When Harley Earl designed the C1 Corvette, he had no idea how big of an impact it would have on the automotive world. The Corvette has always been a place where new designs and technology are implemented and custom car builders have taken advantage of what the car offers. Pernell Spohn’s 1960 Corvette is a glimpse of what Harley Earl might have designed if he had today’s technology.

Spohn has always been into cars and that led to him opening his own body shop. The craft of returning a wrecked vehicle to its former glory was rewarding for Spohn, but he wanted to elevate what he was doing in the shop Pernell Spohn Customs and Performance. Spohn has moved the focus of his shop to the custom side of the fence so he can build one-of-a-kind vehicles.

Spohn found this Corvette online and it was in need of some serious help.

“The car was listed on eBay and I bought it for $1,900. It was just a shell with a title, the guy selling it was going to turn it into a couch if nobody bought it, that’s how rough it was. It was really just a body that most people would use for parts to finish another car, but we took it and turned it into something that ran,” Spohn states.

The C1 body won’t slide directly onto a C6 chassis, so Spohn got to work making some adjustments to the shell. Spohn had to lengthen the body four inches, and widen it 12-inches so it would fit on the C6 chassis. The process wasn’t as bad as it sounds since the C1 body is fiberglass and the C6 is mostly made of plastic.

Spohn loves old cars, but he isn’t a fan of how they ride. He took on this project because it was an opportunity to fold modern technology into a classic car.

“The only thing we really didn’t use from the C6 was the airbags. We wanted to keep all the modern features of the C6 in the car. The suspension is all still there, and we took the LS3 and built it to make more power. We wanted this build to really show what can be done when you take a classic car body and hang it on a modern chassis,” Spohn states.

Pernell Spohn found a way to take the iconic looks of the C1 Corvette and combine them with modern GM technology. This classic Corvette is the kind of car you could drive anywhere and enjoy every mile of the trip.