Corvette and Thunderbird models debuted in the 1950s

The first great American sports car out of the starting gate was the Chevrolet Corvette in late 1953. It was a bit of a sputtering beginning, however. Chevy manufactured 300 Corvettes that year and sold 183 of them, according to automotive writer Greg Fink. 

The 1953 two-seat Corvette came in one color – white – with a red interior. 

More than 80 models of Corvettes over the years are on display at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Ky. The facility opened in 1994. It’s an attraction within the confines of the “Kentucky bourbon trail.”

Visitors to the museum are quick to learn that the 1953 Corvette emblem introduced the concept of crossed flags. The flag on the right is a black-and-white checkered racing flag. The flag on the left is red and features the Chevy bowtie symbol and a symbol called a “fleur-de-lis (flower of the lily). 

It’s a symbol of “peace and purity.” Chevrolet officials wanted to use a family crest from the ancestry of Louis-Joseph Chevrolet but couldn’t find one. 

Designers settled on the fleur-de-lis because of its French origin. (Louis-Joseph Chevrolet was born in Switzerland, but his family moved to the Burgundy region of France when he was a young child.)

 Myron E. Scott, a public relations official at Chevrolet in 1953, is credited for naming the Corvette model. Management said it wanted a “c” word, but not an animal. Scott suggested “Corvette,” a speedy-pursuit, small warship in the British navy. 

To compete head-to-head with the Corvette, Ford executives brought in Franklin Quick Hershey to head the design team. He had previously worked at General Motors and at the Packard Motor Car Company. Hershey was a “rock star” designer during this era. 

A young Ford stylist, Alden “Gib” Giberson, suggested the name “Thunderbird.” Legendary in the American Southwest, “the Thunderbird ruled the sky and was a divine helper of man. The great wings – invisible to mortal man – created the winds and the thunder and provided rains in the arid desert.” 

“The Thunderbird entered production for the 1955 model year as a sporty two-seat convertible, but it was not marketed as a sports car,” wrote automotive journalist Mark Rechtin. “Rather, Ford positioned the Thunderbird as an upscale, ‘personal luxury car.’”

Giberson was asked to create the graphics for Thunderbird’s logo, giving the figure a majestic wingspan and with a turquoise inlay.

 

Bill Wilson of Motor1.com, a website serving the automotive and motor sports industries, said Thunderbird had gained the upper hand as early as 1957. More than 20,000 Thunderbirds were sold in 1957, compared to about 700 Corvettes, he said. 

“While the Chevy vehicle emphasized speed, the Ford team considered performance part of an overall approach that included upscale touches,” Wilson commented. 

The look and feel of Thunderbirds and Corvettes would drift far afield in ensuing years. Ford decided to discontinue the Thunderbird in 1997.

After a five-year hiatus, Ford brought back a version of the car in 2002. The thrust was a return to the original formula for the Thunderbird, a two-seat coupe or convertible layout, but with “retrofuturistic” styling. Sales were less than stellar, so the Thunderbird line was dropped again in 2005. 

Meanwhile, about 20,000 Corvettes are slated for production in 2021, all rolling off the line at GM’s Bowling Green Assembly Plant on Corvette Drive, just down the street from the museum. The plant employs about 1,300 people. It’s the only Corvette factory in the world.