The Corvette was a slow-selling show car before a V8 made it America's sports car
The first Corvettes, hand-built in 1953, were all white convertibles with a six-cylinder engine and bodies of hand-laid fibreglass. Sales were poor enough that GM capped 1955 production at 700 cars. Then came a V8, fuel injection and a starring role on television, and the car became an American icon.
The name came from Myron Scott, an assistant in GM's public relations department, who suggested borrowing it from the corvette, a small, nimble warship. The car appeared as a show car at the 1953 Motorama in New York's Waldorf-Astoria in January, and though Chevrolet's general manager Thomas Keating said it was months from being ready, demand was strong enough for production to begin on 30 June 1953. That first year, 300 hand-assembled convertibles emerged, every one in Polo White.
Early cars used a 150-horsepower version of the Blue Flame six, and the 1954 run of 3,640 sold slowly, leaving a pile of unsold stock. The optional V8 introduced for 1955 changed the picture; it cut acceleration times by about three seconds and proved so popular that only about six cars that year were built with the six. Rivals appeared the same year, including the Ford Thunderbird. In 1957 an optional Ramjet fuel injection system let the 283 cubic-inch small-block produce 283 horsepower, a rare one horsepower per cubic inch that Chevrolet's advertising agency happily trumpeted.
Styling kept evolving. Quad headlamps arrived in 1958, and in 1961 a tapered tail with four round lights began a look that lasted until 2014. For 1962 the engine grew to 327 cubic inches, with the fuel-injected version making 360 horsepower. That was also the last year of the wraparound windscreen, solid rear axle and convertible-only body; a coupe joined in 1963.
Appearances on the early-1960s show Route 66 tied the car to ideas of freedom and adventure. Across eight generations, the most recent with its engine mounted behind the seats, it is the only American two-seater sports car produced continuously, built in Bowling Green, Kentucky, since 1981.
Source: Chevrolet Corvette
