1984 Corvette’s Front Bumper Wins 2015 SPE Automotive Hall of Fame Award

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1984 Corvette's Front Bumper Wins 2015 SPE Automotive Hall of Fame Award
Photo Credit: CorvetteImages.com


It’s been more than 30 years since the 1984 Corvette made its debut.

But Chevy’s fourth generation sports car continues to earn industry recognition.

The GMT composite used on the front bumper of the ’84 Corvette has been selected as the 2015 Hall of Fame winner by the Automotive Division of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE).

The 1984 model represented the first use of glass-mat thermoplastic composite in the industry.

To be considered for a Hall of Fame award, an automotive plastic or composite component must have been in continuous use in some form for at least 15 years and preferably have been widely adopted by the automotive or ground-transportation industries.

GMT bumpers have been in use on many passenger vehicles for more than 30 years and are being used not only by GM but also by automakers in North America, Europe, and Asia.

“The front bumper on the 1984 Corvette not only was the first in a long line of weight- and cost-saving front and rear bumper beams in GMT composites” said Nippani Rao, president, RAO Associates, and co-chair of the SPE Automotive Division Hall of Fame committee, “but it also led to increased use of GMT as well as other thermoplastic composites in a broad range of interior and exterior automotive applications worldwide.”

1984 Corvette's Front Bumper Wins 2015 SPE Automotive Hall of Fame Award
Photo Credit: CorvetteImages.com


It’s no surprise that the Corvette led the way in the use of GMT bumpers, as Chevy’s sports car has long been an innovator. GMT bumpers quickly spread to other GM models, including Cadillacs, and by 1986 Ford also began to use the material on its Mustang. By 1989, Honda used GMT on its Accord cars, and in 1991, Toyota, Suzuki, Nissan, and Mazda followed suit.

During the 1990s, more than 16 percent of all passenger cars globally sported GMT bumper beams, consuming more than 500 million pounds of the material.

GM design engineer Ted Adamczyk will accept the award on behalf of the original team that worked on the GMT program. He’ll pick up the award on Nov. 11 at the 45th annual SPE Automotive Innovation Awards Gala in Livonia, Mich.


Source:
canplastics.com
Photo Credit: CorvetteImages.com

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