Up next in 10
Welcome! We're excited to have you here for an insightful discussion on Corvette Today. Also, take advantage of this opportunity to explore who is Corvette legend Don Runkle.
This video comprehensively overviews who is Corvette legend Don Runkle.
Some of the topics we will discuss are:
- Don sits down with your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett
- Don tells the story of how Corvette engineers got the OK for the C4 Corvette
- Don has just been nominated for the Corvette Hall of Fame
Our channel is dedicated to providing a wealth of captivating content, emphasizing the importance of Corvette Today. Discover the art of knowing more about who is Corvette legend Don Runkle.
********************
Don Runkle may not be a household name right now in the world of Corvette, but he sure was when the C4 was launching!
Don sits down with your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett, to talk about his career.
Runkle was the Chief Engineer for Chevrolet, he worked with Zora Arkus Denton, he's been at the head of many companies, including Delphi.
Don tells the story of how Corvette engineers got the OK for the C4 Corvette along with the story of how we didn't have a 1983 Corvette! He also tells the story of what happened when Corvette was supposed to go to 6 cylinders or diesel.
Plus, Don has just been nominated for the Corvette Hall of Fame!
Don was one of the key figures in Corvette history that kept the Corvette flame burning bright! You'll truly enjoy this episode of CORVETTE TODAY!
********************
Our video explores: who is Corvette legend Don Runkle, Corvette Today, Don sits down with your CORVETTE TODAY host Steve Garrett, Don tells the story of how Corvette engineers got the OK for the C4 Corvette and Don has just been nominated for the Corvette Hall of Fame
Join us in this insightful video about who is Corvette legend Don Runkle. Also, discover the essential information on dealing with Corvette Today.
Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below. We're keen to hear your perspectives on the following:
- Don sits down with your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett
- Don tells the story of how Corvette engineers got the OK for the C4 Corvette
- Don has just been nominated for the Corvette Hall of Fame
Thank you for being a part of this informative discussion!
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
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 be sure to visit the Corvette today
1:13
website it's Corvett today.com you can access everything there including the Corvette today merchandise store you can
1:19
also join our Corvette today Facebook group there as well also make sure you sign up for the Corvette today emails
1:25
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 C t111 and get $100 off your purchase visit aol.com
2:34
that's a r o l a r i.com and use the promo code ct1111 for your $100 discount
2:42
coka Chevrolet if you're a Corvette Enthusiast and I know you are since you're listening and watching Corvette
2:47
today you need to know about coka Chevrolet they're based in Atlantic City where you can find over 100 new and
2:53
pre-owned vets on the lot and inbound sioka also ships Corvettes all over the country custom ordered to your
3:00
specifications they're staffed by experienced Pros who can answer all your questions so don't compromise visit coka
3:07
corvette.com that's CCAC corvette.com to find out more
3:12
Chevrolet together let's drive and a shout out to Canadian Corvette forum and Corvette forum welcoming Corvette
3:19
enthusiasts from around the world my guest on today's show is the former GM executive who helped shape Corvette into
3:25
what it is today he's brought over five Decades of executive leadership across many Industries and functions and he did
3:33
much of Corvette's product planning too which includes getting approval for the C4 Corvette and the ZR1 his name is Don
3:40
RL Don welcome to Corvette today my friend well Steve looking forward to the interview enjoyed your show all the time
3:47
you do a great job the Corvette fans are lucky to have you thank you sir you are too kind I appreciate all the Kudos Don
3:54
first off I usually do this with my guests tell me about your upbring tell me where you grew up did you have any
3:59
siblings and did you come from a car family well it's interesting I have a totally unimpressive upbringing I grew
4:05
up in sort of central Pennsylvania in a town that had about 50 people in it called Pike town every day I walked
4:12
across the Appalachian Trail not many of your guests will be able to make the claim that I started my education in a
4:18
one room Schoolhouse with outdoor Johns wow you can tell I was a late birth in
4:25
my family my dad unfortunately died when I was think about 11 years old and my
4:31
brother who actually fought in World War II he was substantially older from my dad's first marriage so he was like 25
4:38
years older than me and and he basically from that time on watched over and took
4:43
me hunting and shooting guns and lots of stuff like that and a lot of car stuff
4:48
so in my early days I tinkered with bikes and lawnmowers and motorcycles lots of mechanical tinkering sort of had
4:55
that Mechanical Aptitude and so that's how it started and from there I you know went on to to be much more interested in
