Mike Gulett, our good friend on the Left Coast, blogs about the form and function of fastback styling.
Fastback treatments, often incorporating backlights (sloping rear windows), have been used by auto manufacturers as styling statements as well as to add function (increased interior capacity) to a wide variety of cars. While European and American stylists have used fastback styling treatments since the Art Deco era (1930s), it was cars like Bill Mitchell’s 1963-‘67 Corvette Sting Ray and Gen I Mustang GT coupes that captivated high-performance enthusiasts. Adam Tuckman’s niche-market Baldwin-Motion ’71 Phase III GT Corvette, above, features a sloping backlight in place of its original small upright window.
Chevrolet stopped building fastback Corvette Sting Rays with sloping backlights in 1967, giving way in 1968 to the Mako Shark influenced Stingray with its small upright backlight. Niche market performance car builder Baldwin-Motion showed a prototype ’69 Phase III GT Corvette with a sloping back window at the New York International Auto Show and it graced the cover, right, of the August 1969 issue of HI-PERFORMANCE CARS.
Designed by Joel Rosen and blessed by Corvette Godfather, Zora Arkus-Duntov, the Phase III GT with a unique sloping rear window and substantially increased rear stowage area, became a limited-production reality. Approximately a dozen pricy Phase III GT Corvettes were handcrafted-to-order between 1969 and 1971. Powered by a 500-plus-horsepower open-chamber 454, Adam Tuckman’s GT was the highest-optioned, most expensive ($16,283) and the last Baldwin-Motion GT produced.
Please visit Mike’s blog at, http://mycarquest.blogspot.com/2011/09/cool-fastbacks.html
For more information and photos of Baldwin-Motion Phase III GT Corvettes, check out, http://www.amazon.com/Motion-Performance-Tales-Muscle-Builder/dp/0760335389