Ford’s press materials touted a top speed of more than 100 mph. The standard four-barrel 292-cubic-inch V8 was from Ford’s “Y-block” family, the company’s first line of overhead valve V8s, and was rated at 193 horsepower for cars fitted with manual transmissions and 198 horsepower for automatics.Ī Motor Trend test at the time found the car could accelerate to 60 mph in 11.5 seconds and it completed the quarter mile in 18.0 seconds. The Thunderbird’s base price at launch was $2,695, but most cars were optioned up with either the overdrive four-speed manual or two-speed automatic transmission in place of the standard three-speed manual gearbox.
In its first year, the Corvette tallied 300 sales and in 1955, even with a newly available V8 engine, it still found only 700 buyers. Their optimistic forecast had been for 10,000 sales in the first year. Ford’s assessment of consumers’ tastes was more accurate than Chevy’s and the company was rewarded with 3,500 orders in the first ten days and sales for the year of 16,155. The Corvette, on the other hand, employed removable plastic side curtains in place of roll-up windows.Īnd most critically, Ford’s sporty car came with V8 power, while Corvette had launched with the Blue Flame inline six-cylinder engine.
The T-Bird offered an available removable hardtop in addition to the folding canvas roof too. And it came in a palette of gorgeous pastels. It was everything the Corvette wasn’t, including a sales success.įord’s PR department trolled the Corvette in the Thunderbird’s press announcement, touting its all-steel body (in contrast to Corvette’s early uneven fiberglass) and bevy of comfort features, including power windows, a power seat (singular, a bench seat that let customers squeeze in three abreast for 50 percent more passenger capacity), power windows, power steering, power brakes and power door locks. 20, 1954 and releasing it for sale on Oct. The half-baked original Corvette was barely more than a concept car itself, and the underpowered, any-color-you-want-as-long-as-it-is-white roadster barely sold.įord was about a year and a half behind, showing the Thunderbird to the public Feb. manufacturers were building only massive full-size cars that seemed like too much for some drivers.Ĭhevrolet rolled out its response with the 1953 Corvette, a production sports car based on the company’s 1952 EX-122 Motorama concept car. Post-World War II Americans had an appreciation for the tidier cars many of them had experienced in Europe as servicemen following the war, but U.S.
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