In mid-1962, GM's Design Center began work on XP-788 in response to a request from senior Pontiac management for a "Corvette for Pontiac production". Bill Mitchell assigned the project team to an off the books studio he neglected to reveal to anyone outside of Design. The "Warehouse Studio" was located in a storage building at the far south end of the Technical Center. It was created for just this sort of project. Obviously, Pontiac failed to convince GM management that they should have a Corvette-like sports car.