Today, Chevrolet’s Corvette is an icon, and no auto enthusiast can think of the motoring landscape without this car. But that wasn’t so in 1955. When introduced  in 1953, it seemed to have promise, but by its third year of production, it looked like a dud. Total Corvettes sold for those three years was 4,640 – and in ’55 it was a paltry 700 cars.

Worse, the competition arrived from Ford and the Thunderbird in 1955 – at the worst time. And Thunderbird sold 16,155 units at first introduction! With Corvette sales at 4% of Thunderbird, it looked like curtains for the Chevrolet version, especially with the extensive redesign investment in what was to be the 1956 car. Everyone was fearful that they had misjudged the market and that the car they envisioned for 1956 would fare no better than the 1955 version.

Was the Thunderbird formula the right one? Had GM totally misjudged the market? GM had a quandary – do we dump the car entirely, do we follow Ford’s lead and make it a sports touring car (more on that  later), or do we go all in on a car that could compete with the more upscale offerings from Europe?

Industry projections for the sales of the 1956 Thunderbird were over 20,000 units, a number that Corvette had never been intended to produce. Management was thinking that if Thunderbird hit those numbers, and Corvette didn’t exceed 5,000, the car should be dropped. Whether there would be a 1957 Corvette was in serious question even as the 1956 model was going to be announced.

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But the battle of whether there would be a 1957 Corvette actually started way before that – and surprisingly it came from the man that had proposed the Corvette in the first place – Harley Earl, GM’s Head of Design. While Harley had proposed the idea of a sports car in 1951 and received the go ahead in 1952, he had kept his finger on the pulse of the small but important market. While the project was in its early stages, Harley became concerned that perhaps the car was already dated even as it began to take shape.

Harley took a version of the chassis and some of the body paneling and offered it to Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Buick and asked for competing proposals. Pontiac came up with a lackluster concept, and Buick’s was just too far out there. But Oldsmobile – they took it way, way too seriously. Their offering, dubbed the”F-88″ stunned Harley.  Just as the new Corvette was being released, the F-88 – a full working prototype – arrived.

It was everything the Chevrolet version was not: 270 HP V-8 power, all the amenities Corvette had skipped – power steering, power brakes, electric roll up windows and top, and the famous Hydra-matic 4-speed automatic transmission. Looking at the car, and already knowing what the Thunderbird would offer, chilled Harley. In his heart, he knew that this was where GM should go. Would it replace the Corvette? Would it be sold side-by-side? Would it put Thunderbird in its place?

Harley was convinced that the F-88 should proceed, and as he was making his argument, the sales figures for the 1954 Corvette arrived – 3,640. It wasn’t dismal, but it wasn’t what GM was used to for a new offering – the Cadillac Eldorado, a custom convertible assembled by hand and costing $5,738 ($65,000 in today’s money), sold 2,150 units that year . . .