Chevrolet Corvette

The Chevrolet Corvette made its first appearance in 1953. The now famous classic Chevrolet Corvette got its cool name from a sailing warship back in 1856-1887. The warship was a smaller frigate somewhat larger the standard coastal patrol ships of the day. But Corvette frigates were big enough to handle a single gun deck.

In the beginning in 1953 the first of the classic Chevrolet Corvettes were built by hand by the customer delivery center up in Flint, Michigan. Still suffering a shortage of metal from World War II there was a new product developed called fiberglass. The first of the hand-made bodies for the Corvettes were made out of this revolutionary new product.

Standard Chevrolet parts were used for the chassis to build the new Corvettes. The famed Blue Flame inline six-cylinder truck motor with the 2 speed powerglide automatic transmission was used in the first models. The Corvette had drum brakes but the gutless inline six got some power modifications. It included a three carb intake manifold for some extra excitement. Early in 1954 a Paxton supercharger became an option installed by the dealer for more power.

The Chevrolet Corvette project would have died a quick death and be left in history. If it wasn’t for the introduction of Chevrolet's first V-8 in 1955 the 265 cubic inch engine breathed new life into the project. The new V-8 was paired with a new three speed manual transmission which provided the needed extra power for the Corvette. This turned the new car into a real performer. Another factor to the popularity was the competition from Ford's new Thunderbird in 1955. You know Chevrolet would not be outdone.

Classy Collectible Corvettes

To date we have had six generations of Corvettes. They call the versions C1 to C6.

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Model Ford Thunderbird

Ford Thunderbird

The Ford Thunderbird began in 1955 and has seen around 13 different generations of the design in the last 50 plus years. Ford intended the Thunderbird to be a very personal Luxury car. It was never intended to be the sports car like the Chevrolet Corvette. Over the years the Thunderbird's have been upsized and downsized two seats to 4 seats cars.

Production stopped in 1997 and in 2002 a new 2-seat model was re-launched and brought the Thunderbird back to life.

There are three men that get the credit for the original Thunderbird. And wouldn’t you know it a retired GM executive lured from retirement by Henry Ford II; Lewis Crusoe to work with George Walker a vice-president and chief stylist for Ford and Frank Hershey a Ford designer. Walker and Crusoe met in France in October 1951. Crusoe liked a sports he saw and ask Walker can’t we have something like that? This part of the story is a little unclear but Walker said we are already working on it.

After the meeting Walker called chief stylist Frank Hershey and told him about the conversation. Frank liked the idea and began working on a design right away.

The idea was for a two passenger car in the ball park of 2500 lbs with the up and coming V8 slated for 1954. The car was to have top speed of over 100 mph. They presented a painted clay model to Crusoe in May of 1953 and he approved it in September after doing a little compare with some of the European trends. Henry Ford II approved the final design to compete with the new Corvette.

The name for the new design proved to be a major problem for Ford. The weird stuff they came up with just did not work. Stuff like (Artcturus, Beaver, Coronado, Detroiter, El Tigre and Savile) strange stuff for sure. The brilliant idea of Crusoe was to offer a $250 new suit to the person that could come up with a better name. Alden Giberson submitted Thunderbird on a list that was the final selection. He never claimed his prize but settled for a $95 suit with an extra pair of pants.

Ford has sold 4.2 million Thunderbirds in the last 50 years in about 13 different versions.

Vintage model car collectors will find quite a few of these to add to their car collections. Over the years there were a number of them that were special creations.