Today the Corvette is 60 years old - Happy Birthday!
01/17/2013
Corvette fans all over the world are popping the corks today. Exactly 60 years ago, on January 17, 1953, the doors opened to Motorama, General Motors' product presentation at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. One of the numerous show cars was a small plastic car commissioned by sports car fan and GM Vice President Harley Earl. The project initially ran under the code "Opel", later as "EX-122", and at the show the car was already referred to as the "Corvette".
The Corvette is known to be a fast little warship. This was a good fit for this car, which was very small by US standards, with an in-line six-cylinder engine and two-speed automatic transmission, and which was remotely reminiscent of an inflatable boat. EX-122 was seen as a finger exercise in the use of "fiberglass" for both the designers and the engineers. Nothing more.
But the GM bosses had reckoned without the public. The crowds around the white car grew noticeably. This did not change over the course of the show, which traveled across America for six months. The doors initially closed on January 23 at the Waldorf, but opened again in Miami in February. This was followed by Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas and finally Kansas City in mid-June. In addition to Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, Oldsmobile and Pontiac showed their 1953 models as well as a whole fleet of concept cars: Buick Wildcat, Buick XP-300, Buick Le Sabre, Cadillac Orleans, Cadillac Le Mans, Oldsmobile Starfire, Pontiac Avalon and Pontiac Parisienne. In addition to the Corvette, the Wildcat, Le Mans and Starfire were also made of plastic.
What happened next is an eventful story that almost led to production being discontinued and the car world losing an icon (see, among other things, the picture of the 1963 Split Window C2 Sting Ray in the snow). But fortunately it didn't come to that, and the Corvette is still alive today - soon in the form of the seventh generation.
You can get as much Corvette as you like on Zwischengas. Everything about the forefather EX-122 and its series and experimental successors is documented in many articles and hundreds of pictures, brochures and newspaper pages on Zwischengas.
P.S. By the way, if you want to pay your respects to the original show Corvette from the Waldorf Astoria, you have to go to Corvette dealer Kerbeck in Atlantic City in the US state of New Jersey. There it stands in the showroom, restored to its original condition, and welcomes its admirers.
