In this blog post, we are looking at the 1964 Corvette Magazine Advertisement. These appeared in Vette Vues Rear Vues Column in 2014. That year the 1964 Corvette was celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Before we look at the 1964 Corvette Magazine Advertisements let’s look at a little history . . .
The World’s Fair was also held in New York City in 1964. The theme was “Peace through Understanding,” and dedicated to “Man’s Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe.”
The fair ran for two years, April 22 – October 18, 1964, and April 21 – October 17, 1965, with over 51 million people attending. The gate fee was $2 in 1964 but was raised to $2.50 in ’65.
Most American companies had a major presence there. Among the exhibitions was General Motors Corporation with its Futurama II exhibit. The Futurama II is said to have been the most popular exhibit with the fair’s largest building. Some say the building resembled a car with tail fins.
The GM Futurama II presented the “near future” as the “City of Tomorrow” that would eliminate all traffic problems.
There were visions of freeways with computer-guided vehicles, moving walkways carrying pedestrians, and highways in the sky that took visitors to the moon.
The future was not only in outer space, but GM Futurama II took you to Antarctica as well as cities 10,000 feet under the sea, all of these with visions of “progress and prosperity” with “productive communities that could handle profitably the markets of the world.”
1964 Press Release predicts autonomous cars
In a press release, it was stated that they “anticipate the day when the family will drive to the superhighway, turn over the car’s controls to an automatic, programmed guidance system, and travel in comfort and absolute safety at more than twice the speeds possible on today’s expressways.”
If you would enjoy taking a ride on Futurama II, there is a promotional film General Motors aired, that you can access on YouTube. In the film, they follow a young boy as he rode the Futurama II at the 1964- 65 New York World’s Fair.
Probably, one of the most memorable things about the 1964 Corvette is that the Stingray coupe lost its split window.
1964 Corvette Production Numbers
Total 1964 Corvettes Built -22,229
Convertibles – 13,925 w Coupes – 8,304
1964 Billboard Hot Singles
Here are some of the Billboard Year-End Hot singles of 1964: “I Want to Hold Your Hand”-The Beatles, “She Loves You”-The Beatles, “Hello, Dolly!”-Louis Armstrong, “Oh, Pretty Woman”-Roy Orbison, “I Get Around”-The Beach Boys, and “Everybody Loves Somebody”-Dean Martin.
1964 Corvette Magazine Advertisements . . .
You will notice the wording is the same as the above 1964 Corvette Magazine Advertisement, but it is designed slightly differently.
Our next 1964 Corvette Magazine Advertisement talks about “We make very few Corvettes like this.” So, let’s look at the options in the ad:
- The P48 Cast Aluminum Knock-off Wheels only cost $322.80 for a set of 5. There were 806 ordered.
- The 36.5-gallon gas tank was option N03. This was only available on the coupe and there were only 38 ordered for $202.30.
- Option L84 was the 327 ci, 375 hp fuel-injected engine which added $538.00, they sold 1,325 of these engines. The 4-speed added $188.30.
- There were only 29 fitted with J56 heavy-duty brakes which added $629.50.
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Here are some more articles you might enjoy:
1964 Corvette Options: Everything You Need To Know
1964 Chevrolet Corvette XP-819 Prototype
1963 Corvette Feature Owned by Rollie Walriven
1963 Chevrolet Super Sport Commercial
2016 SEMA – 1963 BLACK CORVETTE BY BOBBY ALLOWAY
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