Spyder GT?
I first saw the Monza GT on display under a tent at the Riverside International Raceway in 1962.
Or did I?
After I got home from the race, this thirteen-year-old kid, still mesmerized, wrote GM: How to become a car designer? A few weeks later I got a 9×12 envelope with a letter from Lee Knight and a few press-release photos of the Monza GT. He suggested I look into Art Center because I lived in Southern California.
I still have those photos that I framed on my wall as a kid. I have a copy of the original Monza GT brochure. And the car is on the cover of the Dean’s Garage book.
This week I was corresponding with Karl Ludvigsen about the Monza GT and he sent me some photos, one in particular I’ve seen many times. It’s in the brochure. The car is opened up, and he is peering into the engine compartment.
Hold on.
But there was a subtle difference between the photo that Karl sent me and the one printed in the brochure. The badging on the front fender says…Spyder GT?
After studying the brochure photo, it soon became evident that it had been retouched. “Spyder” had been removed. “Monza” was nearly centered over “GT” (that was not moved from the original photo) (No Photoshop in those days) resulting in the badging not centered between the wheel opening and canopy. Also, in the brochure the round Spyder emblem is still in evidence. Scans from the Monza GT brochure are here.
General Motors graciously provided images showing not only the Spyder GT emblem, but also the round emblem on the nose that looks like a Spyder graphic. Those images were dated June–July, 1962.
There was no documentation as to the name change.
Fascinating. I had no idea.
Why the name change?
Perhaps someone pointed out that typically “Spyder” was traditionally a car without a roof, and the tilt-canopy Monza was indeed a closed car.
To have named the Monza SS (the red, topless variant of the GT) “Monza Spyder” rather than “Monza SS” would seem logical. But Styling had already called the topless ’61 Corvair hotrod the Sebring Spyder and in ’62 the Super Spyder. That’s a lot of Spyders. So Monza SS makes sense.
Photos: General Motors
Spyder GT Badging—July 1962
Monza GT Badging
’61 Sebring Spyder, ’62 Super Spyder, Monza GT and SS
That was such a small car, the one picture with Bill Mitchell in it shows the scale of the car. When I first started at Design it was parked in the executive garage and we would see it driving occasionally around the Tech Center. I was told that the genesis of the car was the go-kart racing that used to occur every day in the summer at lunch time west of the auditorium in the parking lot. Larry Shinoda was a big participant.
One executive story, can’t remember who, scraped one of the cement curbs and tore his pants. He had to go home and change his clothes.
The design influenced the Italians. Like the Motorama cars it was mechanically leading edge. Gary, What happened to your reproduction?
Perhaps what you are referring to is the reproduction of the Monza SS by Mel Francis.—Gary
Fantastic series of concepts, that should have seen some production…
Gary,
Do you recall the name of the red haired fellow driving the Corvair Super Spyder? One day while I was walking out of the Executive Garage for my lunch walk around the lake, he was about to get into the Monza GT and asked if I’d like to go for a ride. We both hopped in and went for a drive around the Tech Center grounds. Was wonderful! The Monza GT and SS have always been favorites of mine. Thanks for sharing the story and great photos! John
My favorite GM show car!!! I first saw it in person at the Seattle World’s Fair, 1962. I saw it again at Art Center for Bill Mitchell’s graduation speech, fall 1964. It was so low that the driver angled the car at a 45degree angle to the curb in front of the building, canopy up, to see and hear it.It’s still stunning and still one of GM’s best ever show cars.
I got to ride in the Monza GT when I was a guest of Fisher Body as a FBCG regional and Design award recipient in 1965. I absolutely love the design of that car!
Nice pictures from a bygone time. It is too bad that the Corvair engine didn’t live a much longer life. I wonder if a water cooled version was ever considered.
What happened to the link, ‘Scans from the Monza GT brochure are here’?
I got a ride around the Tech Center in the Monza GT in the early 70s, when I was a kid. One of the most memorable days of my life. The car was displayed at the Petersen Museum in 2016, and it was great to see it again!
Is there anyone on The Garage who has driven this car? A driving impression would be ideal.
It was every kids dream when I was a kid to drive a Monza Jr. go kart.
WHEN I WAS IN THE CHEV. 2 STUDIO IN ’62, WE ALL HAD A TURN DRIVING IT DOWN TO RESEARCH AND BACK TO THE STYLING DOME. I LUCKED OUT BECAUSE THE NEXT GUY IN LINE COULD NOT DRIVE A STICK SHIFT, SO HE SAID I COULD HAVE ANOTHER TURN. IT WAS A LITTLE STRANGE AS THE BASE OF THE WIND SHILD WAS ALL I SAW LOOKING FORWARD. IT MIGHT HAVE HELPED IF WE WERE ABLE TO EACH MAKE ADJUSTMENTS, BUT THAT WASN’T POSSIBLE WITH THE LARGE STAFF.
There’s a fascinating anecdote about the Monza GT in the classic book “Chevrolet: Racing? Fourteen Years Of Raucous Silence – 1957 to 1970” by Paul Van Valkenburgh, written in the mid-1970s and re-released, as originally written, in the early 2000s, relating Chevrolet’s Research and Development’s deep involvement in racing while officially GM was “not involved”. Sometime in the 1970s, when Delorean was head of Chevrolet, he saw the book and reportedly exclaimed “Did we REALLY do all this?” (The book is still available digitally from SAE Books at a reasonable cost, which is fortunate because if any hardcover versions can be found, they cost hundreds of dollars.) It seems the Monza GT was much more influential than people would imagine. On one occasion, after the Monza GT was introduced, a certain Bruce McLaren paid a visit to Chevrolet Research and Development at the Tech Center, saw the Monza GT, and took a keen interest in the its midship design and tub structure. Later, McLaren’s CanAm vehicles’ layouts were based heavily on its design. Chevrolet R&D department used Chaparral Racing to work out the bugs on its new Chevrolet big block engine before turning over the perfected design to McLaren, who went on to dominate CanAM in the late 1960s – with a Chevrolet big block in a chassis whose configuration owed much to the Monza GT. Get a copy of “Chevrolet: Racing?” for many amazing stories of Chevrolet’s involvement in TransAm, CanAm, and NASCAR over those formative years.
A follow up to my post about the anecdote of the Monza GT and Bruce McLaren. The book “Chevrolet: Racing?” from which it came was written by a prior Chevrolet R&D engineer who wrote the book as an insider’s recollections of what it was like to have the good fortune of working in Chevy R&D during those amazing years. Their advancements in understanding vehicle dynamics during the 1960s were virtually unprecedented. Chevrolet R&D was at the leading edge, whether it was scientifically measuring and improving 10/10 real-time performance by means of cutting-edge radio telemetry or researching the unchartered territory of the critical nature of high-speed down forces and developing design enhancements in response. The details relating GM’s and Chevrolet’s direct involvement in the racing efforts of Jim Hall, Bruce McLaren, Mark Donahue and others are likely unknown to most people. The writer’s history of Chevy’s R&D development of the Chevy small-block and big-block all-aluminum racing engines is alone worth the read. These stories by an insider engineer at Chevrolet R&D are great.
Having read and thoroughly enjoyed “Dean’s Garage – The Future Is Back” , it strikes me that these two books make a great pair – one telling insider stories from designers’ experiences, the other from an engineer’s.
There is a book review (September, 2017) of Chevrolet—Racing? on Dean’s Garage. A must-read.—Gary