5:02
cars and so forth and somehow stumbled into a job at General Motors and did lots of good stuff and the rest is
5:07
history right right Don tell me about the time when you figured out you were a real car
5:13
person I would say when my brother and I he said hey let's build a hot rod so we
5:19
found a 29 Model A which was in bushel baskets okay bought it for 25 bucks put
5:25
it in his pickup truck and brought it to the shop and you know I'm 12 years old or 11 years old used to ride my bike out
5:30
to his garage which was about a half hour bike ride and so we began to make it into a real hot ride you know we Zed
5:37
the frame and put a suicide front end and a 32 Grill and put a Ford small block engine in it and three two barrel
5:44
strong bird carburators and all that good stuff so that was sort of the car side of it then I bought a 33 Cabret and
5:52
put a Hemi in it when I turned 16 I bought a tr2 right-and drive by my NAD
5:57
sports car and drove it in college ooh the only reason girls would go out with me in college was because when I drove
6:03
it all their girlfriends thought they were driving since mine was rightand drive
6:09
so I thought it was me but that's awesome so when did Corvettes come into
6:14
your realm and was Corvette always the car for you I would say it came into me
6:20
I always admired it but you know I had a tr2 then we had a Ford hot rod then I had a 58 Volkswagen which is what I had
6:27
when I went off to the university so then when I actually went into General Motors which was December 16th 1968 a
6:35
century ago that year I bought a 1970 a brand new Corvette I remember Brand's
6:41
Hatch Green with saddle interior 327 o in a day when you got employee discounts
6:47
there and you could actually sell it a year or two later and make a little money on it then two years later after I
6:53
was at GM I ended up in the company car program and so then I was out of vets for a while because I went into a
6:58
different PR there with them but then I'd say when I ended up later on in
7:04
Chevrolet planning Corvette was one of my projects that I kept under my own to
7:09
Le instead of the rest of the Chevrolet product line so it sort of entered the day where I could start to have some
7:14
influence or some input into that that sounds good now talk about your college career where did you go to school and
7:20
what did you study my family none of them graduated from even high school they were hourly people my dad was a
7:27
well driller my mom was a seamstress we had zero money and so I didn't have any money and didn't know what college was
7:33
until frankly around 11th grade one of my teachers said where are you going to college I said what's college but anyway
7:40
since I had no money I ended up he suggested look at Co-op schools so there's only about three or four around
7:46
the nation and I looked at a few of them and so one was in Philadelphia Drexel University and so I joined them in a
7:53
co-op School six months of the year in general you can have a real job you're not waiting on tables nothing wrong with
7:58
waiting on t tables but you had a real engineering related job I went into mechanical engineering and you made damn
8:04
good money I could basically make the tuition with my six months there then you go back and go to school for six
8:09
months takes you five years my first job was at Kodak in Rochester New York and I
8:15
was sort of a Time studier and I wrote a little program for them a computer program that helped them estimate how
8:20
long it takes to build film processing machines the next year I went to Ford in Dearborn again in a computer science
8:28
sort of Department there and nearby University of Michigan was there so I went down just to see what that was all
8:34
about when I walked there I said wow this is where I want to go to school big university the difference between Drexel
8:39
and University of Michigan is the books that we read in Drexel were written by the professors at Michigan so huh there
8:46
you go so anyway so then I transferred to Michigan that following year with a
8:51
scholarship and got a dsme there then after joining GM there in 68 then I
8:57
picked up a masters in mechanic one engineering a couple years later than that when I was at Chevy planning GM
9:03
sent me to MIT for an MBA on their swen fellows program which is a very special
9:09
International class of just 53 students and we did our MBA in one year you stu
9:14
two-year MBA into one year man Steve it changed my outlook on where I might go
9:20
in my career up until then I'm just working on stuff and getting along but that changed my mind so to speak that's
9:26
amazing all right so you work for Kodak you work for Ford for a while tell me how you got your job at General Motors
9:32
Don well it's interesting that the University of Michigan my advisor there
9:37
everybody had an advisor assigned to him was Professor David Cole so David Cole's father was the famous president of
9:44
General Motors Ed Cole oh and he was as you recall the developer of the Chevy small block right and he had a very
9:51
special relationship with dun off and also a fellow named Claire mcken now Claire was number two at the GM design
9:58
staff quite frankly he was head of all Chevy design and think of this from 54
