What was the original price of a 1953 Corvette?
The base price of the 1953 Corvette was $3498. That’s $31,473.62 today—but if you still have a 1953 Corvette in decent shape, it’s worth far more than the original sticker price. In 2006, the third one to ever be produced sold for a record $1.06 million.
How many corvettes have been sold since 1953?
How many Corvettes have been sold since 1953? 1.56 million Corvettes What year did they not make a Corvette? 1983 Who owns the oldest Corvette? VIN #3 sold for over $1 million about 10 years ago and is owned by a Chevrolet dealer and collector in Montana. That makes it the oldest production Corvette known.
How much would a 1953 Corvette cost?
The '53 Corvette may not be the supercar that its 2021 descendant is today, but it has acquired enough value to be worth a fortune. The 2021 corvette costs about $60,000, but according to Classic auction, the average price of a standard 1953 Chevrolet Corvette is $98,833, while the most top sale and lowest costs are $825,000 $25,000, respectively.
Who designed the first Corvette in 1953?
1953 Corvette Overview. After the incredible success of the prototype at the 1953 Motorama in New York City, Corvette went from being the fantastic concept car designed by Harley J. Earl to an, (as yet unrealized), production car that was already commanding great deals of attention. Hoping to capitalize on the favorable public opinion and the overwhelmingly positive reviews by the press ...
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What is a 1953 1953 Corvette worth?
$3498Starting slowly, building the cars largely by hand, Chevrolet crafted 300 Corvettes in 1953—all of them Polo White with red interiors. Base price for Chevy's new two-seater when it finally went on sale in September 1953: $3498.
What is the most sought after year of Corvette?
With just 300 built, all in Polo White, 1953 is also the Corvette's rarest year by far.
What was the sticker price of a 1953 Corvette?
$3,490One of the original limited-production 1953 Corvettes retailed for $3,490, History reports.
How much is a 1953 Corvette worth today?
The 2021 corvette costs about $60,000, but according to Classic auction, the average price of a standard 1953 Chevrolet Corvette is $98,833, while the most top sale and lowest costs are $825,000 $25,000, respectively.
How many 1953 Corvettes are left in the world?
225 1953 CorvettesThis is still the rarest of all model year production Corvettes. It is estimated that about 225 1953 Corvettes still exist.
What year is the least desirable Corvette?
These Are The 6 Worst Corvettes Money Can Buy (And 6 That Are Beyond Awesome)12/12 Worst: 1953 Corvette.11/12 Best: 1967 Chevrolet Corvette L88.10/12 Worst: 1975 Corvette Base Model.9/12 Best: 1969 Chevrolet Corvette ZL1.8/12 Worst: 1979 L48 Corvette.7/12 Best: Chevrolet Corvette C8.More items...•
What colors did the 1953 Corvette come in?
1953 Corvette OverviewModel:1953 CorvetteGeneration:C1 CorvetteType:2 Door ConvertibleAvailable Colors:Polo White with Sportsman Red InteriorEngine:“Blue Flame” Inline-65 more rows•Jan 20, 2017
How fast can a 1953 Corvette go?
Published Performance Results0-30 MPH:3.6 Seconds0-100 MPH:39.0 SecondsQuarter Mile:17.90 Seconds @ 77.0 mphTop Speed:108 MPH1 more row•Feb 23, 2021
What engine came in the 1953 Corvette?
Chevrolet Corvette (C1)Engine235 cu in (3.9 L) Blue Flame I6 265 cu in (4.3 L) Small-block V8 283 cu in (4.6 L) Small-block V8 327 cu in (5.4 L) Small-block V8Transmission2-speed Powerglide automatic 3-speed manual 4-speed manualDimensionsWheelbase102.0 in (2,591 mm) (1953–1962)20 more rows
How much did a Chevrolet cost in 1953?
In 1953, Doris's father wanted her to consider the most economical 1953 Chevy and the One-Fifty was the lowest-priced vehicle that General Motors built that year. The One-Fifty two-door sedan base MSRP was $1,613 while the Bel Air two-door hardtop had a base price of $2,051.
What's the most expensive Corvette?
The winning bid for the final Chevrolet Corvette C7, which was sold at Barrett-Jackson Northeast Auction in Connecticut, is a whopping $2.7 million.
How much was the first Corvette sold for?
There were about 300 of the 1953 Corvettes manufactured and sold nationwide. Interestingly, Street's foundry made the oversized steel brake drums that were standard equipment on the new Corvette, which sold for about $3,500 in 1953.
What is the best year Corvette to own?
