Since its inception in 1953, the Corvette has always had a composite fiberglass body and two doors. The shape, engine options, and even the sound have changed over the years, but the body style has always remained one that had room enough for two doors, no more and no less. But that hasn’t stopped many brave (though some might say foolish) entrepreneurs from trying to sell the world on their vision of a four-door Corvette the whole family could enjoy.

Over at AutoInjected we came across this post regarding the short-lived “Corvette America”, which is essentially two ‘Vettes welded together to form a four-door model with an astronomical (for the time) price tag.

The Corvette America was the brainchild of California Custom Coach in Pasadena, California, and the premise was simple. Take two 1979 Corvettes, cut them in half, and mate them together in a way that provides four doors, four seats, and an extra 30-inches added to the wheelbase. This pretty much took any hope of performance out of the ride, but at least you could take the whole family along.

Or you could, if there were any left. But because the Corvette America cost $35,000 at a time when a base Corvette sold for around $14,000, we can almost see the coked-up Wall St. type justifying the purchase of TWO Corvette coupes versus one Corvette America. In the end, one prototype and 5 production models were built, and of those just one is left.

That is probably for the better.