10:04
through 1965 think of the cars through there right yeah the 55 Chevy the 57
10:10
Chevy the 58 the 50 all those yeah and then he went on to become head of opal design well I ended up getting married
10:17
to his daughter no kidding she was an artist she was at Michigan that's where I met her and that marriage lasted 20
10:23
years and two children's twins but that's how I got in there was Dave Cole heard near the end of my bachelor's
10:30
program at Michigan you know you're interviewing and so forth right and he heard that I accepted a job at Standard
10:36
Oil California huh stupid me I accepted it because it was the highest offer in those times there was lots of jobs for
10:43
people with BS from University of Michigan so he heard about this he called me into his office and just
10:49
raised hell and he said Ronco you are a car guy you're not an oil guy so I want
10:56
you to go talk to a upand comer at General Motors a fellow named Lloyd Rey
11:02
who eventually became GM's president and as you know Mark Roy is the current President of General Motors his son now
11:08
Martin was five years old so Lloyd invited me over to his house you know and Marcy and his wife was there and
11:14
really put the arm on me and convinced me to call up Standard Oil and say I'm not coming and I switched over and went
11:21
to work at Chevrolet engineering at December of 68 wow and I remember I
11:26
think Mark was five or six years old at the time and I remember a couple years later his dad Lloyd says Mark what do
11:32
you want to do when you grow up he says Dad I'm G to have Mr rumple's
11:37
job that's a fantastic story Don that's great I tell you what buddy let's take
11:43
our first break when we come back in segment two we'll talk about your time at General Motors all right that's
11:48
coming up next here on Corvette today we all know that Wheels make the car wheel
11:53
Craft's PVD chrome finish in bright Chrome or black chrome will take your Corvette to new levels and it comes with
11:59
a 5-year warranty durability is a defining feature of the wheelcraft finish their PVD chrome is superior to
12:05
traditional Chrome with a finish that is break dust resistant and cleans effortlessly with soap and water wheelcraft offers Factory wheel exchange
12:12
for select C4 through C8 models or they can apply the pbd Finish to your current Wheels no matter what generation you own
12:19
wheelcraft will transform the look of your Corvette with every Corvette comes a unique story and wheelcraft has
12:25
embraced this idea when you purchase your new set of wheels you receive a lifetime membership to the wheelcraft pit crew granting you access to your own
12:32
page on wheelcraft website where you can post pictures and tell your Corvette story visit our website at wheelcraft
12:42
docomo with wheelcraft the radiator Grill store offers C8 Corvette a pillar
12:48
wind diffusers in beautiful carbon fiber or OEM gloss black that help reduce wind
12:54
buffeting when a window is open Easy installation and OEM fitment plus get 10% off your total purchase with the
13:00
promo code ct10 at radiator Grill store.com the National Corvette Resto
13:06
Society is celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year 50 years of affirming and promoting the preservation
13:12
and restoration of the Corvette 50 years is the foremost Corvette collector car Organization for building value with its
13:19
prestigious Awards have you ever considered joining ncrs over 70,000 people have were so much more than just
13:26
the nuts and bolts the ncrs flight judging program can and often does increase the value of America's sports
13:32
car by researching and Publishing the leading Tech manuals and judging guides for the 1953 through 2007 Corvettes by
13:39
training the best judges and by hosting local Regional and National judging events and when you join you'll get
13:45
award-winning magazines like Corvette restore and drive line all throughout the year joining is simple and easy just
13:52
go to ncrs.org and sign up there are ncrs chapters all throughout the US and
13:57
all around the world check Zar there's a local chapter near you so join ncrs today at ncrs.org we come for the
14:05
Corvettes we stay for the friendships made along the way when you want to buy a Corvette or any Chevrolet for that
14:11
matter get yours from Hendrick Chevrolet shaie Mission located in Kansas City Hendrick Chevrolet is the largest
14:17
Corvette dealership and showroom in the midwest with a knowledgeable sales staff and Corvette sales Specialists on hand
14:23
they'll help you build the Corvette of your dreams and they ship Nationwide with Corvette certified Master Mechanic
14:29
on site and a huge parts department with over 24,000 parts and $2 million in inventory Hendrick Chevrolet is well
14:35
equipped to take care of your every need from sales to service to Collision Repair Hendrick Chevrolet has you
14:41
covered visit Chevy usa.com or call 913 3841
14:47
1550 you're listening and watching Corvette today with Steve Garrett thanks
14:53
for checking out Corvette today on podcast and YouTube it's the only current podcast dedicated to Corvette
15:00
Corvette today is brought to you by wheelcraft you want your Corvette looking its best we'll dress it up with
15:05