Best Year Chevrolet CorvetteThe Corvette has been around since 1953 and has made a mark around the world as America's sports car. ... Those who know what Corvette is all about, find the 1963 Stingray one of the best models ever. ... 2016 is the best year for Chevrolet Corvette as it is equipped with many advanced features.More items...•
What was the worst year for Corvette?
5 Best And 5 Worst Corvettes Over The Years8/10 Best: 1969 Corvette ZL1.7/10 Best: 1967 Corvette L88.6/10 Best: 1963 Corvette Sting Ray.5/10 Worst: 1980 California 305.4/10 Worst: 1979 Corvette L48.3/10 Worst: 1984 Corvette.2/10 Worst: 1954 Corvette.1/10 Worst: 1975 Corvette Base Model.More items...•
What is the rarest Corvette color?
1967 Chevy Corvette Sting Ray Only 815 in Tuxedo Black At 815 unites, Tuxedo Black was the rarest production color.
What is the most sought after Corvette Stingray?
Thanks to the ultra-rarity, iconic Stingray design, and an impressive amount of punch, this 1967 Chevrolet Corvette L88 Stingray Convertibles was auctioned in Dallas for a whopping $3.4 million.
How many 1953 Corvettes are still in production?
Of the first 300 1953 Corvettes, approximately 225 are still known to exist today.
Why was the 1953 Corvette publicized?
The intent was to market pre-sales of the Corvette, combining word-of-mouth testimonials from the selected VIP first owners of the 1953 Corvettes with a marketing campaign that lavished praise on the Corvettes styling, performance and grandeur, enti cing would-be buyers into paying a premium for a car which was not yet publicly available.
How many pieces of fiberglass were in the 1953 Corvette?
Forty-six separate pieces of GRP comprising the body of the 1953 Corvette (photo courtesy of GM Media) Each fiberglass body began as 46 separate pieces that were supplied by the Molded Fiber Glass Company in Ashtabula, Ohio.
What is GRP in Corvette?
Manufacturing problems, such as Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP, more commonly known as “fiberglass” today) molding techniques were far from being perfected and additional experimentation was necessary before production could truly begin. Chevy had to build several different iterations of the Corvette body before the company heads were convinced that fiberglass was truly the way to go.
How many wholesale regions does Chevrolet have?
As a promotional endeavor, Chevrolet began to use the first available production Corvettes as dealer-display attractions. Each of the eight Chevrolet wholesale regions was assigned a car to send from dealer to dealer for one to three day showings during the last three months of the year.
What year was the Corvette made?
Model: 1953 Corvette. Generation: C1 Corvette. Type:
Why was the Corvette designed?
Attempting to appeal to a broader audience than merely that of the sports-car variety entrepreneurs, Corvette was designed to offer “comfort and convenience” which caused the car to fall dramatically short of the expectations of sports car enthusiasts.
How many 1953 Corvettes were made?
The lowest production year was the first year for Corvette. There were only 300 1953 Corvettes produced. For more details on the 1953 Corvettes check out this blog post.
What year was the most Corvette made?
What is the highest production year for Corvettes? As of this blog post, the highest number was 1979 with 53,807 produced. No other Corvette model year before or since has sold so many units. The Base Corvette Sport Coupe retailed for $10,220.
How many Corvettes were made in 1979?
The highest number of Corvettes produced was in 1979 with 53,807. No other Corvette model year before or since has sold so many units. The Base Corvette Sport Coupe retailed for $10,220. There were 10 colors offered that year with black being the number one color choice. The lowest production year was the first year for Corvette.
When will the 2020 Corvette Stingray be released?
The 2020 C8 Mid-Engine Corvette Stingray was just released on July 18, 2019 , at Tustin, California as General Motors President Mark Reuss drove the 2020 Corvette C8 onto the stage of a World War II-era blimp hangar outside Los Angeles.
Where was the 1954 Corvette built?
The 1954 Corvette began production in December, 1953. Although the first fourteen or fifteen ‘54 Corvettes were built in Flint, Michigan (like all of the 1953 Corvettes) GM shifted Corvette’s production to a newly renovated assembly plant in St Louis, Missouri....
Where was the Corvette made?
While the car itself would primarily be a carryover from the previous model year, it was announced that Corvette production would move from the old St. Louis plant to a brand-new, high-tech facility located in Bowling Green , Kentucky. Although originally developed as an air-conditioning plant, the new manufacturing plant was refurbished...
What year was the Corvette 35th anniversary?
