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In the 1950s, there was an automotive designer at General Motors who developed a hankering for sports cars — something that GM had little interest in. Why should they have? They were selling about 50 percent of all the cars in America and making tons of money. The government was even talking about breaking up GM.
But this designer, Harley Earl, noticed that after the war many of the G.I.s were bringing home sports cars from Europe — cars like MGs, Jaguars, and Alfa Romeos. The first American automaker to capitalize on this observation, surprisingly, was Nash, when they teamed up with Donald Healey and Italian designer Pininfarina to build the pricy Nash-Healey introduced in 1951.
If he didn’t know it before, Harley Earl learned the definition of compromise. He wanted a zoom-zoom sports car, but the accountants, apparently, wanted something much more conservative. There was finally an agreement to build a prototype sports car for the 1953 General Motors Motorama in New York.
But there were conditions. It had to made from parts already being manufactured for 1949-1954 Chevrolet passenger cars, including the chassis and suspension, but the standard 235-cubic-inch six-cylinder engine could be souped up to power the new sports car. However, the now-150-horsepower engine had too much power for the existing manual transmission to handle. They compromised again and used the two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission, meaning the first Corvette could almost be timed for its 0 to 60 with a calendar.
The interest in the prototype Corvette was enough so that GM decided to build the car starting in late 1953. Taking a lesson from Henry Ford, customers could have any color of Corvette they wanted as long as it was white. Only 300 Corvettes were built in 1953, and they were largely handmade cars using a new material, glass fiber reinforced plastic.
These first Corvettes sold for $3,490 (about $32,850 in today’s dollars) and there were some quality problems, like water leaks, doors opening while the car was moving, and the fit and finish of the car. A new plant was completed with the plan of selling 10,000 Corvettes in 1954, but the negative comments about the car limited the sales that year to 3,640. Owners generally liked their Corvettes, but many didn’t consider them sports cars.
By 1956, the Corvette was definitely in the sports car business. It had a new body with glass roll-up windows and an improved convertible top. The six-cylinder engine was gone and replaced with a 265-cubic-inch V8 with a three-speed manual as standard. Automatic Powerglide was an option. Sixty years ago, Pleasanton resident Ray Michardi walked into Cochran & Celli, a large Chevrolet dealer in downtown Oakland, and bought this week’s featured 1958 Corvette, brand-new.
“A friend of mine had a Corvette, and I drove it one day, and I thought, ‘I love this car.’ So I went down and bought one. I didn’t have any business buying it.”
The base price for that Corvette was $3,591 (about $31,800 in today’s dollars). The 86-year-old owner was just a young buck at the time, fresh out of the Army.
“It was tough rubbing two nickels together to pay for it,” he said. “but I was employed at UPS at the time, and I managed.” Apparently, the job worked out well for him. “I ended up working there for 50 years,” Michardi says.
There have now been seven different series of Corvettes, with Michardi’s car in the first, or C1, series. But there were a lot of improvements in the C1 series from the first Corvette in 1953, when the only options were a “Wonderbar” radio and a heater but no power steering or brakes. In 1958 the age of chrome and four headlights had arrived. This Corvette has a big chrome grill and bumpers, and the updated interior could be considered luxurious. A tachometer was standard. It has a distinctive oval paint design on the sides with a contrasting color to the primary color.
There are fake louvers on the hood covering the standard 283-cubic-inch V8 engine teamed with a three-speed manual transmission. Michardi, a car nut almost from birth, bought a 327-cubic-inch V8 engine and installed it in his Corvette. Then a few years ago, he took that engine out and had it rebuilt. He has replaced the three-speed transmission with a four-speed, doing all the mechanical work himself. Michardi had the car professionally repainted, rechromed and reupholstered in period-correct colors and materials and estimates its value today at more than $65,000.
Nowadays Michardi doesn’t drive his Corvette much.
“It’s getting to be a hassle getting in and out of it,” he says.
But he has no plans to sell this car or his restored 1956 Ford pickup.
“These vehicles are like my kids. I just can’t part with them.”
David Krumboltz Have an interesting vehicle? Contact David Krumboltz at MOBopoly@yahoo.com. To view more photos of this and other issues’ vehicles, search for “David Krumboltz” at mercurynews.com.
