Line workers and others pose next to the first production 1953 Chevrolet Corvette, VIN 001- the same vehicle which Corey Peterson is restoring. Photo by GM Media
By Claudio D'Andrea
There are Corvette restoration stories and then there's Corey Petersen’s Corvette restoration stories.
What sets apart the Utah-based researcher from all the other prized Vettes that have been lovingly restored to a fine sheen and shine is that his car is reportedly the first production Chevrolet Corvette. It’s VIN is 001 and, according to a driving.ca report on July 4, 2023, he verified the pedigree of a car that most Vette enthusiasts thought had been destroyed long ago.
The first-ever Corvette was made in Flint, Michigan and rolled “out of the garage and into mystery,” according to a hemmings.com report. Some claimed the car was destroyed, others thought it was turned into a Motorama show car.
But after about 15 or 20 years, Petersen tracked down the car to the Tulsa, Oklahoma shop of Lloyd Miller. He had read work orders and changes that engineers made to VIN 001 and what Driving writer Nicholas Maronese said were “bizarre tweaks” on the car in Miller’s garage and determined they lined up.
Peterson had been in contact with the east-coast owner of the car who thought it was VIN 002 to tell him it was actually the first production Corvette. The researcher ended up buying the car from the owner and put in motion plans for a full restoration, perhaps his last, according to Maronese’s report.
Petersen says he ran a background check that showed the car had never been stolen, nor has its VIN been involved in any court cases, according to the corvetteblogger.com report. The background check revealed the car’s Manufacturer’s Certificate of Origin came from Chevrolet.
Helping Petersen out was John Amgwert, a founding father of the National Corvette Restorers Society and longtime editor of the Corvette Restorer magazine. In 2023, Amgwert was inducted into the Corvette Hall of Fame at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Amgwert detailed the first production Vette, which went by the internally designated car number 3950 and was produced on Tuesday, June 30, 1953, in this report.
At the time he wrote his 1993 report, Amgwert said, “It has been my belief that, ultimately, Serial #001 was possibly transformed by the Styling Section (of Chevrolet) into some other Corvette show car or future styling proposal, or became one of the many Corvette-type show cars of another GM Division such as Pontiac, Oldsmobile or Buick.”
But as Amgwert and Petersen were to discover some 30 years later, that car decided to hang around after all.
Do you have a story about your Corvette you’d like to share with our readers?
Maybe a dream car, a restoration or award-winner?
Email us at social@corvettedepot.ca!