The first corvettes were sold late in 1953 and although almost immediately assigned the title of a "Sports Car" by their owners, they were removed from this category. The first corvettes were a six-cylindered engines like the ones used in standard passenger cars except for three side-draft carburetors and other minor changes. No Sports Car, true, but it did have a certain appeal as a personal car with bucket seats, smaller size and fair maneuverability.

In 1955, the new 265-inch V8 engine was added and with a floor-shifted three-speed transmission to give more flexibility than the powerglide, Corvette performance did start to resemble a sports car somewhat. Some hardy souls even tried a little sports car racing with these early V8 corvettes and did fairly well although the problems of downshifting into low gear without synchromesh, and fast-fading brakes often left the driver in the embarrassing position of plucking bales of hay from his radiator.

Along about this time, Chevrolet decided that if a certain segment of the public was buying the Corvette as a sports car, then they should be able to buy something that resembled the same in more ways than just appearance. The job of making the Corvette go, handle and stop was turned over to an engineer named Zora Arkus-Duntov.

As early as 1958, some of Duntov's idea cars started making appearances as new suspension systems; body shapes and engines were tried. The space-frame SS Corvette made trial runs at Sebring and other noted sports car tracks to test ideas that might be incorporated in future Corvettes. Later, CERV-I, an open wheeled creation, was tested and used for demonstration runs around the country. The latest and immediate forerunner to the 1963 Corvette was the Sting Ray, which was very successful in major Eastern races with Dr. Dick Thompson at the wheel.

So that brings us up to the 1963, and what a package Chevrolet's styling and engineering divisions had to offer in the 1963 Corvette! Everything was changed and there was nothing left over from the 1962 model, let alone the 1953 model.
Starting at the bottom and working up, the frame was mostly box-section with side rails spread wide to the extreme width of the body between the wheels for lower floor pans and increased passenger protection from side blows. Five cross-members tied the side rails together into a rigid unit. The front cross-member was an integral part of the frame assembly instead of a bolt-on portion used on previous Corvettes. This front member was a husky stamping designed to anchor all front suspension components and at the same time dip low enough to give ample engine clearance.

The front suspension, although not revolutionary in design, was all-new for the Corvette. Unequal length A-arms, coil springs and spindle assembly were quite similar to that used on the 1963 Chevy passenger cars and in fact, many parts were interchangeable between the two cars, This use of standard Chevy parts gave the 1963 Corvette ball joint suspension at both top and bottom pivot points on the spindle. The coils springs angled inward sharply from their pad in the lower control arm to the upper seat in the frame rail.

A radical departure from previous years was employed in the 1963 Corvette rear suspension. It's fully independent, first time ever used in a late model American production automobile. Chevy called it a three-link independent suspension. The differential unit brackets directly to the frame with one point at the lower front and two points at the upper rear of the housing. Rubber insulators isolate running gear noise from the passengers.