The Best Corvettes of Every Generation: Corvettes at Carlisle 2022

With hundreds of examples of Corvettes from every generation in attendance picking favorites is not as easy as it seems.

Corvettes at Carlisle 2022 recently wrapped up and it was a banner year. About 3,000 Corvettes filled the show field with many more scattered about the fairgrounds. Every generation was represented with hundreds of examples. When I covered the show just two years ago it was rare to spot a C8 generation Corvette. There were a few here and there but they were just hitting the market. The 2022 show made me feel like I was standing at the end of the line at the Bowling Green assembly plant. C8 after C8 after C8 kept rolling by. It was a fantastic sight but as many of them as there were they still represented a small percentage of the Corvette total.

Every generation showed up in big numbers at Corvettes at Carlisle 2022. To pick a single favorite of each is nearly impossible. In fact, I changed all my selections about five times. The show is so massive that it is likely that I didn’t even see every Corvette despite walking nearly six miles trying to see as much as I could. And with so many amazing examples I could have picked 100 favorites from each generation. However, in the interest of not creating a post with 800 pictures below are the favorite single examples spotted from C1 through C8.

C1 – 1956 Corvette

Right off the bat it was tough to choose a favorite from the first Corvette generation. But this 1956 finished in gorgeous Cascade Green was impossible to ignore. Beautifully restored with the chrome wheels playing perfectly off the rest of the chrome bits on the car. A true stunner. This car was also selected by one of the celebrity judges on hand to be a Celebrity Choice Winner. It is easy to see why.

C2 – 1967 Corvette

OK, I will admit I am a bit of a sucker for green Corvettes. And Goodwood Green is one of my favorites. It just looks so right on the lines of a 1967 Corvette. And this is not just any 1967 Corvette either. This is a 430 horsepower 427 with a 4-speed manual. This car has taken home multiple NCRS awards as well as holding a Bloomington Gold certification. This is truly one of the best of the best and my favorite C2 at Carlisle this year.

C3 – 1969 Corvette

While I am a fan of green cars you can’t go wrong with a nice blue either even if it is not Le Mans Blue that would have been an option in 1969. The side pipes and the paint set this car off. It looks like the poster child for the C3 generation. This car is also no stranger to Corvettes at Carlisle and was awarded a Celebrity Choice Award in 2021. Being another year older did not diminish the appeal of this car one bit.

Yeah, I cheated here with the C4 generation selection. The funny thing is based on my unscientific observations it seemed like there were fewer C4’s in attendance than any other generation. And yet I could not single out one car here. It is because when you see an entire row of C4 ZR1 Corvettes modified by Callaway you must include all of them. A display like this is something that you will only see at Corvettes at Carlisle. This was my favorite C4 generation car(s) of the event.