The first glimpse the world got of the now legendary American Chevrolet Corvette was in January 1953, at the General Motors Motorama exhibition at the Hotel Waldorf Astoria in New York.
The silent movie below shows the first Corvettes being built in 1953. Only 300 were carefully made by hand during the first year of production. All were in Polo White with a red interior and they were equipped with a 3900 cc six-cylinder row engine and a two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission.
The Corvette was – and still is – made of fiberglass with a steel chassis. Fiberglass was still a relatively new material in the early 1950’s, and its plethora of uses were only just beginning to be discovered. The film follows the elaborate work on the many layers of the fiber material and the application of resin. It was a time before safety measures at work and the toxic material without gloves and masks were worked without hesitation. Things are done differently now…
Source: Silodrome og Corvettemuseum.org