The Corvette Story – Corvettes Reign in 1954 Motorama

The Corvette’s very existence stirred Styling Staff designers to create new ideas based on its design. The 1954 Motorama showed the results—a triple play of Corvette derivations that suggested how the model could evolve in the future.

While Chevy’s engineers tinkered with the new Corvette’s anatomy, GM’s stylists explored Corvette combinations and permutations. Here, for the first time, was a GM product with which they could all identify personally. Chevrolet was building a sports car! 

The stylists were among the first to be aware of the new car’s shortcomings as well as its attractions. Thus they were quick to respond when the order came through to bedeck the 1954 Motorama with new variations on the Corvette that would make clear how committed GM and Chevrolet were to their new baby. They were developed in a special studio headed by Carl Renner.

In view of criticisms of the 1953-54 Corvette, not least from Ed Cole himself, all these cars had one feature in common: side windows that rolled up and down. On two of the cars, which had windscreens with vertical A-pillars, this was not difficult. But Styling’s inventive body engineers had to bring their legerdemain to bear on the challenge of making the side windows slide down on the open car, which kept the steep forward rake of the standard A-pillars, at first sight an impossible task. They pulled it off, however. Elbow room, previously aided by the concave doors, had to be sacrificed.