History of the Black Vette

In 1953, the first year of the Corvette, Corvettes were only available in Polo White. In 1954, Chevrolet decided to release the Corvette in additional colors. The first three color options were Sportsman Red, Pennant Blue, and black. Polo white was considered standard.

Over the years the color of black has changed as much as, if not more than, the names they gave it over the years. 1954 was the first year for black, with 4 produced. 1955 did not have a black Corvette.

1956 and 1957 brought not only a new body style but also a return of black, Onyx Black, with 810 produced in 1956 and 2,189 produced in 1957. 1958 brought another new body style and a new name: Black, with 493 produced. 1959 brought a few new minor body changes and a new name, Tuxedo Black, with 1,594 produced. 1960 carried the same Tuxedo Black as 59 with 1,268 produced. 1961 and 1962 continued the Tuxedo Black with 1,340 produced in 61 and an unknown number produced in 62.

In 1963 GM started to install trim tags so people could track paint and interior colors. 1963 brought us a completely new Corvette, the C2, along with code 900 Tuxedo Black continued with an unknown number produced. 1964 continued with code 900 Tuxedo Black with 1,897 produced. 1965 continued with AA code Tuxedo Black with 1,191 produced. 1966 continued code 900 Tuxedo Black with 1,190 produced. 1967 also had code 900 Tuxedo Black with 815 produced.

1968 brought the C3 body style to the Corvette, continued with code 900 Tuxedo Black with 708 produced. 1969 was the last year for code 900 Tuxedo Black with an unknown number produced.

From 1970 till 1977 they did not produce a black Corvette of any kind.

1977 saw the return of code 19 black with 6,070 produced. 1978 brought us the Indy Pace car in code 19 black/silver with 6,502 produced, along with a total of 11,075 produced. 1979 continued with code 19 black with 10,465 produced.

1980 brought another body style change and a return to code 19 black with 7,250 produced. 1981 continued with code 19 black with 4,712 produced. 1982 saw the end of the C3 body style and the end of code 19 black with 2,357 produced.