1954 Chevrolet Corvette

Early history

General Motors hired designer Harley Earl in 1927. Earl loved sports cars, and GIs returning after serving overseas in the years following World War II were bringing home MGs, Jaguars, Alfa Romeos, and the like. In 1951, Nash Motors began selling an expensive two-seat sports car, the Nash-Healey, that was made in partnership with the Italian designer Pinin Farina and British auto engineer Donald Healey, but there were few moderate-priced models. Earl convinced GM that they also needed to build a two-seat sports car, and with his Special Projects crew began working on the new car later that year, which was code named "Project Opel."The result was the 1953 Corvette, unveiled to the public at that year's Motorama car show. The original concept for the Corvette emblem incorporated an American flag into the design, but was changed well before production since associating the flag with a product was frowned upon.


Myron Scott is credited for naming the car after the corvette, a small, maneuverable fighting frigate. The first Corvettes were virtually hand-built in Flint, Michigan in Chevrolet's Customer Delivery Center, now an academic building at Kettering University. The outer body was made out of then-revolutionary fiberglass, selected in part because of steel quotas left over from the war. Underneath the new body material were standard Chevrolet components, including the "Blue Flame" inline six-cylinder truck engine, two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission, and drum brakes from Chevrolet's regular car line. Though the engine's output was increased somewhat, thanks to a triple-carburetor intake exclusive to the Corvette, performance of the car was decidedly "lackluster". Compared to the British and Italian sports cars of the day, the Corvette was underpowered, required a great deal of effort as well as clear roadway to bring to a stop, and even lacked a "proper" manual transmission. A Paxton centrifugal supercharger became available in 1954 as a dealer-installed option, greatly improving the Corvette's straight-line performance(Wikipedia).The 1954 Corvette featured only detail changes from the previous year. These slight but significant changes included a new camshaft, new rocker-arm cover, and improvements to the convertible top mechanism.

SPECIFICATIONS :
Model : Corvette
Type : Convertible
Quanity : 3640

Performance:
Speed : 0-60 Time 11.0 sec
1/4 Mile Time 17.9 sec @ 76.0 mph

Available Engines :
Engine : I6
Engine Used : 235ci/150hp
Size : 235 ci
Horsepower : 150 hp @ 4200 rpm
Torque : 223 lb-ft @ 2400 rpm

Source : muscle car club, muscle car
Pics source : webrides TV , all poster