
National Geographic’s Documentary on the Chevrolet Corvette
The video has compiled classic and recent videos of America’s sports car, the Corvette. Going back for a quick glimpse of the history of the American automobile, National Geographic has produced a must-watch video for anyone interested in or in love with the automobile, and in particular the Corvette.
We get to hear about the introduction of the Chevrolet Corvette to the public back when it was first manufactured in 1953, starting with Harley Earl’s quest for an American sports car, and his direction to design a stylish 2-seat convertible for Chevrolet’s January 1953 Motorama Exhibit at New York’s prestigious Waldorf-Astoria. As it turns out, the prototype “dream car” was an immediate hit of the exhibit and based on the tremendous positive response, Chevrolet management gave the okay to start manufacturing the Corvette, America’s first sports car) at Chevrolet’s Flint, Michigan assembly plant.
From what many consider the 1885 automobile’s first American commercially manufactured beginning (excluding the steam-powered vehicles starting back in the 1700s) with the introduction of the gasoline fueled automobile built by Karl Benz (which was actually first introduced on New Year’s Eve 1879) (Benz Patent Motor Car, the first automobile (1885 – 1886)), we get a snapshot of the Karl Benz’s 1885 automobile, Henry Ford’s 1896 “Quadricycle (history.com ‘s This Day In History, Henry Ford Test Drives His Quadricycle), and the automotive history leading up to the introduction of the 1953 Corvette Convertible.
Charles Duryea’s Duryea Motor Wagon Company, credited with the first mass production of the automobile (in 1896 building 13 identical automobiles in Springfield, MA) was eventually bought from Charles Duryea and later became Chevrolet (incorporated as the Chevrolet Motor Car Company 11/3/1911).
This very informative National Geographic documentary video covers the Chevrolet Corvette from its inception in 1953 (i.e. the C1 generation) up to the first Corvette in the C5 generation, the 1997 Corvette. We look forward to any update that National Geographic has in mind to continue with the documentary view of the latest generations of Corvette. We think you will enjoy this excellent glimpse at the storied history of the automobile and America’s sports car, the Chevrolet Corvette! Enjoy….
Source: The documentary posted November 22, 2015 by National Geographic on their Nat Geo History YouTube channel, “Chevrolet Corvette – History (National Geographic)”
Feature Photo: Mike Conkey’s photo of a 1964 Corvette