"300-HP SUPER SPORTSTER"

Pure and simple, the following 1951 magazine article fleshes out more historical facts on this one-of-a-kind "Super Sportster" for today's contemporary audiences. Le Sabre was Harley Earl's muse to quickly deliver America's sports car, Corvette by 1953 and within a decade's time Harley's vision came to life with Chevrolet offering the Corvette for sale with an engine exceeding 300-HP!

As you can now see, Harley Earl's muse for the original Corvette was the Le Sabre sportster and the bottom line is that this innovator didn't brag about every one of his accomplishments, most of which were "Engineering Milestones"  during far better days in America's car capital than what's going on there today. From the tire treads up, to the all-inclusive body Corvette engineering and complex development side of designing the envelope of this car, everything came to light inside the Styling Section of GM that Earl also originally created.

So, you might ask, who was the "Corvette's First Engineer" when this customized Motorama car was introduced in January 1953 (60 Years Ago)?  Clearly it was Harley Earl since he originally design-engineered his baby from the beginning. It was not until fifteen years later that Chevrolet would go on to create a formal position for "chief engineer of Corvette" in 1968 and Zora Arkus-Duntov filled the space at 54 years old. Truth be told, if Harley Earl's engineering prowess hadn't been so great to begin with in Detroit,  his dream sports car, Corvette, wouldn't have been built and/or gone on to become so successful going into the 1960s. Regardless of all the spin put on Corvette history by the legions of Chevy PR guys and traditional auto engineers like Duntov, they all knew in the long run the history would always recognize the real winning founder behind this bedrock American icon: Harley Earl. Don't take things out of context here, we appreciate Zora's role in Corvette history, but he was not the driving force behind this wonderful automobile's long success.

Even today, almost 60 years later, Harley Earl's Corvette remains the most distinctive, best built and most desirable car GM designs, engineers and volume produces.