bright Chrome or black chrome wheels visit wheelcraft tocom and learn about their Advanced PVD chrome finishing they
15:12
can refinish your wheels or do a wheel exchange and you get a 5-year warranty so visit wheelcraft
15:23
docomo Steve Garrett with me is Don rles a former GM executive with some great
15:29
great stories in segment number two we're going to talk about Don's time at General Motors Don when you first got to
15:35
GM after that arm twisting there at the big guy house what was your first job when you
15:41
got to General Motors and then the other ones thereafter well as I said Lloyd hired me in was my mentor then for it
15:47
seems like life he stuck me into a role in their Advanced Computer Systems area
15:53
and I started writing computer programs to simulate barrier crashes as you know to qualify for cars that there's got to
16:00
run into the barrier and there's a steering column penetration all kinds of stuff you got to pass right well I with
16:06
another research and research developed a program to simulate that on a computer so I ended up crashing several thousand
16:13
vehicles on the computer so that was the first one for a couple years I probably wrote you know
16:20
5,000 computer programs inside of that thing because that was a very sophisticated analysis program and just
16:27
what a mechanical engineer ought to be working on sure then following that Royce opened a lot of doors for me he
16:33
was a mover and so he moved every few years and quite frankly about every two years unexpected he'd call me up and say
16:40
hey I got a new spot for you it just became one job after another and after being on a job for about two years I
16:47
could always count on him moving me from a job that I was just getting comfortable with and knowing something
16:53
about to a job that I had no clue what it was all about he took me from being
16:58
chief engineer your cam he says hey tomorrow you're going to show up and run Buick engines I said ly I'm sort of a
17:04
hack at engines you know he said you'll figure it out that's amazing now tell me the story
17:09
about how you got to start working on Corvette then yeah so one of the roles was in the Chevrolet planning that's
17:15
where I went to MIT out of there when I came back I went through the bega program I was chief engineer Camaro and
17:21
a bunch of other stuff but when I was in product planning and came back from Salon they made me head of Chevrolet
17:27
product planning there was a passenger car side there was a truck side and a manufacturing side as part of that I had
17:33
all the Chevrolet car platforms as a planning standpoint but I kept Corvette to myself so to speak I always had a
17:40
fascination with it and always liked racing and things like that and so I kept it to myself and then after selling
17:47
what we call the 84 C4 program to the GM product policy group that was the top
17:52
level group of the chairman and the CEO ours I always kept my fingers in the vet for rest of the my time at General
17:59
Motors in terms of concept vets mid engines and all kinds of different approaches to that always with the
18:05
engineering department Dave ML and I became great friends to this day he's the guy that replaced dunov when I was
18:11
chief engineer at Camaro for a short time there right near dunov and I shared a three office suite with dunov so wow
18:19
nice so I really go back there that's awesome so it was in that area so with
18:24
all the racing Daytona lons the GTO Corvettes the showroom Stu program the
18:29
ZR1 came up with the one we did with the Lotus Tony rud and that Yang so I always
18:34
kept my fingers in that stuff but it all started as part of Chevrolet planning and started with getting the C4 program
18:41
approved that's really cool now you mentioned you were chief engineer for Camaro but at 39 years old Don you were
18:47
already the chief engineer of Chevrolet overall wow that's amazing and then you
18:52
were GM's vice president of advanced engineering and the director of advanced vehicle engineering as well weren't you
18:58
yeah that's right like I said I could probably plot those all out about every two years it was a different role but my
19:04
first chief engineer role was on the Camaro Roy moved me in there and we did the 82 Camaro which one car of the year
19:11
that year then on from that with some of the other things then I ended up back as chief engineer of Chevrolet during the
19:16
big reorganization of General Motors and then moved on to Advanced vehicle engineering and then I became vice
19:22
president of General Motors in charge of advanced engineering and I like to always brag that I was that in those
19:28
days it's much different these days I was the third youngest vice president ever John DeLorean was number one at 40
19:35
John Belz was number two at 41 and I was number three at 42 that's amazing
19:41
congratulations my friend that's awesome now I think you can become a vice president when you're 22 years old over
19:46
there but in those days to be a vice president was a big deal you know you're in the I
19:53
think it still is to be honest with you I think it is at least to me it is it's a good job it is now you came to
19:59
Corvette at a very Monumental time as we talked about you were part of the C4 launch we lost an Infamous year there in
20:06
