1954 Chevrolet Corvette C1

The Chevrolet Corvette was introduced as a show car for the 1953 General Motors Motorama, held in mid-January (17th to 23rd) at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. The all-new sports car had a two-passenger open-cockpit design with a unique lightweight glass-fiber body. The GRP Glass Reinforced Plastic body was molded into a shape more commonly seen rolling out of European factories rather than those in Detroit. Although Chevrolet general manager Thomas H. Keating had stated that the Corvette was six months to a year away from production readiness, the overwhelming interest reduced its readiness to a matter of months - production commenced on June 30th, 1953.

The Corvette's styling was courtesy of Harley Earl, head of GM's Styling Section, and his Special Projects team which had begun working on the new car in late 1951. Many GIs had returned from overseas following World War II with sports cars they had acquired in Europe. Chevrolet's portfolio did not offer a two-door sports car, and in fact, the last time a 2-door, 2-passenger convertible/roadster body style was part of its catalog was in 1938 with the Chevrolet Master.

Development of the Corvette was done in secret under the code-name 'Project Opel.' The vehicle displayed at the 1953 General Motors Motorama was a hand-built, pre-production Corvette prototype known as EX-122. The production versions had an MSRP of $3,513, greatly exceeding the $2,000 intended target. By the end of 1953, a total of three hundred examples of the hand-built Corvette were produced, and each wore a Polo White exterior and red interior.

Chevrolet built 3,640 Corvettes for 1954, yet 1,076 remained unsold by the end of the model year. Chevrolet was finally able to unload the rest of them in 1955 although it proved to be very difficult. Chevrolet had hand-assembled 300 Corvettes at GM's Flint, Michigan assembly plant in 1953. With it becoming a full-fledged member of the Chevrolet family for 1954, a special section was created at the St. Louis, Missouri assembly plant to accommodate the Corvette's unique assembly process required by its fiberglass body construction. Along with trained and skilled craftsmen, quality improved, and production numbers increased. The fit and finish saw remarkable improvements and the bodywork was as smooth and solidly built as Chevrolet's steel-bodied cars.

The Corvette used many off-the-shelf mechanical components to help keep costs to a minimum. The chassis and suspension design were from the 1949–1954 Chevrolet passenger vehicles, and the 235 inline six-cylinder engine was similar to the 235 engine that powered all other Chevrolet car models, but with three Carter side-draft carburetors, a higher-compression ratio, mechanical lifters, and a higher-lift camshaft. For more optimal front-to-rear weight distribution (53/47), the drivetrain and passenger compartment were moved rearward in the 102-inch wheelbase chassis. Since Chevrolet did not have a manual transmission available, the only transmission installed was a two-speed Powerglide automatic.

The 235 cubic inch 'Blue Flame' six-cylinder was modified during the middle of 1954, gaining a solid-lifter camshaft which helped boost output to 155 hp. Three new exterior colors were offered - Pennant Blue, Sportsman Red, and Black - along with a beige interior. Four black, 100 red, 300 blue, and 3,230 white vehicles were produced. Black was a daring and difficult color as any flaws in the bodywork were instantly visible.

The base price of the 1954 corvette was $2,774.00, over $500 less than than the 1953 model.

The Corvette's styling embraced the spirit of the sports car but its underpinnings were lackluster compared to the British and Italian sports cars of the era. Without a manual transmission, roll-up windows (not available until 1956), and rather pedestrian performance, the Corvette's future was in question. Straight-line performance greatly improved in 1954 with the dealer-installed Paxton centrifugal supercharger, but it was the 1955 introduction of Chevrolet's first V8 engine since 1919 that breathed new life into the project. The new 195 horsepower 265 small-block V8 was initially paired with the Powerglide automatic transmission for the first half of 1955, until a manual 3-speed became available, coupled to a 3.55:1 axle ratio, the only one offered. A Russian émigré in GM's engineering department named Zora Arkus-Duntov was very influential in expanding the Corvette's performance capability, and when Ford introduced its two-seat Thunderbird in 1955 (albeit dubbed as a personal luxury car rather than a sports car), the Corvettes future went from being a footnote to becoming an icon.

by Daniel Vaughan | Nov 2006