The Corvette Story – Engine by Mauri Rose

For the original Corvette nothing was more important than a drive train that would do justice to a true sports car. Working with the available material an authentic racer, Mauri Rose, extracted enough horses delivered through a controversial transmission.

Chevrolet’s R&D Department, under the leadership of British suspension expert Maurice Olley, had full responsibility for the design of the underpinnings of the sports car that carried shop order (SO) 1737. As Olley told the Society of Automotive Engineers a year and a half later, “On June 2, 1952 Chevrolet engineers were shown a plaster model of a proposed car of 102-inch wheelbase, for which a chassis was required. 

“The need was to produce a sports car,” Olley continued, “using components of known reliability, with adequate performance, a comfortable ride and stable handling qualities, in something less than seven months before showing and twelve months before production. There was not much time,” noted Olley, with authentic English understatement.

Though it was Olley’s project, Chevrolet chief engineer Ed Cole was really in charge—as always whenever an unusual new car was taking shape somewhere within his reach. “Cole was there in the shop in his shirtsleeves,” recalled one Chevy man, “every night, after his other day’s work was done.” Sailing under a “Project Opel” code name, reasonable enough because Chevrolet often designed cars and components for GM’s German subsidiary, a chassis concept for the car rapidly took shape. An Olley sketch dated only ten days after he was handed the assignment showed the frame and suspension in virtually final form.