1983 didn't we that's right yeah we started working it took forever in terms
20:11
of years to get the C4 up and running the Corvette's volume had fallen off precipitously there was even some rumor
20:18
that okay we might drop the Corvette in those days Dave MCL had already taken over from dun off on the Corvette
20:25
program and so it was just time to do a new Corvette so we worked on this
20:30
program for years the planning of it and so forth and to Dave mlen credit he
20:36
continued to push to move the vet to Simply a different level the way I like
20:41
to put it to be able to run with the big boys the Ferraris and Porsches and all those guys and not ever have to Corvette
20:49
for many years always had to apologize for something right right it had a live rear axle or it didn't have this or it
20:56
didn't have that to Dave's credit and I was Solly behind him from a planning standpoint he said let's do a bet that
21:03
we don't have to make any apologies for I don't know if we're going to be the fastest car out there but we're going to
21:08
be able to run with all of the fastest cars and I thought that was a great way to go yeah definitely and the C4
21:15
represented a huge upgrade in technology didn't it yeah that's right it was a huge task when I went to the product
21:22
policy group and again this is the top Brash the chairman sitting there the CEO and so forth and I'm walking in there to
21:28
make the presentation okay and cheerleaders you know mlen these guys are all there in the program I went in
21:34
and presented a slid show of the history of Corvette and what it meant to General
21:40
Motors and quite frankly I shamed them into approving this I said ladies and
21:46
gentlemen it would be a damn shame If This Were the group that decided to not move the Corvette to the next level yep
21:53
and the slideshow had all these old 53 vet things and Concepts all the great
21:59
great history racing and you name it and Dave put together the engineering behind
22:04
the change because I'm going into a group that normally only approves program if there's a cost reduction in
22:10
the program huh okay yeah I'm going in asking and usually it's like can you
22:16
save 25 cents on this and 30 cents on this so can you save $32 on this new car
22:21
program I'm going in asking for like $1,000 cost increase because we went
22:27
with aluminum this and that stiffened the body a lot the aerodynamics in there the concealed headlights all the things
22:33
that went into moving this vet because we wanted to move it to a different level in the market and we knew there
22:40
was some risk there because Corvette customers as you know are very loyal to that thing and they're very protective
22:45
the Corvette oh yeah this notion of okay can we move this because we knew a price increase was going to be there but then
22:53
we weren't going to make any apologies for this car out there it was going to run with the big boys that was the thing
22:58
so there was a lot of tap dancing on my part and I came up with the idea I said let's reveal the history because some of
23:04
these people might not know it but the key guys do the chairman knows the history the president knows the history
23:10
the head of engineering knows the history we'll shame him into approving this thing hey that worked didn't it
23:17
work because about halfway through the pitch I remember I think it was P says rle sit down it's
23:24
approved that's awesome that's another great story but then we had move we had to skip the year because we were so far
23:31
late in that there was no real sense to do an 83 we said okay don't fool around with an 83 it just will use up our
23:38
resources and it doesn't matter some cars it's important to have model years the BET almost stands on its own it's
23:44
its own brand so to speak definitely that's an awesome story well buddy let's take our final break when we get back
23:50
we're going to talk in segment three about the nuts and bolts of the C4 Corvette that's coming up next with Don
23:56
rle here on Corvette today are you ready for a better
24:01
insurance policy without the Corvette tax with agreed value protection the value of your collector vehicle will
24:07
never change plus you'll save money get a quick quote at NCM
24:13
insurance.com hey honey are you awake M I am now I can't sleep since turning 50
24:19
I keep dreaming of a red door and a blue door somehow knowing there are only choices for retirement okay through the
24:25
red door we outlive our money we have to rely on and our kids we're stuck on a fixed income it's terrifying yeah that
24:32
would suck but through the blue door our money outlives us we retire on our terms
24:37
our kids stay our kids not our caretakers we make work optional yes that's much better that's what I want
24:44
too but what do we do we call true wealth and Company at 913 653 8783 they
24:50
specialize in helping successful people make work optional there are fiduciary Blue Door personal wealth managers hey
24:57
where are you going it's 3:00 a.m. I can't sleep I'm going to check out true wealth and& Company online at retire
25:03
withth true.com that blue door is going to be our retirement 91 3653 8783 visit
25:08
us online at retire with true.com investment advice offer through true wealth and Company LLC a registered investment adviser in the state of
