges that we had with the business case, the package.
14:02
Arrow was a big part of C5 under Dave Hill. And there was also some good positives with C5. We got the bigger
14:09
wheels, 18s and 19s. You got the wider track. We also had the hard top in the convertible. So, it was a very
14:15
compelling car. We just needed time to work through some of those issues. Will Cookie was part of that. He came to the
14:21
charge and he was part of that car being real as well. Dave was a big part obviously of that car. He was part of
14:28
every piece that was being developed for that was pretty much under Dave Hill. And then Tachure at the time.
14:33
Yeah. We would later do the 2004 C5 as a collector car. You know, that was the
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first car to get an all carbon fiber hood. It was painted carbon fiber, but that was still us stepping into the
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carbon fiber pond. That was really good for us at that time. Yeah, that was a significant thing, too.
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Let's talk about C6 real quick. Basically, same question. Talk about some of the highlights of the C6
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generation for me. Well, the C6, obviously, there was some learnings there. The biggest thing I
15:01
could tell you that happened on C6 was we started collaborating with Doug Feehand and the Pratt Miller race team
15:08
right from the very beginning. There was some things on the C5, you know, like the center plate didn't translate as
15:14
well for racing. We started off with Doug and his team on the racing effort and that meant getting a front end that
15:21
was more efficient for taking in air flow, brake cooling, things like that. And of course, you know, Dave Phil is a
15:27
big supporter of that as well because his motto was always bring racing to work day. The C6, we did the initial
15:33
car, you know, which was really good for low drag, things like that. Spaciousness in the inside was huge. We were still in
15:40
our interior development with that car. And doing what we would nickname is the widebody cars, doing the high
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performance cars. Yeah, that was huge for C6. And I would tell you those early widebody cars are still
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coveted. Oh, yeah. Absolutely right. The one that I worked on the most was the 2009 ZR1.
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You know, here again, we're going through business challenges. We're still working on bigger wheel sizes, things like that. The thing that we ended up
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having to do, the business case wasn't lined up yet. So, I would work on that car underground. I mean, I worked on it
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underground for 4 and a half years. Wow. We always felt that that would be an epic car. You know, it was supercharged.
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It had the aero package. It had magnetic ride. It had all these customer features. And then we did finally come
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out with it. And then we were at the Auto Week car show downtown in Detroit. We took first overall with that car.
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That's incredible. I think we surprised a lot of people with what we were able to get. The carbon ceramic brakes. That was a big
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win for us at the time. Yep. That turned out to be a big surprise. And then we would follow up with what
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you know is the 2011 Z06 Carbon where we kept the drivetrain and everything like that. We had a normally aspirated
16:47
engine. We weren't worried about it being supercharged back then. And and of course that car, it was always about being lightweight and having those
16:54
magnetic ride features. Yeah. Now I know the C7 was supposed to be the mid-enine car, but that got
16:59
pushed back. Talk to me about how that affected you and your team with the development of the C7.
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Yes. C7 was a good car for us. We were able to make it different enough early on in the development of that car. You
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know, we regarded we would refer to it as maybe C6M. I would tell you I put together a grocery list of what I felt
17:20
needed to be on the car for us to consider it to be a C7. So I had 12 items on there. Basically TAGER gave me
17:28
all 12 of those items. Wow. Unique rear hatch, wheel sizes, barrel parts, all that was supported by TAG.
17:35
The C7s are still very popular today. When I attend some of the shows like Watkins Glenn, things like that, I still
17:42
see what I call the widebody C7s. I still see those as being very popular cars. Absolutely.
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Yeah. Wonderful proportion. You get new tech. You get the high-end interior. And then we were doing special editions of
17:53
those cars, too. That was always for Harland and I part of our recipe was to give the customer personal features that
17:59
they could tag and apply to their car and put it in a personal venue that was just for them. Yep. I love those special editions. The
18:06
collector edition with the blue. That was awesome. Yes. Yeah. The red, white, and blue cars were pretty popular.
18:11
That was true. Buddy, tell me something. When did you really start in earnest working on a mid-engine Corvette?
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Good question. I'm going to surprise you here because we started on that. That was probably 2004.
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We were in LA. We were conducting a clinic. We brought in a 275 Ferrari and a Stradali, mid-enine Stradali car. We
18:31
made this look like this was a Ferrari clinic. Yeah. Is what most people felt they were walking into. What we were
18:38
trying to find out was what did our customers think of a mid-enine car versus a front engine car. Going through
18:44
that clinic, it was neat because we would space out some of the groups. You know, we'd have like a European group.
