1975 Rear Bumber Cover

[Gino B.]

I need to replace the rear bumber cover on my 75. I want to find a replacement in urethane but everything I find is missing the idents for the rear letters. Anyone know of a supplier with a correct urethane replacement?

[Joe L.]

Re: 1975 Rear Bumber Cover

Gino-----

The 1975 rear bumper cover was a unique, one-year-only piece. It used the individual letters like 1974, but there was no seam in the center. However, I don't think that these bumper covers had any indents for the letters. The letters just were on the surface of the bumper cover (with pins going through the cover and retained by stamped nuts). Early 1976 used a plate with the Corvette script and this plate also mounted on the natural surface of the bumper cover. Later 76 went to an indention for the plate (and a different plate to go with it). However, I thought that the later 76 bumper was the first one to use any sort of indention.

In any event, I believe that the only source for the unique-to-75 urethane rear bumper cover was GM. GM discontinued this cover, GM #347897, many years ago and replaced it for SERVICE with the 2nd design 1976 cover, GM #380000. Of course, the use of this cover requires the late 1976 through 1979 emblem. Even this cover is now GM-discontinued.

[Don G.]

Re: 1975 Rear Bumber Cover

The 1975 bumper cover did have indents for the letters like the 1974 two piece design. With the 1976 model change, the indents were removed from the mold.
There are 3 design options for replacement. One is the urethane bumper without the indents ( from the original GM mold), the second is flex-fiberglass that is made of fiberglas but has some of the flex of urethane and the third is fiberglass. In terms of what is most "correct", I favor the urethane part. Although the fiberglass based designs have the indents, they require different mounting hardware for tail lights and have a different look and feel. If originality is not a priority,the full fiberglas design can look very nice if a skilled person takes a lot of time to accomplish a good fit between two pieces of rigid fiberglass but the original look and feel of urethane is lost. I have seen the "new " urethane design on a car and, although the lack of indents is detectable by close inspection, in my opinion it is the best alternative.

[Joe L.]

Re: 1975 Rear Bumber Cover

Don------

Thanks for the information. I was not completely sure about the depressions for the letters. I couldn't remember having seen any, but I guess I never looked really close.

Also, I checked further and I was incorrect regarding the depressions for the plates. As you noted, the depression for the "Corvette" plate was used for early 1976, not late 1976. The late 1976 through 79 bumper cover was the one with no indention for the plate. Hopefully, I can add all this correct information to my "memory bank" now.

[Paul B.]

Re: 1975 Rear Bumber Cover

Hello Gino, talked to you quite a bit about '75 Corvettes at the Cincy(Covington)meet last year. I installed the TrueFlex '75 Bumper on my '75 two years ago and it came out great, looks OEM, HOWEVER, knowing what I learned of you, you wish to keep your cars all OEM. With the TrueFlex, I had to "modify" quite a bit back there to get it to fit(something I would'nt do if I were you, knowing what your cars are, mine is just a nice "driver"). This is my choice if and when my '74 needs bumpers. I'm going to put the Eckler's "FlexGlass" on mine!!! "Supposedly" Eckler's bought the GM molds for all the shark OEM bumpers, and from what I've seen mounted on cars and talked to owners, they looked and felt great. I have seen where people have bought and installed that 2nd design '76-'79 cover, spaced and mounted letters "correctly" to give it that original look, which is OK except it does not have the INDENTED letters as the OEM bumpers had, I mean just think about it!!! If "THE JOE LUCIA" did'nt know for sure, how many "OTHER" people would EVEN KNOW!!!! Just kiddin' Joe!!!

[Don G.]

Re: 1975 Rear Bumber Cover

It is also my understanding that Eckler's have the original GM molds but I believe this would be for use with original type urethane only. Fiberglass or "flex-fiberglass",in my opinion, requires a different mold design and different processing. It is my understanding that GM eliminated the letter indents for the early '76 model and made an indent for the small plate and then removed the indent to accommodate the larger plate for late '76. This is the mold that exists today. In my opinion, parts from this mold, using urethane, is the most "correct" part for replacement because the only deviation is the loss of the indents. I would also agree that "flex-fiberglass" has the potential,when properly installed, to look better because it minimizes the distortions that result from urethane. ( However, the distortions are "correct"!)