25:14
Kansas vetf finders.com is the internet's original Corvette classified ads website with classified ads starting
25:20
at just $25 and every ad runs until your Corvette is sold if you're in the market
25:26
for a Corvette vetf finders.com has over 500 Corvettes for sale from all around the USA and Canada and covering all
25:33
eight Generations visit vetf finders.com the internet's destination for buying
25:39
and selling Corvettes that's VTE finders.com
25:47
this is the Corvette Today podcast with Steve Garrett thanks once again for
25:52
listening and watching Corvette today the show that talks about everything Corvette Corvette today is brought you
25:58
buy wheelcraft you want your Corvette looking its best right well dress it up with bright Chrome or black chrome
26:03
wheels visit wheelcraft tocom and learn about their Advanced PVD chrome finishing they can refinish your wheels
26:10
or do a wheel exchange and you get a 5-year warranty too visit wheelcraft
26:20
docomo Steve Garrett with me is Don rle we are talking about the C4 Corvette in
26:26
this final segment we're going to talk more about that Don outline for me all the advances that the C4 generation
26:32
brought to Corvette well I Cann possibly outline all of them but with ml's
26:37
expertise and one of the terrific Engineers it couldn't have been a better choice after dun off to head up the
26:42
Corvette program there was an advanced IRS system that was put in there obviously did all the forged aluminum
26:49
suspension components in the front SLA front suspension and so forth a thing that I hated was the skip shift on the
26:57
car if you'll remember we went went from first gear to fourth gear right unless you cut that little wire that we
27:02
displayed underneath the console that says do not cut so the skip shift was
27:08
there basically to beat the EPA gas guzzler stuff Dave and his gang came up with that Rusty did a crossfire I said
27:15
Russ are you sure you want to call this Crossfire but anyway Crossfire injection tune didn't take engine so it was a good
27:22
Innovation it f the character of the car low profile and so forth obviously the arrow my good friend Jerry Palmer did
27:29
the design of the car just did a remarkable job and had such a great relationship with engineering sometimes
27:35
design and Engineering don't get along but that was a great team mclin's engineering enabled some of the arrow
27:41
things that he could put into that to get the wind cheating Arrow yeah obviously a dramatic stiffening of the
27:47
chassis the Corvette was not terrific in that category so that was some of the stuff I didn't particularly like it but
27:53
the instrument panel you know with the Liquid Crystal displays and so forth that was one of the things I would have
27:59
done differently but mlen was all geeked up about it so we did it that way there you go yeah that works so those are some
28:05
of the things that were in the product obviously the concealed headlights and the overall appearance of it was just a
28:11
dramatic change from before and to this day I still think it's one of the more beautiful vets that were out there I
28:17
agree buddy that's for sure now we alluded to this in the second segment Don but tell me more of the inside the
28:23
backstory about the famous we missed the year of 1983 yeah it took a long time
28:29
there was some issues in and around bigger picture stuff for the Corvette was under a bit of pressure as to
28:34
whether it should continue or not and so forth because you know General Motors here building what 10 million vehicles
28:40
or something like that who the hell needs this 20,000 unit V that takes a lot of resources and so forth so there
28:46
was that going on so it took us a longer time than normal and this was a big
28:51
change because as you know we moved from the C3 to the C4 was probably the biggest change we had done it just took
28:57
a long time to get the engineering organized to get the pitch presentation cleaned up so that we'd get sold because
29:03
we're going in for a fairly substantial cost increase and so we frankly just got late we sat around and I don't know
29:10
where the idea came from but says why don't we just skip the damn 1983 and just go right to 84 the Corvette crowds
29:16
we don't sit around very long to make a decision you know so so it was done that's funny that's
29:24
awesome now I even found out that there was even talk about making the Corvette a V6 or a diesel at one time and you
29:31
stopped that and I have to say thank you for stopping that well I'm not sure I'm the only guy that stopped that but we
29:36
know that Lloyd Roy stepped in there and loud stample and myself and obviously Dave and we had run quite a few V6 vets
29:44
in prototypes mlen had them running turbos and so forth and some of the ones we did with the higher performance V8
29:51
turbos and that actually led to now since deceased Reeves Callaway who became a very good friend of mine as we
29:58
sort of turned over the Twin Turbo Corvette to re because our view was that GM's never going to approve something
30:05
with that much horsepower so re why don't you do this that's funny so there was a lot of discussion it's during the
30:10
time where the EPA was going nuts over fuel economy the Corvette's a poster child it goes fast it's got high speed