18:49
We did an all Corvette group. Oh. And we asked them of these two cars. The Dollaly has better 0 to 60 than the 275
18:58
12 for 12 Corvette people in this clinic. All 12 raised their hand and said, "I want the mid engine." They
19:03
wanted the 060 times. And also they could see that that proportion, that architectural change looked like a more
19:10
exotic car. That was really huge for us. So we kind of took that learning and I would tell you in 2007 we had a
19:16
full-size Corvette. Now in that '07 car, some of our challenges were transmission was bigger than it needed to be. We had
19:23
interference issues with that and the muffler. We just weren't ready. It wasn't until we started working on our
19:29
own transmission. That was a huge enabler for the mid-enine car. Interesting. I tell you what, let's take
19:35
our final break, Kirk. When we come back, we're going to talk more about your C8 design and the mid-enine car.
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or do a wheel exchange and you also get a 5-year warranty. So, visit wheelcraft.com today or just give them a
23:01
call 833-639-4231. I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me is
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Kirk Benyan, the former exterior design manager for Corvette. We're going to talk more about the C8 design. Kirk,
23:13
let's talk about that C8 Corvette because moving that engine in the back had to create some major obstacles when
23:19
you guys were designing that car. Talk more about some of the logistics that you had to go through when moving that
23:25
engine into the back. You know, obviously that was a big deal. I would tell you in those days a
23:30
gentleman by the name of Kim Lynn and Ed Moss, those two guys were probably the most influential in making that happen.
23:37
For design, we were all for it. Like I said, it was changing up the proportion. The other big news is we went to bigger
23:43
wheels in the back. So we improved the stance of the vehicle. That was a win. But obviously within this new
23:48
architecture, cooling was a big metric. We've done a lot of cooling with C7, C6
23:54
of course, but this was a different animal. And getting air to the back of the car, getting it into the rear quarters, and you can see in our current
24:00
ZR1 that we've modified and updated some of those air flow paths. That was huge to the car back then. And then part of
24:08
that proportion was having the right spacing for the driver. I would tell you my good friend Ed
24:14
Patech was our template. It was our goal for him to be able to fit in the car and still wear a helmet. That's why today
24:20
you'll see some taller customers that are 6'4ish depending on, you know, their torso proportion or whatever. We've been
24:27
able to put larger customers in the car. That's really important because I know that it gave you different weight
24:32
balance. It moved the seating position 16 and a half inches forward. Yes.
24:37
Talk about some of those other design features that were highlighted for the C8 Corvette. Well, I I would tell you
24:43
for the front end here again getting back to the cooling aspect, having those heat exchangers on the front corners,
24:50
that was a big deal and getting to package those and you know, when there was PDF Pro criteria that we had to do
24:56
for export and obviously the pushes to still keep the car beautiful through the collaboration of the team, you know,
25:02
obviously guys like Josh Holder, Taz Jctor were huge in helping us get some of the packaging. Chris Basilo, friend
25:09
of mine, was also key in getting radiators packaged to the front and also having heat exchangers in the rear
25:15
quarters. That was all a big deal. And and then we had Pratt and Miller using their technology and we were studying
25:20
air flow paths and what was the most efficient way to get air to the rear of the car. It's a huge collaboration then
25:26
especially when you're talking about cooling the car because that's one of the things you just can't fall short on here. Again, with this architecture
25:32
being brand new, we needed a robust cooling map for this car to make it on the road. Yeah. Talk about the wind
25:39
tunnel for me, Kirk, because I know you're big on working in the wind tunnel. Tell me about the wind tunnel
25:44
with the CA Corvette. So, let me back up a little bit on the wind tunnel because when I was a young
25:49
man and I was working in Chevy 3 and like I said, these were Lloyd Royce days. I would work with Randy Watine in
25:55
the wind tunnel. That was a big part of the collaboration. John Cafero, his requirement for me as a young man back
26:02
then was that I would learn to work the wind tunnel. I would also learn to drive cars on the track. The big thing was
26:08
learning to work with engineers. When he did my cap review for those at the time, those were his three big things of me
26:14
that he wanted me to be a part of. So that's how I always got involved with the arrow. It started with really John
26:19
Capero having the vision to say, "Hey, we need designers who can understand aerodynamics on Corvettes."
