Harlan Charles Opens Up About His Years Working on the Chevy Corvette

Yahoo

07-02-2025

Above: Harlan Charles, second from left, with the C7-gen Corvette Grand Sport.
Long-time Chevrolet Corvette product marketing manager Harlan Charles was informed of his early retirement by General Motors earlier this week, after spending some 37 years with the automaker — and nearly a quarter of a century in his role shaping the American Sports Car. His name is may not be one you know, but his work alongside players like Tadge Juechter and Kirk Bennion is a reason we've had some truly incredible Corvettes in recent years.
News of Charles' departure came by way of his own social media accounts, where it was evident the decision was both painful and a surprise. The post opens with a very simple and gut-wrenching sentence: 'My Corvette dream is over - my bubble burst.'
'I have had the greatest life I could have ever imagined because of Corvette,' Charles continued. 'We were able to prove that America can compete with the best in the world and win. I was able to work on four generations. No one can take away what I think is Corvette's best era in history. I had the honor of working with Corvette legends like Tadge Juechter and Kirk Bennion. Josh Holder, Devon Blue, and Tony Roma and the rest of the team have my best wishes for the future.'
Chevrolet declined to provide a comment to Road & Track regarding Charles's retirement announcement.
Charles joined General Motors in 1988, starting his career as a concepts engineer in the then-called Design Staff department. His time there would land him a role as the product manager for the Oldsmobile Intrigue, a car whose development took place down the hall from the C5 Corvette at the Warren Technical Center. Harlan told R&T he recalls bugging then-Corvette chief engineer Dave Hill with regularity about joining his team, as the Corvette had long been his favorite car.
'The Corvette had always been my favorite car,' Charles told R&T. 'I mean, my dad did a lot of traveling in Europe. He always liked cars too — I get a lot of that from him, but he was more on the import car side. He would go to Europe and he would buy me books and card games and things from Europe, and they always put the pictures of the cars next to the little country that they're made in."
"And the only American car I ever saw was the Corvette with the American flag. And something just clicked with me — that that was the coolest thing, that here's a car, an American car, that even the Europeans think is cool enough, you know, as a sports car. And so that was always my favorite car.'
When an internal job listing for the Corvette product marketing manager position opened up in 2001, Charles was one of more than 200 qualified applicants within the company. Hill had purchased an Intrigue for his wife around that time, which quite impressed the team lead, according to Charles. He would ultimately be one of five people to receive an interview for the position, before joining the team in time to help run out the C5 platform. Charles helped pioneer the 2004 Chevrolet Corvette Commemorative Edition models as a necessary stop gap before the C6 debut, with Z06-based examples being the first production cars to sport carbon fiber hoods.
Charles's experience as an engineer made him a truly great marketing manager for a sports car like the Corvette. Early in C6 development, the Z06 model was slated to feature a 450-horsepower engine; then the Dodge Viper SRT-10 arrived at the 2005 Detroit Auto Show with 510 hp. After talks with a concerned Corvette development driver, Dave Whitman, it was Charles's request to corporate to give Corvette a proper Viper-fighting engine that led to the 505-hp LS7 V-8 we all know and love. Bob Lutz, the father of the Dodge Viper himself, was the one who ultimately signed off on the increased output for the 7.0-liter monster. Charles told R&T he still hangs on to that request, which he has since framed.
Harlan was also a major player in the creation of the Grand Sport model, which ultimately became the best-selling version of the Corvette during the C6 generation. He can also lay claim to reviving the ZR1 nameplate, which was a decision GM was initially hesitant about, given the sales struggle at the end of the C4's run.
We can even credit Charles with helping to finally push GM over the hump when it comes to a switching the 'Vette to a mid-engine platform. Working with Bennion and other engineers, Charles presented a package to upper management in 2005 regarding moving away from the front-engine layout. After some internal deliberation — and further honing from Charles and company — that project was ultimately accepted, and designated GMX 721. It was envisioned as a mid-engine seventh-generation Corvette model arriving for 2012.
Charles told R&T that the car featured C6 styling cues, and was rather good looking for the era. The car has never been shown to the public; the Great Recession meant that the C7 needed to be a cheaper endeavor than a clean-sheet mid-engine design, so the carmaker stuck with a front-engined design. The automaker never fully tabled the idea however, with the mid-engine push gaining more support as the performance limits of the front-rear platform were reached. Development for the C8 as we know it now began in earnest in 2013 as the C6 wrapped production.
'I had the honor of working with Harlan for 24 of my 31 years on Corvette,' retired Corvette chief engineer Tadge Juecther said in response to Charles' announcement. 'He deserves all of the accolades coming his way. Few people can appreciate the magnitude of his tangible contributions, but I can."
"I retired last year and got more credit than I deserved in large part due to Harlan's efforts. The Corvette community knows Harlan better than any other Corvette insider but what they don't know is that Harlan took input from customers and was able convert that into product plans that produced spectacular business results thus ensuring Corvette's future. From a personal standpoint, I feel like Harlan is my brother-in-arms: Good friends who have each other's back and a common goal of producing the best sports car in the world for our customers.'
'Bottom line is that you were and are an irreplaceable force in the Corvette community and will be missed by customers, dealers and the whole Corvette team,' Juechter added.
Along with the early retirement for Charles, General Motors also parted ways with another Juecther compatriot in Corvette exterior design manager Kirk Bennion. Bennion worked alongside the Corvette team since 1986, and is someone Charles considered to be a running mate inside the program. Neither Bennion nor GM has yet to make any comment on the situation, outside of a change to his LinkedIn profile.
'It's tough,' Charles told R&T. 'It's like a life changing experience, you know? It's been like my identity and now that it's kinda done."
"But everyone has made me feel so wonderful. I mean, who gets that?" he said. "I can't believe the outpouring that the fans — the Corvette friends and family, really, I should call them, have given me. It's been so awesome. It makes me feel so good.'
Well, let us at Road & Track add to that chorus: thank you, Harlan Charles, for your decades of contributions to America's Sports Car. The last four generations of Corvette have revolutionized the nameplate's position in the enthusiast market. That's going to be a tough run for the next team to follow.
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