|
Here's
the story:
Illustrated Corvette Series No. 3 - 1955 Corvette
It
was actually because of
Ford that the Corvette survived! According to Zora Arkus-Duntov, "There
were conversations in the hallways of GM about the Corvette being
dropped. Then
the Thunderbird came out, and all of a sudden GM was keeping the
Corvette. I
think that Ford had brought out the competitive spirit in Ed Cole."
Indeed, the '55 Corvette was on the slippery slope to oblivion. From a
financial standpoint, there was no reason to keep the Corvette since it
was
losing money. Sales for the 1955 model were only 674 units, while Ford
had sold
16,155 Thunderbirds! It wasn't that the Corvette was a bad car, it just
got off
to a poor start and never generated enough excitement to get buyers to
part
with their cash. In fact, the 1955 Corvette featured huge improvements.
The most exciting one was the replacement of the boring Blue Flame Six
with
Chevy's all-new 265 V8. The Corvette version ran a special camshaft
that raised
horsepower to 195 bhp. The new engine bumped the 0-60-mph performance
up to 8.5
seconds and the quarter-mile time to 16.5. Top speed was close to 120
mph. The
new, lighter engine also got better gas mileage, some 2-3 mpg better
than the
Six.
Unfortunately, the biggest sports car no-no was still with the '55, the
Powerglide automatic transmission. Only a few cars at the end of the
production
run were made with a close-ratio three-speed gearbox. But too late for
magazine
tests. Road & Track took a chill to the Corvette, stating, "The
Corvette comes close to being a really interesting, worthwhile, and
genuine
sports car, yet misses the mark almost entirely."
Fortunately, the right people in GM had fire in the belly and weren't
ready to
give up on the Corvette. The 1956 Corvette would shake off all the
limitations
of the Motorama show car and begin the process of making the Corvette
America's
only true sports car. There were even plans for racing. Things were
about to
get very interesting.
|
