Chevrolet One-Off

Information

The Bill Mitchell styling car was a specially built car for Mr. Mitchell’s personal use. He loved deep sea fishing and was quite fond of the Italian styling found on Ferraris. This car was an expression of his fondness of those shapes. Bright Blue Metallic was always one of Bill’s favorites colors coming from the color of the sea. Carrying that color to the interior was something Bill did on many show cars, and he was even found wearing blue suits to match the car.

Ferrari inspiration appears at first glance with the use of wire knock-off wheels and the chrome side vents that were both found on the Italian sports cars. The front egg-crate style grille and the extended exhaust tips were two more exterior features from Ferrari. This car added a 3rd tail-lamp configuration that was never used in production cars.

Side vent windows were removed from this car and specially made side door glass was installed giving the car a cleaner look, as well as introducing the whole concept of flow-through ventilation, later known as AstroVentilation . Looking through those spacious side windows, Mitchell again followed Italy and wrapped the seats, door panels, dash and tunnel with leather, giving the interior a very tailored sophisticated look that was years away from production cars. A Nardi steering wheel, from Italy, completed the Italian theme. Special repeater lights were integrated into the door panels for safety but never made it to production. Hidden in the console is a shifter with a D,L and L2 indicated on the shift plate. This was reflective of the all new 3 speed automatic transmission know as the Turbo Hyra-Matic 400 . This transmission would not be introduced in Corvette until 1968.