The origins of the Corvega?

F

FeelTheRads

Vault Senior Citizen
Is the Corvega actually made after a real car? In my "researches" I found that the Highwayman was made after the Cadillac El Dorado, but I couldn't find anything about the Corvega.

Anyone knows more?

Edit: I'm not completely sure the Highwayman was made after the Cadillac... it just seems like it was to me...
 
Yeah, I thought at that too, but I would like to know the exact model of Corvette it was made after so I can start looking for pictures of it. I DID searched for old Corvette pictures, but didn't found any that resembled the Corvega...
 
I guess y'all are too young to remember the Chevy Vega. Obviously Corvega is an combination of Corvette & Vega. Although the Corvega doesn't really resemble either a Corvette or Vega too much, it's obviously a satire on America's obsession with the "bigger is better" school of automotive design of the Pre-gas chrisis era. Inefficient, tasteless, gaudy, but with an obscene amount of HP from a Detroit built powerplant. Just kind of poking fun at American attitudes and taste in vehicles of that era I guess.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into it :crazy:
 
Best I can tell the Corvega bears more resemblance to a mid-60s Corvette; what Corvette nuts call a C-2. Speifically, a Coupe, not a fastback. Notice the lines of the hood (Brought out into a turbine-like intake on the Corvega), the curve of the rear fenders, (Brought out into tailfins on the Corvega) and the back glass. Corvega is bigger, but the roots are there.
sh64.jpg


The Highwayman is an Imperial, almost certainly. Only the grill and the distinctive rear roofline have changed.

car.gif



58Imp4drht.jpg


Notice the way the bumper curves around; how the tailfins start in the doors. the obvious lack of a "B" pillar, the large overhangs on the headlighs, and the inner curves of the front and rear fenders.
 
Great find on the Highwayman! It certainly looks more like the '58 Imperial than like the '56 Eldorado. Heck, they're almost identical!

I had no knowledge about this type of cars before...
 
There are only three changes amongs the Imperial and the highwayman. The tailfans and tail-lights; the roofline and the front grill/bumper assembly. There are two additions; being the "Zoomy" pipes and the Supercharger-like apparatus. The Highwayman in-game is also very, very old so it's missing most of its trim, but you can see near the back where it would start. Perhaps I should try to re-paint one to look as it would from the factory...
 
I always took the chrysalis corvega to just be kind of a take on the 'Chrysler Cordoba' from the 70's. Thats just me tho :)

Not really in how the car looks in the game, but rather just name and the impression of the vehicle.

"In small print above the year in "1976 Cordoba," [the brochure] says: The Small Chrysler. Standard seating was a "cahsmere-like knit cloth and vinyl" bench seat with center armrest, the uplevel was the aforementioned velour 60/40 seat configuration. Top of the line was the famous Corinthian leather."

Tho the cordoba was 'cheaper car', as opposed to the $999,999.95 (or whatever) price tag on the Corvega :)

The early corvettes im sure influenced the appearance of the car in the game.
 
Actually, Wooz was at least partially correct. The C1 Corvettes of the late 50's had a rounded back with raised sides on which were long tailights. (In '61 they went to the straight-cut backside with round tailights that remains a distinctive Corvette style to this day.)

Corvega loading screen

56 Corvette

58 Corvette

60 Corvette

60 Vette (scale model)


As for the front, it makes me think of the LeSabre concept car.
51 LeSabre


There is a connection - Harley Earl
from The Detroit News:
"In 1950, Earl unveiled what became the most famous concept car of all time, the LeSabre. The LeSabre had a jet-like intake in the front, a new wraparound "panoramic" windshield which became standard on American cars in the '50s and tailfins, which Earl had actually introduced on the 1948 production Cadillac. The flamboyant LeSabre was truly an expression of Harley Earl's vision. In fact he drove the seven-million-dollar car as his personal vehicle for several years.
The LeSabre led directly to the Corvette, the car that Earl is most remembered for and most identified with.
...
Harley Earl was the first to use chrome on cars, which boosted the used-car market because the cars retained their good looks longer. He introduced the hardtop and the pillarless coupe. He designed the first tailfins (on the '48 Cadillac, inspired, Earl said, by the World War II P-38 fighter plane), wraparound curved glass windshields and the first car with a fiberglass-reinforced body (the '53 Corvette). He designed the first concept car and was the first American to truly understand how sex, glamour and showmanship would sell cars."
Click to expand...

Sounds like a (pre-war) Fallout kindof guy. :) His Firebird concepts are also good retro-future cars.

As for the name, Chevrolet lines have included the Corvette, Corvair, and Vega. The "Corvega" name seems like an good derivative.
 
I *Completely* forgot the Venerable GM LeSabre, even though my daily driver is the Buick that inherited that name!!! (The LeSabre was a neat car, it burned two fuels and generated combustion by mixing the vapors thereof in the cylinders.)

Anyway, here is the promised "restoration" of a Highwayman:
partialrestoration.bmp


Just done in MS Paint, no shading or anything, I could do a better job if I just learned how to use the nifty graphics program that came with my new PC...
 
Cimmerian Nights said:
I guess y'all are too young to remember the Chevy Vega. Obviously Corvega is an combination of Corvette & Vega. Although the Corvega doesn't really resemble either a Corvette or Vega too much, it's obviously a satire on America's obsession with the "bigger is better" school of automotive design of the Pre-gas chrisis era. Inefficient, tasteless, gaudy, but with an obscene amount of HP from a Detroit built powerplant. Just kind of poking fun at American attitudes and taste in vehicles of that era I guess.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into it :crazy:
Click to expand...
I think if anything it is just the opposite: not satire, but reminiscence of a time when cars looked good and had character. Of course, some were a bit inefficient because of size, but hey, gas was cheap, and technology has improved alot. We make cars smaller for efficiency, but most look dumb and all the same. Someone should start making efficient, good, classic looking cars with new technology.
 
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