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Fifty years of production will be celebrated in 2003, however that’s not entirely true. It will actually mark 49 model years for the Corvette, and that’s because there was no 1983 Corvette. None were ever built for sale to the public.
     That’s not to say that Chevrolet never built any 1983 Corvettes. Actually, 44 cars were assembled — all pilot cars that cost an estimated 500,000 each to fabricate. These cars represented a new generation of Corvette — a world-class sports car using leading edge technology. The new Corvette was totally different in all respects from the 1982 model with only the L83 Crossfire engine and the 700R4 automatic transmission carried over.
     Corvette Chief Engineer Dave McLellan’s use of technology and light weight aluminum and magnesium