June 28th...This Day in History (Now with links to other events)

Workers assemble first Corvette in Flint, Michigan 1953

 

On this day in 1953, workers at a Chevrolet plant in Flint, Michigan, assemble the first Corvette, a two-seater sports car that would become an American icon. The first completed production car rolled off the assembly line two days later, one of just 300 Corvettes made that year.

The idea for the Corvette originated with General Motors’ pioneering designer Harley J. Earl, who in 1951 began developing plans for a low-cost American sports car that could compete with Europe’s MGs, Jaguars and Ferraris. The project was eventually code-named “Opel.” In January 1953, GM debuted the Corvette concept car at its Motorama auto show at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. It featured a fiberglass body and a six-cylinder engine and according to GM, was named for the “trim, fleet naval vessel that performed heroic escort and patrol duties during World War II.” The Corvette was a big hit with the public at Motorama and GM soon put the roadster into production.

On June 30, 1953, the first Corvette came off the production line in Flint. It was hand-assembled and featured a Polo White exterior and red interior, two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission, a wraparound windshield, whitewall tires and detachable plastic curtains instead of side windows. The earliest Corvettes were designed to be opened from the inside and lacked exterior door handles. Other components included a clock, cigarette lighter and red warning light that activated when the parking brake was applied–a new feature at the time. The car carried an initial price tag of $3,490 and could go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 11 or 12 seconds, then considered a fairly average speed.

In 1954, the Corvette went into mass production at a Chevy plant in St. Louis, Missouri. Sales were lackluster in the beginning and GM considered discontinuing the line. However, rival company Ford had introduced the two-seater Thunderbird around the same time and GM did not want to be seen bowing to the competition. Another critical development in the Corvette’s survival came in 1955, when it was equipped with the more powerful V-8 engine. Its performance and appeal steadily improved after that and it went on to earn the nickname “America’s sports car” and become ingrained in pop culture through multiple references in movies, television and music.

(More Events on This Day in History)

• American Revolution

• 1836 Former President James Madison dies

• Automotive

• 2006 DaimlerChrysler announces Smart’s arrival in United States

• Civil War

• 1862 Confederates capture commercial ship

• Cold War

• 1948 Yugoslavia expelled from COMINFORM

• Crime

• 1975 A teenage girl’s boyfriend murders her parents
• 1993 A serial rapist strikes in Allentown

• Disaster

• 1992 Two big quakes rock California

• General Interest

• 1519 Charles elected Holy Roman emperor
• 1914 Archduke Ferdinand assassinated
• 1919 Keynes predicts economic chaos
• 1969 The Stonewall Riot

• Hollywood

• 1916 Lasky Company merges with Famous Players, later to become Paramount

• Literary

• 1888 Robert Louis Stevenson sets sail for the South Seas

• Music

• 1928 Louis Armstrong records “West End Blues”

• Old West

• 1857 Western writer Emerson Hough is born

• Presidential

• 1919 Harry S. Truman marries Bess Wallace

• Sports

• 1997 Mike Tyson bites ear

• Vietnam War

• 1965 U.S. forces launch first offensive
• 1972 Nixon announces draftees will not go to Vietnam

• World War I

• 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated

• World War II

• 1940 Britain recognizes General Charles de Gaulle as the leader of the Free French