30:17
and it's a gas guzzling be and all that sort of stuff and so there was the discussion of V6 I'm not negative on
30:23
diesels but there was a discussion there by Howard Carol why don't we put a diesel engine in and as you know the
30:29
performance of all those kinds of cars fell off dramatically in and around those time periods right so anyway we
30:35
just banded together as a like-minded Corvette passion people and just willed
30:41
the V8 to stay in the program and the V6 and the Diesels never made it there you go thank goodness now after General
30:48
Motors in Corvette Don you went on to be like Vice chairman of deli and the CEO of Eco mortars International wow yeah it
30:56
was very interesting I was te engineer when I went into being vice president of engineering and then I went over to Deli
31:03
and I think Jack Smith at the time says Ronco enough all this engineering stuff you're doing you need to learn how to
31:09
become a businessman he said there's a couple spots that could be doing he says you could take my job except I have my
31:15
job so you can't have that one and he said but over in the parts department which is the steering guys chassan that
31:22
huge organization that did the parts for General Motors which became Deli he said
31:28
we can make you president of one of those 15 divisions and you wouldn't even have to move so how about that he says
31:34
you won't be there long you'll be over there for a couple years but it'll teach you because a division of Deli had
31:39
everything public relations engineering manufacturing Finance everything but treasury so you learned all the things
31:46
about that and I remember my first day up at Sagen I'm driving up to sagol as president of Sagen okay my first day so
31:52
I called up Roger pensy and I says I have no clue what to do as a businessman
31:58
says turn around I'll come down and give you a two-hour teach on it that's awesome wow but anyway so I went over
32:05
there then we ended up getting in our heads at Deli that we should take Deli out of General Motors because we were
32:11
selling all the GM parts but only a few car companies Chrysler would buy parts from Deli but Ford wouldn't they said
32:18
look we just give you guys money to buy steering gear and then you give the money to general motor and they come out and beat us up on trucks so they
32:24
wouldn't but we said okay we're good we know how to do all thisch technical stuff because I'd say 70% of the
32:30
intellectual property in General Motors was in Deli it's steering and Chassis and all that sort of stuff right because
32:36
car companies basically stamp Metals make engines and Assemble Yeah and the rest of the parts come from suppliers so
32:43
anyway we spun that off I helped spin that off with the CEO at the time the president batenburg and I remember one
32:49
day that they called me up and say hey we want to offer you a job back here at General Motors as president of sa I
32:55
listened to the pitch it was pretty good at that time I was was in a great spot over at Deli and they wanted to take sa
33:00
and go up against BMW huh okay and I looked at Lou Hughes and I said Lou
33:06
that's impossible I said there is no way this little car that New Hampshire school
33:12
teachers buy the sa okay this eccentric little car is going to go up against BMW
33:17
so I said I think I'll stay at Deli nice nice then I went over there and then
33:23
left alpi eventually I became vice chairman and ran engineering manufacturing all that there and then
33:28
VOD kosa called me up and says hey I have this new engine company you know the guy that invented the engine Peter Hof comes out of Volkswagen so would you
33:35
become the the CEO and I went from that and then did other Venture Capital stuff to stuff I still did today nice that's
33:41
awesome now buddy we talked about this a little bit earlier and you alluded to Zora but you were involved with Zora in
33:47
some of the really cool experimental projects called serve C RV talk about
33:53
that program because those cars were just fantastic yeah always being an admirer of dun I only interacted with
34:01
him for a very short time near the end of his career just as I was getting started on the Camaro side but I always
34:06
admired him obviously I have a ton of Zora stories we'll skip those right now he did the serve one the Corvette
34:13
experimental research vehicle one and two these were open Wheels he me him as race cars and so forth so many years
34:19
later when I was at Advanced vehicle engineering I sort of got it in my head talking at the time we owned Lotus and I
34:25
became very good friends with Tony rud who was the chief engineer of lotus did their Formula 1 team and just a
34:31
wonderful wonderful person and we became very very good friends and ended up doing the ZR1 engine between the engine
34:37
guys at Chevy and Lotus and that's the one that became in the first ZR1 the 32 valve engine yeah so we discussed what
34:44
could we do as a tour to force to do another serve and I sort of had to call it the Corp experimental research
34:51
vehicle because I was not actually in Chevy at the time okay later I think they renamed it the Corvette
34:57
experimental research vehicle but that's probably a closely held secret but anyway and John lamb when he was at
