The 1962 Corvette closed out the original C1 body style while quietly introducing the 327 small block that would carry the nameplate for years afterward. Buyers who paid extra for the Ramjet fuel injection option got a car that could genuinely compete with much pricier machinery. Few of them realized they were also buying the last Corvette that would ever wear a wraparound windshield.
The last year for the G1 Corvette is 1962 and this is the first year that the small block 327 cu in. (5.36 L) engine is on the table. The naturally aspirated 327 puts out 250 bhp (190 kW) while adding injection kicks it up to 360 bhp (270 kW). If you could come up with an extra 12% over the listed price the newly added engine could be equipped with fuel injection for an additional 44% power boost-a good deal any way you look at it.  Also, 1962 is the last year for the wrap around windshield and the exposed headlights;the latter will not appear on the ‘Vette again for many years.
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1962 was the year Chevrolet quietly closed the book on the original Corvette shape while opening a new one under the hood, and most buyers at the time had no idea how significant that trade-off would become. This was the final model year for the C1 body style before the Sting Ray reinvented the car completely, yet it also introduced an engine that would define Corvette performance for a generation. Somewhere between the last wraparound windshield Chevrolet would ever bolt to a Corvette and the first appearance of the 327 small block, this particular car sits at a crossroads most owners never think about. The price tag for finding out just how far that new engine could be pushed was steeper than most buyers expected.
The Fuel-Injected Option Almost Nobody Could Justify
Every 1962 Corvette left the factory with the new 327 cubic inch small block, rated at 250 horsepower in naturally aspirated form, but Chevrolet also offered a Rochester Ramjet fuel injection option that pushed output to 360 horsepower using solid lifters. That upgrade cost an extra 484 dollars on top of the sticker price, a roughly 44 percent power increase for about a 12 percent premium over the base engine cost, and only 1,918 buyers checked that box for the entire model year.
What the Numbers Meant on the Street
Hot Rod magazine tested a fuel-injected 327/360 car and recorded a 0-60 mph time of 5.9 seconds with a quarter mile pass of 14.2 seconds at 104 mph, numbers that held up against nearly anything else on the road in 1962 regardless of price.
Saying Goodbye to a Windshield Corvette Would Not Wear Again
1962 also marked the last time a Corvette would wear the wraparound windshield or exposed headlights that had defined the car since 1953. Both design elements disappeared with the 1963 Sting Ray and the exposed headlights in particular would not return to a Corvette for many years afterward, making this the final chapter of the original C1 look before Chevrolet started over with a completely different car.
The Solid-Axle Corvette’s Last Stand
1962 marked the final year Chevrolet built a Corvette riding on a solid rear axle — the following year’s Sting Ray would introduce fully independent rear suspension, a genuine engineering leap that changed how the car handled for good. That makes this car a kind of bookend, representing the last and most developed version of the original Corvette’s underlying mechanical layout before Chevrolet moved on to something completely different. Owners and collectors who focus specifically on this transition point treat 1962 cars as the definitive final word on the solid-axle Corvette era.
A Body Style Refined Six Times Already
By 1962, Chevrolet had spent nearly a decade quietly refining the Corvette’s original body style year over year rather than starting from scratch, and the ’62 cars reflected the cleanest version of that evolution — the mesh-textured grille insert finally matched the body color instead of standing out in chrome, giving the front end a more unified look than earlier model years. That kind of incremental, accumulated refinement is easy to miss at a glance, but it’s part of why the final C1 cars are often considered the most visually resolved version of the original design.
Rochester’s Mechanical Fuel Injection, Explained
The Rochester Ramjet system riding on the fuel-injected 327 wasn’t electronic in any sense — it was a purely mechanical setup that metered fuel based on airflow and throttle position using a system of linkages and a mechanical fuel meter, genuinely sophisticated engineering for 1962 but also notoriously fussy to keep properly tuned. That complexity, more than the extra cost alone, is a big reason so few buyers actually checked the option box — a fuel-injected Corvette demanded a mechanic who really understood the system, not just one willing to turn a wrench on a standard carburetor.
The 327’s Long Run Ahead
The 327 small-block that debuted under Corvettes in 1962 didn’t stay a Corvette-exclusive engine for long — it went on to power a wide range of full-size and mid-size Chevrolets throughout the rest of the decade, becoming one of GM’s most widely used small-block displacements before the 350 eventually took over that role in the early 1970s. Its versatility across so many different Chevrolet products is part of why the 327 is remembered as such a pivotal engine in the small-block’s overall development.
Zora Arkus-Duntov’s Fingerprints
Corvette’s chief engineer through this era, Zora Arkus-Duntov, pushed hard for exactly the kind of high-performance options the fuel-injected 327 represented, arguing consistently within GM that the Corvette needed genuine engineering credibility rather than just style to compete with European sports cars. His influence on the car’s performance-oriented development throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s is well documented, and options like the Ramjet fuel injection reflect the kind of engineering ambition he championed even when it wasn’t the easiest sell to Chevrolet’s broader sales department.
A Turning Point Collectors Recognize Today
Collectors who specialize in early Corvettes often draw a sharp distinction between ‘last of the C1s’ cars like this 1962 and the Sting Ray generation that immediately followed, treating 1962 specifically as the definitive closing chapter of the original body style rather than just another used car in the C1 run. That framing gives clean, fuel-injected 1962 cars a collecting niche of their own, separate from buyers chasing the more famous Sting Ray that came next.
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