America's first home made production sports car was released in 1953. What kind of car was it?

In the early 1950s, American GIs returning from Europe brought back a taste for nimble, two-seat roadsters like those from MG and Jaguar. General Motors designer Harley Earl saw an opportunity to create a uniquely American version. The result was a stunning concept car for the 1953 GM Motorama show that was rushed into production that same year, becoming the first homegrown, mass-produced sports car in the nation's history. Its official name was the Chevrolet Corvette.

The initial run of 300 cars was hand-built, and all of them shared the same iconic look: a Polo White exterior, a red interior, and a black convertible top. To save weight and speed up tooling for production, the body was made not of steel, but of a revolutionary new material for the auto industry—fiberglass. Despite its sporty appearance, however, the 1953 model was more of a stylish cruiser than a high-performance machine.

Under the hood was a modest "Blue Flame" inline-six engine paired with a two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission. The car's sluggish sales nearly led to its cancellation, but the introduction of a powerful V8 engine option in 1955, championed by engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov, transformed the Corvette into the legendary performance icon that it is today.