The arrival of the 1988 model year brought with it the 35th anniversary of the Chevy Corvette. For General Motors as a whole, and especially for the teams of people responsible for the design and development of “America’s Sports Car”, this anniversary was significant not only because of the milestone it represented, but because the thirtieth anniversary of Corvette had passed with barely a whisper. After all, the Corvette had turned thirty years...
What was the impact of the 1980 Corvette?
The arrival of the 1980 Chevy Corvette came on the heels of another fuel crisis that had impacted the American automotive market – and, more generally, the national economy – as a whole. Much like the fuel crisis of the early seventies, when the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo had cutoff petroleum exports to many parts of the world, a second energy crisis had emerged after the Shah of Iran was overthrown during a revolution that had occurred...
When was the Corvette discontinued?
1955 Corvette. In 1954, with the Corvette on the verge of being discontinued indefinitely, a “stay of execution” emerged from the unlikeliest of places. Historically, it is well known that General Motors and Ford Motor Company have always shared more than a friendly rivalry. The 1955 Corvette..
What engine did the 1955 Corvette have?
After all, they had addressed the issue of performance by introducing the small block V-8 engine and a 3-speed manual transmission as options...
What was the Corvette's economic prosperity in 1968?
Despite the economic prosperity of the fifties and the early sixties, there had been a great many who believed that the sustainability of such financial growth was impossible, and that more challenging financial times lay ahead within the United States, and even globally.The arrival of the 1968 Corvette occurred at a time when the world, much like the Corvette itself, was struggling to find an identity of its own amidst political and financial issues.
How much did a 1953 Corvette cost?
All of the fiberglass bodied cars were painted Polo White with red interiors and carried a sticker price of $3,490.
When was the Corvette made?
Development of the Corvette began in late 1951 as "Project Opel" and was the brainchild of famed General Motors designer Harley Earl. In January of 1953, the world would get its first glimpse of the Corvette in concept form at the General Motors Motorama auto show in New York City.
How fast is a 2009 Corvette?
Internally known at GM as "Blue Devil," the super Vette used a supercharged engine with 638 horsepower giving it a top speed of 205 mph. The following year, a Grand Sport model was also revitalized with the base 6.2-liter engine pairing up with Z06 chassis components.
What is the third gen Corvette?
General Motors LLC. The third-gen Chevy Corvette rolled out with all-new exterior sheetmetal styled after Mako Shark II concept car and became the first production vehicle to offer T-tops. Carrying over from the previous C2 generation was the chassis and engines.
What year did the Z06 have a split rear window?
The 1963 model year was the only year the split-rear-window was available on the coupe and the first to offer a race-focused Z06 option package. Chevrolet ultimately took some Z06s that were gutted, featured massaged suspensions and fitted with monster 7.0-liter engines over to Le Mans and ran them in a variety of other sports car series.
What is the 2020 Corvette C8?
The mid-engined 2020 Corvette C8 is a bold new chapter in a proud sports car legacy. Today's debut of the all-new, eighth-gen 2020 Chevrolet Corvette would appear to deliver the most radical DNA rewrite in the model's history. The front-engine layout that the American sports car has relied on since its birth in 1953 has been dropped in favor ...
How much horsepower does a 2019 Corvette have?
Yes, that puts the new amidships Vette's power output ahead of today's 2019 base C7 Corvette (455 hp and 460 pound-feet), but the new model is far more dramatic a rewrite than this relatively modest power boost would suggest.
What was the first 300 Corvette?
Essentially, the first 300 cars were pilot line cars with various changes made during the run. Even the way the fiberglass body parts were made changed a couple of times. Early cars did not receive the intended wheel covers because the tooling was not quite ready– so they had to be equipped with the Bel Air type. Because of all the improvements made during 1953, Corvette number one and Corvette number 300 were not entirely alike. As production progressed on the 1953 Corvettes, GM personnel got much more proficient at forming and assembling fiberglass components. By 1954, the bodies were of sufficient quality that colors other than Polo White (which helped conceal to some extent the rough body work) were offered.
Why did the first 300 cars not receive wheel covers?
Early cars did not receive the intended wheel covers because the tooling was not quite ready– so they had to be equipped with the Bel Air type.
What engine did the 1953 Corvette have?
Corners were cut to get the '53 Corvette into production. While the frame was new and positioned the engine low and rearward, the suspension was made up of modified parts from Chevy's super-dowdy sedan and never worked right. The engine was the old Blue Flame six with mechanical lifters and a compression ratio boost to 8.0:1 to produce a modest 150 hp. And, notoriously, the only transmission available was a two-speed Powerglide automatic.
