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The 1970 C3 Corvette saw a slight body style change. Fender flares were added to reduce damge casued from wheel-thrown debris. Also changed was the side louvers from the 1969 Shark gill looking vertical slats to the egg-crate style to match the front grill. 1970 will be the last year that high compression engines are available due to lower octane unleaded gas.

The exterior of the 1970 Corvette also featured a number of other design cues that were new for the model year. Amongst these, the parking lights were now squared off and set into the corners of the grille. Mandatory side marker lights at the front and rear of the car were larger and better integrated into the design than those of earlier model years. In the back of the car, new rectangular exhaust pipe tips were recessed into the underside of the tail in a manner inspired by the Mako Shark II. A number of detail refinements were also made to the taillights and the stainless steel rocker moldings.

The interior of the 1970 Corvette was improved upon in a number of areas. The seats, which had been re-designed in 1969, underwent another design change that added an inch of urgently needed headroom as well as better lateral support. Additionally, the headrests were integrated into the seat design and a more accessible release button was introduced for the seat back hinge. The inertia reels for the shoulder harnesses were tucked away more neatly in the rear quarters, thereby opening up more space in the trunk area. The seatbelts themselves were now being fed through slots in the seat backs that made them feel built into the design.

For the 1970 model year, Chevrolet introduced a big block 427 that was stroked out to a full 4.00 inches and 454 cubic inches. It was the first time that the stroke had been increased since the engine had been introduced in its more conservative iteration – a 396 cubic-inch big block – in 1965. While the arrival of the 454 was considered by some to be in response to Corvettes increasing presence on the racetrack, the truth is actually more intriguing. The added cubic inches in the Corvette were actually the byproduct of Chevy’s need to expand the engine’s size to counterbalance the loss of performance in its regular passenger cars due to the mandatory reductions in exhaust emissions as required by state and federal laws