For a car that just turned 30, the 1996 Corvette Grand Sport still looks strikingly modern — a design bold enough to stand beside the C6 and C7 versions that followed, and even the upcoming C8 GS. It’s a shape and color scheme that never lost its edge.
As Chevrolet prepared to sunset the C4 generation, the Corvette team faced a challenge: how to keep excitement — and sales — alive in 1996 with the all new C5 waiting in the wings for 1997. Their answer was simple but ambitious: build a special edition that honored Corvette’s racing heritage while giving the outgoing generation one last shot of adrenaline.
Designer John Cafaro had been sketching ideas, and the styling studio eventually landed on what would become one of the most recognizable Corvette liveries ever created — Admiral Blue paint, a bold white center stripe, black wheels, and red hash marks on the driver’s fender, a direct nod to the original Grand Sport racers of the 1960s. The name was a natural fit: Grand Sport.
Marketing wasn’t convinced. They feared the look was too polarizing and predicted sales of only 500–1,000 units — not enough to justify the cost of the performance upgrades the Corvette team wanted. So engineers got creative, proposing a higher volume Collector Edition to help subsidize the Grand Sport’s mechanical enhancements.
In the end, Chevrolet green lit the project, and 1,000 Grand Sports rolled off the line — 810 coupes and 190 convertibles. One of those 810 coupes is now for sale on Craigslist in Phoenix, Arizona, listed at $35,000 and showing just two owners since new.
Every Grand Sport came equipped the same way:
• Admiral Blue with white stripe and red hash marks
• Black ZR 1–style wheels
• ZF six speed manual transmission only
• The one year only LT4 V8, rated at 330 horsepower
That LT4 was more than a warmed over LT1. It featured higher flow aluminum heads, upgraded injectors, roller rockers, a hotter camshaft, and a raised redline — 6,300 rpm instead of 5,700 — making it the most potent small block of the C4 era.
The rarest Grand Sports were those ordered with the red and black interior, a combination found in just 217 coupes and 53 convertibles. This example wears the more common black interior, but the seller says the car has been “very well cared for,” “kept clean,” and remains in “excellent condition.”
He adds that it “runs and drives great” and is ready for its next caretaker.
For collectors, the ’96 Grand Sport represents the perfect sendoff to the C4 era — a car born from racing heritage, internal passion, and a design team willing to take a risk. Three decades later, it still turns heads for all the right reasons.
Source:
Craigslist.org
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Always liked the C4 Grand Sport. Would love to own it.
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