26:25
That's really cool. Now, when you think about the final design of the C8, talk more about the advantages that the C8
26:31
Corvette has over other mid-enine cars. I would tell you the the big advantage, you know, the windshield placement. As
26:38
you can appreciate in our world, we went back and forth and tried different positions and that, but getting that
26:43
downward vision, we thought was key. And then it was also very key to the design. You look at that windshield, it's very
26:49
fast. It's got nice curvature. It's really a handsome part of the car. Yeah, definitely. You know, and it's got
26:55
to make you proud seeing all the C8s on the streets and how popular they are. Plus bringing a new and younger
27:01
generation to the Corvette family, doesn't it? Yes. And I would tell you the Stingray really carries itself on the road. I've
27:07
got a few of my neighbors that usually driving around. You know, you look at them and they got a huge smile on their face. It's like they're driving a
27:13
Ferrari every day. Yeah. Cuz that mid-enine proportion just resonated on the Stingray. It turned
27:19
Stingray into a huge hit for us. Absolutely. High volume wise orders, things like that. You know, customers real happy
27:25
with it. Now the other thing that of the architecture that is key was not only did we have the heat exchangers up there
27:30
but we also had the frunk up there. So we were giving the customer front end storage as well as the rear storage. Now
27:37
somebody will always tell you well we designed the back end for golf clubs. Well we didn't. We designed it to fit
27:42
two Delta bags. One of Taj's wishes was he could go to the airport his car there
27:48
and still be able to go back and forth with luggage in that. it just by coincidence that we're able to get get
27:53
golf clubs back there. And that's a huge win for me as a golfer, for our clientele as golfers. Yeah. I remember when the C8 came out,
28:00
everybody said, "This is a great design, but can I get my golf clubs in the car?" And you left room for not one but two
28:06
bags in the back. Yes. Two small bags versus maybe depending on what you're golfing. You
28:11
know, I have a regular size, but it still fits in there very well. And what's not to like that? Here again, you can go to your favorite golf course and
28:17
drive your favorite car and pull out your best clubs. You know, it's all a great experience. Exactly. Right, buddy. Let's get some
28:23
closing thoughts from you. First off, just know that the entire Corvette community loves you. They respect you.
28:30
We thank you for everything that you've done for Corvette. Now, you get to hang out with us at some of the upcoming
28:35
events. You will sorely be missed. Give me some final thoughts about your career with General Motors and Corvette.
28:41
Well, you know, I would tell you for my career, Jim, I feel very fortunate. I was at the right place at the right time
28:47
with people like Tom Peters and John Cafero. I got to work on some very impactful programs. I think when if you
28:53
look at my talent card, I had 50 plus different programs that I worked on. I worked on crossovers with Jack Folden.
29:01
Jack was a wonderful gentleman. As long as I kept his work going, he would let me work on Corvette stuff underground.
29:07
Didn't matter as long as everything was still getting done. Wow. That was a huge benefit. And I kind of
29:13
done that through my career where I would bounce into different programs. They might have been crossovers, they
29:18
might have been trucks, but I always had the support from my leaders. If Corvette needed anything, they'd look the other
29:24
way. Let me get something done here. So that was always a huge enabler. People like Ed Welburn, you know, he was always
29:30
key to having positive design work going on in the workplace. One of my favorite Ed Welburn stories was go back to C6
29:37
days. We had the Ron Fellow's car that was at the Chicago Auto Show at the McCormack Center. It was our first
29:43
special edition. Special chrome wheels, special graphics, the red interior. We
29:48
had that there and lo and behold, we ended up taking first place at the Chicago Auto Show with the Ron Fellows
29:55
car. Now, of course, Harlon and I are standing there. We get a visit from Bob Lutz and Tom Wallace. Tom Wallace is the
30:01
VLE. Yeah. Where did this car come from? Well, Har and I, we just kind of put this special edition together. Oddly enough, somehow
30:08
the memo didn't get to those two guys that they knew we were doing that. That's awesome.
30:14
So the next day we have Ed Welurn in the studio in front of Haron and myself. Ed is a real savvy guy and that he's just a
30:21
wonderful gentleman to work for. So Ed comes to us and he goes, "All right, that was nice. That car did really well.
30:27
Thanks for doing that, guys. You know, maybe we could communicate a little bit better on the next one."
30:33
That's awesome. Then he said looked at Harland. and he goes, "I want a special edition Corvette for every year."
30:39
Wow. That's the neat thing about Ed is he saw the wisdom and how well that Corvette did and we're up against all these other
30:46
new cars and all these other brands and everything like that, but that car still transcended all those competitors.
30:52
That's how and why we got into those special editions because they do resonate so well and are huge customer
30:58
pleasers. That's awesome. What a great story, buddy. Thank you so much for everything you've done for us in Corvette
31:04
community. Take care. Don't be a stranger with Corvette today. Oh, and believe me, Steve, when I say I
31:10
will be there. I'm looking forward to attending some of the track events and that now that I have a little more time on my hands, I can do more of that. You
31:17
know, I've got my son-in-law and tow. We'll be having a good time. And you'll see me around at the bash. Like I said,
31:22
I'm consulting with the RSC guys. They're a wonderful group. They're into C8s and if we can do some things that
31:28
are newer and still keeping C8 relevant, you know, I think that's still in the cards. That's awesome. That sounds fantastic.
31:34
Look forward to seeing you soon, buddy. All right. Thanks, Steve. You bet. Thanks again for listening and watching Corvette Today. And be sure to
31:40
tell your family, friends, and other Corvette enthusiasts about the Corvette Today Show. And thanks to our sponsors,
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32:41
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32:48
Garrett has two Rs and two T's. That's stevegared djgmail.com.
32:54
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DJ. Thanks again for listening and watching Corvette today. [Music]