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n For more information about digital and print subscriptions, go to vetteweb.com and click on “Subscribe.”fade-free, and the wheels didn’t lock up.
Our shortest stop was 137 feet and the lon-
gest was 166 feet, for a 153.65-foot average
stopping distance for our five stops. It felt
as if the brakes could continue to perform
this way all day long.
“We also used the brakes hard on long,
fast, winding, downhill mountain roads, in
city traffic, and during one of Los Angeles’
infamous cloudbursts,” he continued.
“After 1,500 miles, in our opinion, the 1965
Corvette has the finest, smoothest-acting,
and strongest set of stoppers available on
any American automobile.”
He acknowledged, though, that “brakes
are only one component of many that go
into building a sports car. Suspension is
also very important, and here’s where the
Corvette shines again.” He called the car’s
ride “a bit choppy” at low speeds in town
or on rough roads, “but the Corvette is far
more comfortable and easy to live with
than many other sports cars.” Its handling,
he said, was “almost perfectly neutral in
corners until pushed right to the limit.
The Corvette could be drifted, skidded, or
just driven very fast through any variety
of turns with a high degree of safety andcontrol. It’s a car that a good driver can
really fall in love with, and one that a bad
driver, or an over-enthusiastic one, can get
himself into trouble with just as quickly.”
Photos of the road test were taken over
a period of several days in January 1965,
and show McVay driving the car on streets,
dirt roads, and at the track, with the con-
vertible top up, top down, and an optional
hardtop attached. One photo caption had
nothing good to say about that hardtop:
“Definitely not a one-man job, taking off top
can be a chore. Once in place, it rattled and
required lots of muscle to lift up in order to
get into luggage compartment.”
Besides that top and the
300-horse V-8 (the 250hp 327
was still standard for 1965),
other options on McVay’s tes-
ter included its four-speed
manual transmission; power
brakes, steering, and windows;
Positraction with the standard
3.36 rear gears; AM/FM radio
with power antenna; tinted
glass; and whitewalls, taking its
$4,106 base price to $5,279.
as tested.
Neither the 250 nor the 300hp
versions of the 327 would make
anyone “king at the local drag-
strip,” McVay admitted. The spec
chart showed the Vette took 7.
seconds to go from 0 to 60 and
ran the quarter-mile in 15.8 sec-
onds at 90 mph. “But you can
rest assured that if you aren’t sat-
isfied beating most of the people
most of the time, you can always
order a hotter version.”
The complaint about the hard-
top aside, McVay flat loved this
Vette. “A better all-around sports
car would be hard to find at
any price. Here’s a car a man
can really enjoy driving and
living with.” VETTEVETTEWEB.COM 11