Car Style - The Chevrolet Corvette C5

The Corvette is America's sports car whether you like it or not. This car succeeded the C4 (which I've never really liked) and was succeeded itself by the C6. I personally like the C5's looks more than the C6. In fact, the only element I dislike about the C5 is its retractable headlights. I'm sorry- I've never liked or been intrigued about retractable headlights on cars. The C5 is a work of American beauty. The car is wide and beautiful. Its lifespan was between 1996 and 2004. It is the successor of the C4 and the predecessor to the C6. This Car Style blog post concerns the Chevrolet Corvette C5 and its looks.

By the way... FIRST POST OF 2011! Happy new year, everyone! :)

--- Car Style: The Corvette C5 ---

Here is the Corvette C5:

^ from: hotwheels.myblog.it - the Chevrolet Corvette C5.

The C5 was a wide American sports car with meaty tires and some slick style. You cannot help but be moved by its sweet style. Those who wanted a little more out of their C5 opted for the C5 ZO6. Video game players saw this car featured in a number of games including "Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit," "Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec," and "Test Drive 4" among others. As Europeans would say, this car is "sex on wheels." The C5 has much smoother lines than the C4 it replaced. And let's face it- the C5 is more beautiful than the C4 it replaced. It was like going from a nerdy boy to a handsome hunk. The C5 was a serious challenger on the sportscar racing front with the C5R. It wasn't very good as a challenger in its first few years, but it really caught on as the Dodge Viper GTS-R was done doing its own damage in GT sportscar racing. The C5R's only true challenge was the Aston Martin DBR9 in sportscar racing. My personal favorite C5R was the very first one in Goodwrench black and silver colors. I've almost never liked the Millennium Yellow Chevy went with ever since the turn of the millennium. Callaway made its own variant of the C5 in the Callaway C12, and the Mosler MT900R is very much influenced on the design of the C5.

Exterior.

The C5 Corvette greets you with its lovely front end. Everything slopes beautifully up front. A pair of retractable headlights make up the front of the car. It has the same sort of diamond-edge front on Camaros, only the Corvette a cleaner design that isn't really bullet-like up front. The Corvette boasts a pair of signal lights at the ends on the front bumper. Between the signal lights and the "Corvette" are two long openings. My only complaint about the C5 is that I have never really been a fan of retractable headlights. So of all the elements of the C5, the retractable headlights are the only dislike of this car. I do sort of wished Chevrolet would probably pattern the permanent headlights of the C6 more like the C5R's permanent headlights. Otherwise, it is a beautiful piece of American automobile craftsmanship.

The sides offer some extra muscle. The greatest detail on the sides is the huge side duct aft of the front tires. The C5 is not really imposing on the sides. It doesn't have too much of in-your-face muscle to be anything brash or cocky. The side profile has an aggressive, almost fastback look to it. Then too, it doesn't have a seriously long front end like the Jaguar XKE or the Toyota 2000GT. Some Corvette models have a side strake that is added to the car's overall design to give it a little more edge. This side strake goes from the side duct to the very much near the rear quarter panel. The ZO6 has a smaller duct near the rear wheels, but it doesn't have the same side strake that the regular C5s have. Speaking of the wheels, I love the star-like five-spoke wheels. They look like a five-pointed star and nicely compliment the car's overall style. There's not much else to talk about from the sides and up top unless you are talking about a convertible or roadster version of the C5.

The C4 had very square-like tail lights and a mostly unattractive appearance. The C5 Corvette has elliptical tail lights, a more seductive rear than the C4, and a design that fully encapsulates the wide-and-sexy appeal of the Corvette.
Wide and sexy both describe the rear of the C5 Corvette. The rear windshield slopes beautifully to compliment the rear view. Two little vents at the bottom (on each side) make up the rear of this car along with a valance between them, housing a pair of dual exhaust tailpipes. The rear only completes the appeal of this sexy American sports car.

Interior.

The Corvette C5 is sexy and stylish on the outside, but what about the inside? Sporty. It has a sporty steering wheel and a nice instrument panel for a '90s sports car. Nothing fancy about the center console, either. The whole dashboard is sporty. Maybe not stylish, but sporty. A comfortable-looking pair of seats compliment the C5 Corvette as well. The "Corvette" stitching can be found on the seats as you lean back to enjoy the ride. You don't have to reach over too far to grab some hears (especially with a Manual/Standard Corvette) since it's very close by.





All in all, I just can't connect with the C6 Corvette style-wise. This is despite the fact the C6 is overall shorter in dimensions. Maybe I'm too much a '90s kid (at least it's different from being an '80s kid. This, speaking as a person born in 1983) to where I tend to become most fond of '90s material than I do 2000s material. I think the C5 is perhaps one of the loveliest automobiles of the 1990s. I think if the C6 were styled a lot more like the C5 but smaller and with cleaner lines, maybe I'd like the latest Corvette a bit more. Regardless, I still love the C5 Corvette. It's the only other personal favorite Corvette of mine other than the 1963 Sting Ray Corvettes. An absolute beauty was unveiled in 1997 with the arrival of the Corvette C5. I still see a few C5 Corvettes from time to time on the road. It's a very beautiful automobile and still is to this day.

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