The 1957 Chevrolet is not the most powerful, the fastest, or the most technically sophisticated automobile of its era. It is the one that the American public decided, in the years immediately following its introduction, best represented what a car should be — and the public has not substantially revised that opinion in the seventy years since. The ‘57 Chevy appears in more American cultural artifacts — films, songs, paintings, diners, nostalgia merchandise — than any other automobile, and it occupies that position not because of marketing campaigns or critical consensus but because of something less definable: the car simply looks right to the American eye in a way that transcends generational familiarity.

The Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray is the first Corvette to use all-wheel drive and the first to use a hybrid powertrain, two statements that would have been inconceivable to anyone familiar with the Corvette’s sixty-year identity as a rear-wheel-drive, naturally aspirated (or supercharged) American sports car. The E-Ray adds an electric motor to the front axle — drawing from a 1.9 kWh battery that is too small for any meaningful EV range but large enough to provide front-axle torque on demand — while retaining the 6.2-liter LT2 V8 at the rear.

The 1970 model year was the last before emissions regulations, insurance industry pressure, and fuel economy concerns began the systematic reduction of American muscle car performance. Chevrolet, aware of what was coming, produced the 1970 Chevelle SS 454 in the full knowledge that it represented a high-water mark that would not be repeated. The LS6 engine variant — 454 cubic inches, solid lifters, high-compression heads, and a factory rating of 450 horsepower that was understood at the time to be conservative — was the most powerful engine Chevrolet offered in a passenger car in 1970 and arguably the most powerful engine Chevrolet has offered in a passenger car since.