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Here's the
story:
Kit Car Profile No.
24 - 1957 Corvette
1957 was
a pivotal year for the Corvette. Chevy's little beauty queen became a brute!
America became a car-culture in the '50s. Hot rods were born and sports cars
were coming from Europe. Chevrolet got into the act with the Harley
Earl-designed, American sports car, the Corvette.
In the
early '50s, American car makers knew very little about building sports cars.
Earl's Corvette blew everyone away at the 1953 Motorama Show and it was rushed
into production, using off-the-shelf Chevy sedan parts. Because no one was sure
that the public would actually buy the Corvette, it was decided to use a new
material called "fiberglass." If the car was a flop, GM wouldn't be
out big-bucks for steel tooling.
A fiberglass body could be built from easily molded parts. Thus the Corvette
became America's first production fiberglass car.
Unfortunately,
the Corvette's performance wasn't on par with its looks. They tried, but the
little Blue Flame-Six and 2-speed Powerglide transmission weren't making it
with the sports car or hot rod crowd. Sales were dismal. In the first three
years, Chevrolet only sold 4,640 Corvettes. Ford, on the other hand, sold
16,155 Thunderbirds in 1955 alone! Clearly, the Corvette needed something big.
The best thing that Chevrolet did to ensure the Corvette's success, was to hire
Zora Arkus-Duntov, and to name him to the position of "Director of High
Performance Vehicle Design and Development." The Corvette never had a
better champion. In a few years, Duntov turned the beauty queen into a brute.
When the
new 265 V-8 small-block Chevy came out in '55, Duntov made sure there was a
juiced up version for the Corvette. As wonderful as the Motorama Corvette was,
the restyling of the '56 Corvette was better. No one noticed or cared that the
styling cues were picked up from the Mercedes 300 SL. The new Corvette was
taught, aggressive, and hot, because it now packed a dual-quad 265-cubic-inch
engine with 255 horsepower. And thanks to the back-door racing efforts of
Duntov, the Corvette was beginning to be taken seriously on the race track as
well.
When the
'57 Fuel Injected Corvette was released, it was as if the Vette was finally
"finished and complete." Fuel injection was exotic stuff in '57, and
only found on exotic race cars from Europe. It was the ticket for serious road
racers because it eliminated the problem of carburetor "slosh" that
racers would experience in hard cornering and when slowing down. The system
gave a smooth and even inflow of gas under any condition.
More
efficiency means more horsepower. The 283 '57 Fuelie engine made 283 hp at
6,200 rpm. The high-winding, high horsepower engine put the Corvette on the
performance map. Duntov also made sure that the suspension was up to handling
the extra power. One magazine tested a Fuelie and ran 0-to-60 in just 5.7
seconds, the quarter mile in 14.3 seconds, and hit a top speed of 132 mph!
Duntov
cast in stone the Corvette's racing tradition by taking four race-prepared
Corvettes to Sebring where they set records against Europe's finest. The '57
Fuelie option cost $484 and was only ordered on 1,040 of the 6,339 Corvettes
sold that year. Corvettes were now "performance cars" that were
somewhat affordable to the average person, and they make a great replicar.
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