When exactly does a car celebrate its birthday?
04/01/2014
When the Ford GT 40 celebrated its 50th birthday last year, some people were a little surprised. In fact, the first GT 40s only appeared on the racetracks in 1964, which was no surprise, as no car had been completed before the spring of 1964.
The Lotus Esprit , for example, was first shown at the Geneva Motor Show in 1972, the first production-ready version then made its debut in Paris in October 1975, but the Esprit S1 was not available to buy and take home until the summer of 1976. So what would be the right birthday date here, when will and should we celebrate the fortieth anniversary?
Or the Porsche 904 GTS, which is currently being celebrated as a 50th birthday child, was actually presented in 1963, with production running from the fall of 1963 until 1965.
The project to build the Chevrolet Corvetteis said to have started on June 2, 1952, and on June 17, 1953, a concept car was presented at the GM Motorrama in Walldorf Astoria in New York. This day was celebrated in 2013 as the birth of the Corvette, but as the example of the Ford GT 40 shows, one could just as easily have celebrated 60 years of the Corvette in 2012. After all, the first customer Corvette rolled off the production line in 1953.
And finally, the last example is the Lamborghini Countach. It was first shown as a prototype at the Geneva Motor Show in 1971, with further pre-production examples making their appearance in Geneva and Paris in 1973. However, the first examples were delivered in 1974. So we could now celebrate the 40th birthday, just as we are currently correctly celebrating the 50th birthday of the Lamborghini 350 GT.
The year of birth is therefore not entirely clear and, depending on requirements, one can simply take the start of the project, the first appearance as a prototype, the presentation of the series version or even the start of production as a guide. The marketing and PR departments will sort it out ...