What color wheels were on the 1953 Corvette?
Even the lid on the center console was white. But worst of all, the wheels were white, too. White wheels are about as 1988 as you can get. Incidentally, all the 1953 Corvettes had red interiors. A quarter of a century after the Commemorative Edition Corvette went on sale, it looks a half century old.
How much horsepower does a 1979 Corvette have?
The base L48 version of the 1979 Corvette had a 5.7-liter V8 that made only 195 hp, barely enough to keep the 3,372-pound lump moving. Meanwhile the interior was a relentless, hideous monochrome that extended the disco-era upholstery colors onto the door panels and dashboard.
How many Corvettes were sold in 1979?
Despite being a pitiable pile of loosely associated plastic, it sold like crazy. Chevy sold a scandalous 53,807 Corvettes during the 1979 model year. So this is the best-selling Corvette ever made. That does not say good things about the state of 1979 America.
How fast did the 1975 Corvette go?
Car and Driver ran the '75 Corvette off against the ignoble Bricklin SV1 in its May 1975 issue and found Chevy's plastic car with the base 350 and three-speed automatic transmission took a brutal 7.7 seconds to waltz from zero to 60 mph and needed 16.1 seconds to run the quarter-mile at a lugubrious 87.4 mph. Slow. Slow. Slow. At least the Bricklin was even slower.
How many generations has a Corvette been successful?
By any reasonable standard the Chevrolet Corvette has been an astonishing success. Over 60 years and six generations there have been dozens of great Corvettes. But even batting .900 still means whiffing 10 percent of the time. And some Corvettes are swings and misses.
What car ran the Indianapolis 500 in 1995?
9. 1995 Corvette Pace Car. There was nothing mechanically awful about the 527 replicas built of the Corvette Convertible that paced the 1995 running of the Indianapolis 500. But they looked like white cars that a couple of lunatics in the GM design studio had drawn all over with Magic Markers.
How many HP does a 1953 Corvette have?
The 1953, 1954, and 1955 model years were the only Corvettes equipped with a 235 cu in (3.9 L) version of the second- generation Blue Flame inline-six rated at 150 hp (112 kW; 152 PS).
Where was the Corvette made?
Originally manufactured in Flint, Michigan and St. Louis, Missouri, the Corvette has been manufactured in Bowling Green, Kentucky since 1981.
What year was the Corvette Sting Ray?
1963 Corvette Sting Ray coupe. The second generation (C2) Corvette, which introduced Sting Ray to the model, continued with fiberglass body panels, and overall, was smaller than the first generation. The C2 was later referred to as mid-years.
How fast is a C5 Corvette?
The C5 was a completely new design that featured many new concepts and manufacturing breakthroughs that would be carried forward to the C6 & C7. It had a top speed of 176 mph (283 km/h) and was judged by the automotive press as a breakthrough with vastly improved dynamics in nearly every area over the previous C4 design. Innovations included a 0.29 drag coefficient, near 50/50 weight distribution, active handling (the first stability control for a Corvette). It also weighed less than the C4. It was the first time the platform was badge engineered as the Cadillac XLR with limited sales.
What is a Vette?
The Chevrolet Corvette, colloquially known as the ' Vette, is a two-door, two-passenger sports car manufactured and marketed by Chevrolet across more than 60 years of production and eight design generations.
What year was the last Corvette?
1967 was the final model year for the second generation. The 1967 model featured restyled fender vents, less ornamentation, and back-up lamps which were on the inboard in 1966 were now rectangular and centrally located. The first use of all four taillights in red started in 1961 and was continued thru the C2 line-up except for 1966. The 1967 and subsequent models continuing on all Corvettes since. 1967 had the first L88 engine option which was rated at 430 bhp (320 kW), but unofficial estimates place the actual output at 560 bhp (420 kW) or more. Only twenty such engines were installed at the factory. From 1967 to 1969, the Holley triple two-barrel carburetor, or Tri-Power, was available on the 427 L89 (a $368 option, on top of the cost for the high-performance 427). Despite these changes, sales slipped more than 15%, to 22,940 (8,504 coupes, off close to 15%, and 14,436 convertibles, down nearly 19%).
How many cu in 6.2 L LS9?
6.2 L LS9 supercharged V8. 396-454 cu in big-block V8. The Chevrolet Corvette, colloquially known as the ' Vette, is a two-door, two-passenger sports car manufactured and marketed by Chevrolet across more than 60 years of production and eight design generations. From 1953 to 2019, it was front-engined, and since 2020, it is mid-engined.
