Kirk Bennion is the Other Corvette Team Member that was Recently Fired From GM

By
Keith Cornett
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Kirk Bennion is the Other Corvette Team Member that was Recently Fired From GM

Photo Credit: Keith Cornett


The Corvette Nation received a shocking announcement on late Sunday evening that General Motors had fired its longtime Corvette Product Marketing Manager Harlan Charles for unknown reasons, and we were told there was another Corvette team member let go from the company as well. That person is Kirk Bennion who was the Exterior Design Manager for Corvette.

Kirk had been with Chevrolet for nearly 41 years, having joined the company in 1984, and he had been working on the Corvette program since 1986. Kirk is a multi-faceted talent who not only could draw great vehicles, but his work in the wind tunnel and utilizing computational fluid dynamics to address how the air flows up, over, and around the car made him a standout on the Corvette team.

He was also an amateur racer and autocross enthusiast, and some of the previous designs and packages for the Corvette were created with those enthusiasts in mind. During his time at GM, Kirk also served as lead design for the Camaro, while also working on such ordinary vehicles like the Tahoe, TrailBlazer, and even 15-passenger vans.

Kirk Bennion Is The Other GM Corvette Team Member That Has Recently Been Fired


We always saw Kirk at the NCM Bash and Corvettes at Carlisle, where he was usually up on stage with Tadge and Harlan to present the latest updates to America’s Favorite Sports Car. We also appreciate the times he thought of us when he wanted to get a certain point or feature across to the people, like the C7 and C8’s front license plate mounting positions.

Unfortunately, we have no news as to the reasons why Kirk was let go. According to his Linked-In page, his title has been changed to “High Performance Vehicle Enthusiast and Consultant” with “Z06 Carbon Performance Group” listed as his current “experience” starting in February 2025.

Thanks again to Kirk for all your work and dedication to the Chevrolet Corvette! We hope to see you still at various Corvette events in the future.


Source:
MidEngineCorvetteForum.com

Related:
Harlan Charles Career with Corvette, GM Ends After 37 Years
[VIDEO] 2025 Corvette ZR1 Presentation from Corvettes at Carlisle
[PODCAST] Corvette Designer Kirk Bennion Makes His Appearance on the Corvette Today Podcast

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12 COMMENTS

  1. Met him at Carlisle back in August. Nice, laid back gentleman. Clearly talented and engaged in the event.

  2. If he’s the one responsible for the increasing amounts of contrast accent paneling that have plagued the Corvette from the C5 Z06 and continuing to this day…then I don’t have tears to shed. That is a design trend that needs to DIAF.

  5. That aforementioned “title” is one he made up for himself after getting fired…not a GM title.

  6. It’s pretty obvious that the basic Corvette team responsible for bringing the C8 to market is systematically being dismantled. It started right after the C8 was introduced in 2020 with the transfer of many key personnel supposedly to the unannounced Corvette SUV project. Then Tadge retired (a HUGE loss). Now we have Harlan & Kirk being forced out. You have to wonder what role Tony Roma, Corvette’s new Executive Chief Engineer, played in all the latest changes. He would have to have approved these moves before they were made. I’m not impressed with some of the new faces, either. Chief Engineer Josh Holder may be perfectly good at what he does, but he’s no substitute for Tadge, who knows more about Corvettes, high end sports cars in general, and the C8 in particular, than any other person on the planet. Holder has no charisma whatsoever, and will never be accepted as the public “face” of Corvette. The basic architecture of the mid-engine C8 will be with us for another 30-50 years (with suitable modifications, of course) so there just may not be a need for as many employees on the Corvette team as in years past. We’ll never know for sure what’s behind all these musical chairs, but keep your eye on Tony Roma for clues about Corvette’s future direction. I do know this: it won’t be as exciting as when Tadge was running the show.

  7. Unfortunately, the only thing with a huge company is the element of change. Maybe in the future, one the past employees will write a book and spill the beans! Then it will turn into a screenplay and then a movie. Who knows. Life does move on.

  8. P.S. Harlan was never an indispensible part of the Corvette Executive Team (I could never figure out exactly what he did) and Kirk Bennion was a liability. Kirk had no design chops and IMHO contributed nothing of significance or importance. He will not be missed.

  11. George C.
    Feb 5, 2025 At 9:49 pm
    P.S. Harlan was never an indispensible part of the Corvette Executive Team (I could never figure out exactly what he did) and Kirk Bennion was a liability. Kirk had no design chops and IMHO contributed nothing of significance or importance. He will not be missed.

    Apparently you know very little about either of them. Without the two of them there wouldn’t be half of the great offerings from Corvette or Chevy for that matter.
    Kirk was my instructor, my mentor, my manager and well as my Teammate and friend. Out of all the people I worked with and for at GM Design Kirk was one of very few that I could trust that he had my back at any moment. You’re entitled to your opinion, but sounds like sour grapes to me.

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