RIDE-CT – Classic Cars Celebrating Classic Cars in Connecticut
ESSEX, CT – It was a model with a fiberglass body that stood out when introduced in 1953 and still does so today – whether it be a first generation Chevrolet Corvette or a current mid-engine C8 example. The initial body style lasted three model years and displayed exposed the tail lights and the toothy chrome grill up front.
RIDE-CT spotted one in Polo White with a red interior at the Essex Car Show last weekend and had to inquire about it.
“It’s a fairly rare car. In 1953, they only made 300 of ’em, so there’s very few of those left; 1954, which is this car, they made 3,640 of ’em,” reported owner Gary McBride of Niantic, CT. “I’ve tried to look up how many is really left or registered, and it very hard to tell.”
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Check of RIDE-CT’s YouTube video of the 1954 Chevrolet Corvette…
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McBride had an understandable reason for buying it. “It was something I always wanted – ’54 was the year I was born, so that was why I wanted a ’54 Corvette,” he said.
The Corvette came from a barn in Salem, CT and the then-owner “was willing to give this one up because he was making room for a ’54 Buick which was his first car.”
The car needed some work. “It wasn’t in bad shape but it didn’t run. It was leaking gas all over the place. It didn’t have the tires or the wheel covers on it. It had just old tired and rims on it,” said McBride.
“The paint was not too bad but … I had to wet sand it and compound it, and bring it up to where it is. I’m not sure if this was original paint or not. I can’t tell.”
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The Corvette came with “a box of parts that was probably about four feet high of parts that he never installed. The parts that I got were very expensive and I still have a lot of parts left over. There was a lot of duplicates but I had to install a lot of parts to it.”
McBride has a background as an auto mechanic. “I used to work on all this stuff years ago, so anything that goes wrong with this car, I fix. There was a quite a few things I did have to fix. The speedometer. The fuel gauge. A lot of stuff with the linage and everything else, so I did it myself.”
The two-seater is powered by a 235-cubic-inch inline six-cylinder Blue Flame engine. It has a Powerglide automatic transmission.
“In 1954 that’s all they put in these was Powerglides. They didn’t have stick shifts yet. They didn’t come out with those, I don’t believe, until ’56, so every transmission in this car was a Powerglide transmission and it’s only a two-speed transmission. Once you get going, it shifts once and that’s it.”
The model’s lack of performance and high price ($3,500) hurt its sales. “It was considered under-rated with the six-cylinder and that’s why ’54 they put a V8 into ’em,” McBride said. “It actually drives nice. It’s a nice cruising car. You can cruise all day long at 50, 60 miles an hour with no problems at all.”
(Photos by Bud Wilkinson.)
