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Here's the story:
Illustrated Corvette Series No. 1 - 1953 Corvette
When
Zora Arkus Duntov saw the original Corvette show car, he called it
the most beautiful car he’d ever seen! Fortunately for all of
us, Duntov joined the Chevrolet team and started the process of adding
teeth to the Corvette.
By 1953 standards, the Corvette show car was drop dead gorgeous. Post
war America was beginning to develop a taste for a new bread of
automobile from Europe called “the sports car”.
Cars like Jaguar and MG captured our imagination. Harley Earl was in
charge of GM’s Design Center and decided that there should be
a reasonably priced, simply build American sports car.
The original show car went from full size clay model in April 1952 to a
complete running car by January 17, 1953 Motorama. Almost four million
people saw the original and the response was overwhelming. The only
really new technology on the Corvette was the use of fiberglass as the
body material. Although is was lighter than steel, the main reason for
using the new material was the low cost of manufacturing the body
parts. Everything else on the car was directly off the Chevrolet parts
shelf. Because of this, the car was essentially a
“regular” 1952 Chevy that looked like a million
bucks. Even though the standard Chevy inline six engine was juiced up
with solid lifters, a new cam shaft, and three horizontal Carter carbs,
power was way off the mark. Probably the softest part of the running
gear was the two speed Powerglide automatic transmission.
Because of the huge public support for the Corvette show car, Chevrolet
pressed the Corvette into production almost “as
is”. Once word got around about the average to poor
performance, sales went flat. Of the 314 cars produced, only 183 were
sold. Not long after Duntov joined Chevrolet, he took charge of what
was becoming an unsuccessful sports car. Having come from a strong
racing background, Duntov set about correcting the original
deficiencies. It was all up hill from here.
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