1971 Corvette Stingray: Down the Brands Hatch

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that headline is correct. I am indeed writing about a Corvette Stingray. No Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Regencys or Plymouth Gran Fury Broughams this week; maybe next time. I have an obvious bias for ’70s luxury cars, woody station wagons, and Volvos, but I do like Corvettes. It just takes a really special one to attract my attention, simply because I see so many at shows and cruise nights. As for this one, I just went nuts when I saw it. As you may surmise, the main reason is the color combination: Brands Hatch Green with a lovely matching green interior!

My favorite color is green, and my favorite green is jade green, particularly the shade seen on most all Ford Motor Company products circa 1975–79. This is not just a coincidence. My maternal grandparents had a triple-jade 1977 Ford LTD II Brougham when I was really little, and I deeply imprinted on that car!

Today’s featured car was seen last year at the Maple City Cruise Night, held in the small Illinois college town of Monmouth, Illinois. It is less than an hour away from me and I attend every year. This time I met up with my friend Jess (she’s a local), and we wandered around for quite a while—in between stopping in local downtown establishments for refreshments, of course.

Every year I thoroughly wear myself out walking, and this year was no exception. I wish I’d taken more pictures of this car, but it was right at the time I was ready to go home. I was tired, and it was getting dark. But I still had to stop for a couple minutes and take the pictures seen here, because of that fantastic green paint! Even better, it had a matching dark green interior.

I had a hard time pinning down the year at first, largely because I was on my way back to the car when I finally spotted it. As a result, I foolishly didn’t take a picture of the info sheet on the wiper with the model year on it. I knew it was a 1970–72 Corvette Stingray, but as I’m more into Designer Edition Continental Mark IVs and Cadillac Fleetwood Talismans, I couldn’t immediately pin down the model year.

Fortunately, I have the 1983 copy of the Illustrated Corvette Buyer’s Guide (picked up for a dollar at a local antique mall—such a deal!) and was able to discern first, that the green interior was not available in 1972.

Green exterior was available all three years, but it was a different shade each model year. In 1970, it was Donnybrooke Green, in ’71 it was Brands Hatch Green, and in ’72 (the last year for chrome front bumpers) it was Elkhart Green. As our featured car had that gorgeous jade hue to it, I was able to positively ID it as a ’71.

I didn’t know this color was available on 1971 Corvettes before I saw this car. It is now my favorite 1970–72 Corvette color; prior to now my favorite was probably War Bonnet Yellow or Ontario Orange. But what can I say? I’m a sucker for a green classic car.

The 1971 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray wasn’t much different from the 1970, which itself was a minor facelift of the 1968–69 version. The most noticeable exterior difference was the chrome eggcrate grille and squared-off turn signal lenses. Said turn signal lenses went from clear to amber lenses pretty early in production, and there were a few new colors (including the green on this one!), but that was about it.

Base price was $5496 ($41,668 today) for the coupe and $5259 ($39,871) for the convertible; the 270-horsepower, 350-cubic-inch V-8 was standard, breathing through a single four-barrel carburetor; today’s car has an optional 454 V-8, which was available in 365-hp LS5, 425-hp LS6, and 425-hp ZR2 tunes. A total of 21,801 were built for the 1971 model year.

I keep hoping I’ll see this beauty at another show, but despite attending many of them in 2023, unfortunately I have yet to run across it again.

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