LU8

I was speaking to someone on one of the European Corvette boards and noticed one poster had the tag Export model for his 1991 car.
I asked and was told that this C4 was an export model , LHD of course, but it had things like additional fog lights, provision for a wide rear license plate on the tail (I know license plates in Germany are quite long and slim), and amber rather than red rear turn signals. Anyone know of these export LHD C4s for continental Europe. Are they legit?
As far as the 1980s goes I know they were still using leaded gas over there, so they may have had some provision to allow European/UK Vette owners to put in the wider nozzle of a leaded pump. Maybe they had their catalytic converters removed too because lead would have ruined the stock converter? :confused:

*89x2*

there is a fella over on our Callaway (Corvette) Forum that has an export Twin Turbo sans Catalytic convertor.
There will also be an export (for Japaneese market) Twin Turbo Callaway in Ill in June at the Bloomington show :cheers:

LU8

Yeah, I can understand that because if you put leaded in a cat car it poisons the cat. So it makes sense that the cars they sent over didn't have a cat as a modification bare minimum. :auto:

LT-4 CE

Mine was a Canadian export.

BAM92

Emailed you a pic and part of an article. :)

LU8

Thanks, that's something you don't see everyday. I emailed a page from a catalogue showing the 1980 MY for Chevrolet, someone from Germany sent me that catalogue a couple of years ago. Nice pic of the 1980 Vette and Camaro Z28, with German text. :D

vetteseniorcit

One of my 40th Anniversary model sister cars was delivered to Russia via Germany in 1993. I tried to track it without success. I would imagine that an export model costs a bit more and the tarrif, depending on the country of import must be mind-boggling. Stingraynut could tell you, but in Australia,I understand the car must be converted to RH drive unless it is of a certain age. And that, I assume, is done by specialists, down under.

stinger95

Here's a Euro model for ya.




[Modified by stinger95, 12:49 AM 5/24/2004]

scorp508

Nope.

The Euro C4s have small red fog lights in the middle of the trim on the back on each side of the revere lights. The back lights also are different from that picture for late C4s. The top about 2/3 of each light is red with the bottom of the outter ones being amber and the bottom inner ones being white. The C5 euro lights are what the C4 ones look like. I beleive there may also be amber turn signal lights near where it would say "TUNED PORT INJECTION" on the L98 cars. They also had different mirrors and front/rear fender flares (although I can't remember if they ALL had the flares).

scorp508

Here is a Euro Grandsport for you. I know there are more photos, I just can't find them right now.

okinawa86vette

I was in Japan for a couple years and ran into a handful of Japan export cars(diff rpo for japan export than the euro cars), even though mine was a stateside spec car. The big thing was the additional turn signals and they had grand sport fend flares on all 4 corners. Also, the tail lights on the early, round tail light cars, were red, but with amber centers, since there can't be any red lights on the cars cept the brake lights. Also, they required folding mirrors, so our nice streamlined mirrors were replaced with some odd ones that just don't look right.

Oh, all export vettes are lhd except the ones that end up in australia have to be converted to right hand drive. But that's not done by the factory. There's places in aus that do it, kind of like the places that convert skylines to american spec out in california. Although those cars stay rhd.

Chris


[Modified by okinawa86vette, 12:28 AM 5/24/2004]

JordiZR1

Hi, every european country had (have) their own regulations about importing vehicles, that means that every country needed different mods. In Spain you had to have amber turn lights in the rear, disable the amber markers in the front and put clear (white) instead, you could keep the original mirrors (but I think you have to change them in UK and Germany), and have to add reflective "dots" in the rear under the tail lights. About the cats, it is true that leaded gas was sold here in Europe until 2000 or so, but you could not register a new car using leaded gas since the late 80s, that means that every new car bought had to have cats installed since mid 80s. The leaded gas was still used by the older cars, now it is completely superceeded.
I was at Bowling Green last year, and in the asembly plant you can see the Export vettes being assembled, the Euro models have basically amber tail lights and improved brakes (yes, we drive faster than 55mph), the rest of the mods are made at the dealer once they arrive to accomodate them to the local regulations.

:cheers:

scorp508

The only difference in the brakes is that all Euro C5s get the red Z06 calipers. There is no difference other than visual.

JordiZR1

Probably you are right, I am only telling what we were told during the plant tour.
I have not driven a c5 and can not talk about its brakes, but the C4 brakes definitely need improvement, it is a must if you like to drive fast.

LU8

Corvettes are generally known for good brakes, since the C2 cars got 4 wheel disks at any rate. The Corvette wasn't really tested much by overseas magazines until the international C4 arrived in 1984. I had a look at a test of a 1984 auto C4 against a Jag and Porsche 928, the UK test said all three cars had great brakes, and they said they had tried the C4 on the Goodyear Luxembourg test circuit where it did well. There was also a later overseas test with the C4 with LT1 vs the updated versions on the Jag and 928, once again no bad comments about the C4's brakes, the testers only had a problem with the Vette's rough road ride comfort, or lack thereof. :confused:

YLO Z06

Here is a good article on the export C4: