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At the 1953 Motorama, Chevrolet unveiled the 1953 Corvette which was quickly
dubbed America's Sports Car. The 1953 Corvette was unprecedented in many ways it
was the first production car with a body made of plastic material to be mass
produced and it was also the first two seater sports car built by an American
automobile manufacturer. However, the Corvette almost missed its debut party,
due to a problem with the original emblem.
The Chevrolet Corvette has seen 6 generations of engineering and design changes
since its introduction in 1953 throughout the 2007 model year and is extremely
popular today amongst sports car enthusiasts as a sleek, sexy and sophisticated
sports car. But the Corvette was not initially so readily accepted or popular
with American car buyers. The first generation of Corvette was frowned upon due
to its lack of power as compared to the European sports cars manufactured during
this time period, in addition to its inadequate ability to come to a complete
stop quickly and its lack of an advanced performance car transmission.
As sales continued to decline, General Motors seriously considered discontinuing
the Corvette-until the introduction of Chevrolet's V8 engine in 1955 combined
with the creative input of Zora Arkus-Duntov, a proactive and clever GM engineer
who is credited for designing a three speed transmission to compliment the V8
engine in the Corvette. The new manual transmission and V8 engine were
instrumental in changing the opinion of automotive experts and consumers' whose
original impression of the Chevrolet Corvette was that it was inadequate and
lacking pizzazz. With the new tranny and V8, the Chevrolet Corvette was now
truly powerful and engaging amidst its European competition and was soon
accepted into the inner circle of impressive performance based sports cars and
the Corvette would become a symbol of the iconic evolution of a sleek, sexy and
sophisticated sports car.
Over the years the Chevrolet Corvette has been the recipient of many awards
including the prestigious Best Engineered Car of the 20th Century as determined
by the Society of Automotive Engineers in 1999. The Corvette has also been used
to represent the pace car on the track of the Indianapolis 500 nine times
between 1978 and 2007. |
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