35:03
radent track did just a wonderful article and if you Google the serve three it's just loaded out there with
35:09
YouTubes and so forth about it it was one of the many Mid Engine Concepts that
35:14
were done for Corvette over the years it was by far the most sophisticated
35:20
concept vehicle of any kind of concept vehicle the GM had ever done so it was a fabulous product to work on because
35:26
basically between us and mlen and Tony rud we said we're going to put
35:32
everything we can think of in this vehicle and we actually did a presentation to ourselves saying could
35:38
we actually do a Supercar and I remember Gordon Murray called me up one day and he came over to the auto show and he
35:44
says I'd like to see your serve three this is before he was doing the McLaren stuff wow because the car when you look
35:50
at it knit engine put the ZR1 engine in it the aluminum 32 valve with twin
35:55
turbos I think it's reported to be a 00 horsepower I think we were closer to 800 it had four-wheel drive four-wheel
36:02
steering the Lotus active suspension which is still the most phenomenal suspension system ever Arington Senna
36:09
won the Detroit Grand Prix with active suspension on his Lotus at the time so we put that in there it had throttle
36:16
kickers so just before the wheels would break loose your gas pedal would sort of kick in your foot and say hey if you
36:21
push any harder these wheels are going to break traction so just have that in mind and so we had Force vectoring
36:27
controls so we know each wheel where it was and what it was doing and could apply the right amount of power to that
36:33
wheel and since we had control of the suspension and the steering and the drive we could put the Power there we
36:41
could steer the rear wheels as well as the front wheels so it had a phenomenal capability in terms of just Dynamic
36:48
control it was there you can read about John's article Lamb's article you can dig that out it probably was the best
36:55
coverage of it but there must be a thousand articles out there on this car it's sort of the mid- engine car that
37:01
wasn't yeah absolutely right and I love the look of it the whole serve project from serve one serve 2 and serve three
37:08
was fantastic it was a great idea and Jerry Palmer did the design of the serve three and obviously C4 and C5 and so
37:15
forth you know in my day with all the various teams I had the terrific responsibility to lead we did the first
37:21
contemporary electric vehicle the impact which turned out to be the ev1 hybrids gas turbines C ambering machines the
37:28
lean machine the ultr light which we did with Bert Routan I just got off the phone with him this morning actually wow
37:34
which was 100 mile per gallon four passenger vehicle we did it because we said hey at 100 miles per gallon it
37:39
doesn't matter what gasoline costs right you'll spend more money on Starbucks yeah and just on and on the sun racer
37:45
when we went to Australia and we won the race and second place came in two and a half days after we did these were all
37:51
terrific projects for engineers to show what could be that's what a concept car is to be push the envelope yeah
37:58
absolutely right and buddy congratulations are in order for you we just found out that you've been nominated for the Corvette Hall of Fame
38:05
that is outstanding well thanks a lot we'll see what happens here I referred to M I think in section one CLA mckin
38:12
who has had all those Corvettes in there he actually didn't get inducted until after he died so I hope that's not true
38:18
at the Corvette that's funny well Don thank you
38:24
so much for taking the time to be on Corvette today it has been an honor and a pleasure having you on the show my
38:30
pleasure a lot of fun and keep doing what you're doing thanks again for listening and watching Corvette today
38:35
and be sure to tell your family friends and other Corvette enthusiasts about the Corvette Today Show and thanks to our
38:41
sponsors wheelcraft want to dress up your Corvette with bright Chrome or black chrome wheels visit wheelcraft
38:46
decom to learn about their Advanced PVD chrome finishing they can refinish your wheels or offer a wheel exchange for
38:52
most models and it comes with a 5-year warranty visit wheelcraft ccom today or call 8 33 639 4231 sold Performance
39:01
Products at spp.com the official performance exhaust of Corvette today coka Corvette at COC
39:09
CCAC corvette.com true wealth and Company at retire withth true.com also
39:14
aari Wheels get $100 off your purchase with the new promo code ct1111 at
39:21
AOL.com and Hendrick Chevrolet in Kansas City at Chevy usa.com thanks for che out Corvette
39:28
today on podcast and YouTube if you'd like to contact Steve with ideas for Corvette today you can email him at
39:35
Steve Garrett DJ atgmailcom Garrett has two RS and two T's that's Steve Garrett
39:41
DJ atgmailcom also sign up for email notifications at Corvett today. ck. page
39:49
follow Steve and the show on social media on Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn and threads at Steve Garrett DJ
39:58
thanks again for listening and watching Corvette today
40:05
[Music]
Autos & Vehicles
Autos & Vehicles
Classic Vehicles
Vehicle Shows
Bentley
BMW
Chevrolet
Rolls-Royce