This Day In History: The first Chevrolet Corvette rolled off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan on this day in 1953. The cost of that Vette was $3498.00 at the time (which would be over $31,000 in today's dollars). In 2006 that same 1953 model sold for $1,100,000.00. The first production C8 Corvette went for an impressive $3 million at Barrett Jackson’s 2020 Scottsdale Auction, and the 2020 Chevy Corvette Coupe runs for $103,615. While the Corvette is a fan favorite, the heavy price tag keeps it from being one of the top 5 selling Chevy models of all time. Those honors go to the Silverado, Camaro, Cavalier, Impala and the Caprice. In fact, the highest production year for the corvette was in 1978 with just 53,807 units.
The Corvette is the longest produced sports car in the world and it gets its name from the Corvette warships which have been around since the 1600's.
The Corvette has been used as the pace car of the Indianapolis 500 thirteen times, more than any other vehicle.
One of the first appearances of the corvette in a movie was 1955's Kiss Me Deadly, but that certainly wasn't the last appearance of a Vette on the silver screen. I'm old enough to remember Corvette Summer with Mark Hamill, but also the '59 Corvette in Animal House. There is also the 1965 Vette roadster in The Spy Who Shagged Me and a '67 Vette in Con Air. The Fast and Furious franchise had Vettes in two movies (XXX and Fast Five). According to Hagerty, the best Corvettes appeared in the Elvis Presley movie Clambake (1967).
Also, "From 1981 to 2011, the 1984 Chevy Corvette proved the most-stolen model year, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB). Overall, 90,427 Corvettes were stolen in the U.S. and Puerto Rico during those 30 years." ~Automobilemag
According to autoblog.com, the Chevy Corvette is one of the most dangerous cars to drive with a fatal accident rate of 9.8 cars per billion (the worst is the Mitsubishi Mirage).
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