mrichi

Can someone tell me why GM chose to do the bodies in fiberglass, I would have thought that this would have been an expensive choice for GM.

loup68

The first Corvettes were made of fiberglass due to the lower cost of making dies to make the parts out of fiberglass on a low volume car. Most people have no concept how much work goes into making metal forming dies, and how many dies are needed to make one metal part.
There was also a time constraint in GM wanting to make the first Corvettes as fast as possible.

PainfullySlow

I have no idea to the truth so this may be an urban myth. I had heard that all the compound curves on the body made forming them out of metal (at the time) extremely complex.

Again, that could be complete BS.

dmaxx3500

fiberglass was the new space-age thing,remember this was the 50's [1951-52-53]

68/BB

This is consistent with what I have heard also. I used to work with a guy who had worked in the fiberglass industry in the past. He told me once that a place where he had worked (way before he was there) had done a lot of the original work either in tooling/patterns or actual molding. He said the owner had told him it was because of time constraint and limited quantities. Just hearsay but sounds right to me. I think the shop may have been in Ashtabula area? Don't know if any of the work was actually done at that location or not. Anyhow that is where my friend had worked, in Ashtabula, don't recall the name of the company.

7T1vette

At that time, you couldn't get sharp body lines with stamped metal dies. Molding the parts with plastic/fiberglass was the way that sexy auto body lines could be formed. Early on, there was some hope that fiberglass bodies would be more cost effective; but that benefit never materialized. No matter. After a handful of years, a metal Corvette would never have been accepted.

Later hydro-forming processes allowed such parts to be formed in metal; but better plastics and plastic forming processes evolved, as well. And, once the 'love affair' with the "plastic" Corvette was in full bloom, there was no going back to metal for that model.

Alan 71

Hi,
People, (engineers), at GM were aware of making parts from 'fiberglass' because during WW2 some airplane parts were being made from fiberglass.

In 1951 GM started it's own research with 'fiberglass re-inforced resin' within the "Parts Fabrication Group".
The engineers traveled to 3 companies producing fiberglass parts; one of them being MFG who was building boats, along with other parts.
The first GM test vehicle with a 'fiberglass' body was a 1952 Chevrolet convertible.

For the 1953 Motorama I believe 7 concept cars were built representing the 5 car lines, and 5 of them were 'fiberglass' bodied.
Because the Corvette concept was so well received it was the only one of the 7 to go into production.

In January of 1953 the president of GM, Harlow Curtice, made the decision to use the fiberglass body on the production Corvettes. His decision was likely based on the results of testing the 52 Chevrolet convertible body (including rolling it over accidentally while testing it), and the speed at which the fiberglass body could be brought to production.

So, was the 53 Corvette body was basically a small upside down fiberglass boat hull painted white.
Regards,
Alan

Most of this info is paraphrased from Noland Adams' "Corvette American Legend, #1 The Beginning"

68/BB

Yes. And I see MFG had a facility in Ashtabula, OH. Connecting the dots to my friends recollection.

Alan 71

Hi 68,
Yes, Ashtabula is the site of the MFG plant the GM engineers traveled to to observe the fiberglass processes.
Regards,
Alan

I wonder if Corvettes were ever close to having colored gel coat as the exterior finish?

domenic tallarita

Well, in the midwest where the salted the roads it was a blessing. The porshe dealers gave a SS shovel with every purchase so you could shovel the rust bucket into the dumpster.

Dom

BLUE1972

Some of the original parts were made on Long Island, NY.

There were 5 aircraft companies on L.I at the time.