Chevrolet Corvette Coupé, 1957, by Ghia Aigle. Designed by Giovanni Michellotti a one-off built on a ‘54 Corvette chassis by Carozzeria Ghia in Switzerland. The Ghia Corvette was powered by a Blue Flame 6 in-line engine with a 4-speed manual gearbox
The Corvette SS began life as an experimental race car, and was unveiled to the public at the 12 Hours of Sebring endurance race on March 23, 1957. The SS was in training for Chevrolet's debut at LeMans that year. The Sebring race was, in many ways, Chevrolet's inauguration into modern racing. But the SS never finished the race, much to the dismay of the racing community.
The Airbox option package designated RPO 579D came with the Duntov-cammed, Rochester fuel-injected 283/283 HP V-8. It incorporated a fiberglass intake plenum on the drivers-side inner fender. Fed by an opening in the radiator bulkhead, it channeled cooler, denser outside air through an internal filter and along a rubberized duct to the Rochester fuel-injection.
Duntov laid out three design concepts that took decades to implement. The first was his proposal for the 1957 Q-Corvette. This design called for the following: an all-aluminum, fuel-injected small-block engine, four-wheel independent suspension, four-wheel disc brakes, and a transaxle. This design concept arrived in 1997 as the C5.