General Motors was out of motor sport, but one renegade stylist pursued his vision of the future with a hybrid racer called the Sting Ray that changed the design of American sports cars. Tim Scott drives the car that launched a thousand 'Vettes
The bodywork's glinting contours provide the answer to my four million-dollar question. The query had seemed valid: although undeniably beautiful, this car was essentially a flawed racing machine that only ever achieved modest track success; in two seasons of American national sports car events it failed to score a single overall win. And these days it's not even fitted with its original engine. But to stand next to it is to understand why this car commands such an extravagant valuation.
Its predatory, jutting nose, swollen wheel clearances and sharply defined break-line running all around that elongated shape – the lineage that the first Sting Ray design spawned is unmistakable. Disowned by General Motors during its heyday (it was only later dubbed a 'concept racer'), it is plain to see how the enduring legacy of this car is that it became the stylistic stencil for Chevrolet's great road-going sports car – this is the basic shape of the Corvette that was cast in Detroit Iron for the next 40 years...
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