"On January 17, 1953, Chevrolet revealed the "Corvette Dream car" at New York's Waldorf Astoria hotel, as part of the kickoff to that year's GM's Motorama."(Wendler,1) The first Corvette rolled off of the assembly line on June 30, 1953 in Flint, Michigan. Due to the first two cars being engineering test cars, they were destroyed. The initial production of the Corvette was limited to 300 units, creating a high demand (even though the demand for cars was already high since World War II ended). Of the first 300 Corvettes made, 225 are known to still exist today. The man behind the Corvette was Harley Earl, who was the head of GM's Art and Color studio from 1927 to 1958. Earl admired the Jaguar XK-120, and the basic design of the Jaguar ("huge long hood, minimal two seat passenger area and a short rear deck") actually was the basis of the Corvette for more than 50 years. (The Corvette Story, 1).
In the beginning, all Corvettes had fiberglass bodies, which was promoted as a new light weight material. The fiberglass bodies were so popular with design studios in the 1950s due to the "low cost method to quickly create interesting body styles". The first 300 Corvettes were made with fiberglass mainly for necessity. Labor and supply issues with steel, along with the costly tooling created to stamp out steel panels are what made fiberglass the smartest option. As the demand for the Corvette rose, so did the production that soon climbed to numbers that favored steel production over fiberglass. Steel production proved to be more efficient since steel bodies didn't need time to cure inside of molds, unlike fiberglass. Although less efficient, fiberglass body materials remained in use due to Corvette's strong belief in tradition. However, as technology advanced , fiberglass body materials gradually came to an end in Corvettes due to the introduction of more modern composite materials. (The Corvette Story, 1).
