
Given the popularity of today's Corvette, and the collectability of its earliest models, it's hard to imagine that the car wasn't an immediate hit right out of the gate. The prototype made a big splash when it debuted at GM's New York Motorama car show in January 1953 -- thousands of people reportedly wrote to GM wanting to buy one -- but it would take a few years of growing pains before the Corvette was anything close to a success.
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