So I was watching an old episode of Chasing Classic Cars and they were doing a segment about a gas station designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was inside a much larger building that had good-sized collection of classic cars. One of them was a Corvette, '64 - '67 (it wasn’t a split window). It had the triple taillights but my attention was drawn to 2 small, chrome-rimmed oval holes, one above each rear wheel. Can anyone tell me what those were? Maybe vent to exit air from beneath the car?
Where, exactly, were these holes? Were they below the rear bumper? They might have been the holes left over when somebody installed side pipe exhausts.
There were several vents in the body and in the hood that the designers wanted to help keep the car from lifting at high speed. The bean counters nixed them because of the few dollars that it added to manufacturing costs, but allowed the trim to be installed for the “looks like”. The cost of the trim was easily added on to the consumer where the actual vent would not be understood by the average buyer.
No factory 63-67 Corvette had triple taillights on each side. That was a custom touch added by some owners.
As for the chrome vents… not a factory option I think. Could be added as vents for the rear brakes, especially since rear drums continued until 1965.
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Here are almost 300 photos from the museum (in Buffalo). Can you find one with that Corvette?
Pierce-Arrow Museum (Buffalo) - 2021 All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (with Photos) - Tripadvisor
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“…2 small, chrome-rimmed oval holes, one above each rear wheel.”
Regarding the taillights, I’ll take your word for it, but when I was younger I recall seeing others with triple taillights, so it must have been a fairly common modification.
Searching for images of 63 to 67, or C2 Corvettes will show you what they look like stock. I saw a few modified cars in there with the triple taillight mod. Usually 3 red lenses while the factory cars show one red one with a clear or frosted white center.
The only vents I found were forward facing body color scoops on top of the fenders as used on the 63 Grand Sport racing specials. Did not find any portal type fender vents. I am curious to see a picture though.
No stock Corvette had those. And they had 2 taillights. Customizing with 3 was pretty common.
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I went through all the pictures from the link above and did not see any Corvettes with three taillights or chrome oval holes, but I did see a truck I once owned, the 1960 Red El Camino. At least it looked just like it. Not many were made that year.
I need to amend my prior statement. I realized I misplaced the position of the “vents” slightly after looking at the pictures of the C2 Corvette in the link provided by #texases. These items were in a line with the rear wheels but placed about half way between the bottom of the rear window (it was a fastback) and the beginning of the back panel of the car. The car I could locate was the wrong shade of red. The car I saw looked like it was in a line of C2 Corvettes so the one I saw may have been down the row.
UPDATE: I found an image of the car I was referring to at this link: c2 corvette at pierce-arrow museum - Bing images
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Well those are odd. Added ventilation? But for what? Never have seen them before.
Someone above suggested the possibility they are vents added for extra brake cooling. I was mostly glad to find a picture so that everyone didn’t think I was crazy (I get a lot of that at my age).
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If the holes were for brake cooling, I think they would be on the side and have a scoop to help ram air into the wheel well. I think they are for looks only. The one on the left appears to be blanked off.
Yeah, they’re in the wrong place for brake cooling. The fuel tank is right under there, I think.
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The decor on the rear deck are simulated brake vents.
A Super Chevy article on that General Motors show car;
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I don’t have much to add except there were lots of modifications made in past years. I remember years ago in Hot Rod magazine or something where they had illustrated changing out the rear end to the new design. My body man BIL put port holes in his LTD way back so putting a couple holes in the quarter panel or adding some lights is no big deal.
Especially in fiberglass.
Thank you all for your input. An old dog may not be able to learn new tricks, but this old dog can always learn new, random bits of information.