Corvette History:
After the war General Motors reasoned that a sports car tailored to American driving conditions and comforts that an affluent population wanted in their cars would sell well. It would also boost the stodgy image of Chevrolet. Immediately upon becoming chief engineer at Chevrolet, Ed Cole tripled the engineering staff. Harley J. Earl was hired in 1953 to design their cars. Earl was bitten by the innovative and sports car design that he had witnessed after World War II. Earl was determined to bring the sports car to America. The Chevrolet Corvette, the first American sports car, was introduced in 1953 by General Motors. The first cars were only available in white with red interior. The suggested retail price was $3,490. Zora Arkus-Duntov was also hired in 1953 as assistant staff engineer. He later became Corvetteschief engineer. Without his help, Corvette production would have been halted in 1955. Changes were made to the Corvette in 1956 and 1957 to develop the Vette into a genuine sports car. Harley Earl retired in the early 1960s. With the new leadership and fresh ideas of the General Motorsnew chief of design, Bill Mitchell, the incredibly successful Stingray was born. Tradition was broken as the totally redesigned Corvette was offered as a coupe or a convertible with 4 engine choices. Both featured a streamlined appearance and improved passenger accommodations. Americans loved the 1963-1967 Stingrays because they were fast machines that looked supersonic even when parked. They remain the most collectible Corvettes today. In July of 1992 the one millionth Corvette, a white convertible with red interior to mimic the first Corvette, was produced.

Corvette Overview:
The Chevrolet Corvette is a sports car first manufactured by Chevrolet in 1953 and is built today exclusively at a General Motors assembly plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It was the first all-American sports car built by an American car manufacturer. The National Corvette Museum is also located in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Other Corvette Details:
Corvettes have a long history of melding exceptional handling and brutal amounts of engine power into an affordable package that is drastically less expensive than prestigious Marques with similar abilities. This has understandably led to some scorn of the Corvette by owners of such competing Marques, with most of the criticism being aimed at the Corvette’s level of refinement. Older generations of the Corvette have been criticized for being brutish when compared to European sports cars, although the C5 and C6 generations seem to have silenced all but the most strident of such critics. Corvettes tend to emphasize simplicity over technical complexity when it comes to engine power. Where nearly all competing Marques rely on smaller-displacement engines with complex, double overhead cams (DOHC), variable valve timing (VVT), four- and five-valve heads, or turbochargers, the Corvette makes just as much or better power using a simple overhead valve (OHV) head with only two pushrod-actuated valves per cylinder, coupled with a larger-displacement engine. The relatively simple pushrod V8 engine is lighter and physically smaller than the more complex arrangements, as well as cheaper to manufacture.