The 1981 Corvette with the Changes in Assembly Plant and in Design

For the Corvette, 1981 was a year of transition. Changes were made not only to the car itself but where the assembly plant would be as well. Since 1954 the Corvette had been built only at Chevrolet's St. Louis plant. The Corvette line there was small and cramped and not capable of handling the 40 to 50,000 units being cranked out annually since 1976.

With a new generation Corvette planned for 1983 as well as the high demand for the current model, Chevrolet chose to abandon St. Louis for a new  plant that would be dedicated solely to the Corvette.

After considerable research and study, Chevrolet chose to purchase a large unused plant from Chrysler in Bowling Green, KY. The facility was gutted and a state of the art assembly line was installed. The Bowling Green plant began assembling Corvettes in june of 1981, the only model year that Corvette was built at both St. Louis and Bowling Green. When the last 1981 rolled out of St. Louis on August 1,the Corvette line there was shut down and further Corvette production would come only from Bowling Green.

The differences in the cars built in the different plants are considerable, especially in the painting process. Corvettes built in St. Louis were still painted with lacquer while the Bowling Green cars were painted in the new basecoat/clear coat process, which used an enamel base color coat followed by a clear top coat. Also, only Bowling Green cars were painted in two tone combinations.

   Only one engine was offered, the 190 hp version of the 350 small block, mated to either a four speed manual gearbox or automatic transmission. To comply with ever increasingly stringent emissions regulations, the 1981 Corvette received GM's new Computer Command Control, a rudimentary computerized system that controlled spark advance and fuel mixture to lower hydrocarbons and other emissions.

To improve fuel mileage, every attempt was made to improve drivetrain efficiency and lower vehicle weight. To this end, the 81's automatic transmission featured torque converter clutches for the two top gears and a plastic transverse rear leaf spring that saved 36 pounds of unsprung weight on models equipped with base suspension and automatic transmission. More weight savings were found in

the use of magnesium valve covers and tubular exhaust headers that weighed less than cast iron. The 1981 Corvette wasn't capable of blazing quarter mile performance, but then, in the early Eighties, what was. With the right set of gears, an 81 could do the quarter in the high 15s at around 85 mph. Where the Corvette was more fun was on the open road for high speed cruising.