This year at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, 60 candles will be lit for America’s one and only true sports car, the Chevrolet Corvette.  Chevy does like to think of the Goodwood FoS as a place for their parties. Last year they celebrated the brand’s centenary there and also unveiled the Camaro to the UK public at the event.

On this occasion – Corvette turning 60 – Chevy went out to see who else turns 60 in 2012, and they arrived a couple of remarkable names. They include Dan Akroyd, Stevie Wonder, Jay Leno, Richard Branson. Not that all of them are Corvette men, but anyway, it’s just cool to mention them, isn’t it.

So if you are planning to visit the Goodwood Festival of Speed at Goodwood House, near Chichester, West Sussex, from June 28 to July 1, 2012, Chevrolet has a real treat for you.

Now, buckle up for a brief history lesson on the ‘Vette:

The first Chevrolet Corvette was born in 1952 as the EX-122 concept, designed by Harley Earl – GM’s first vice-president of design and the man behind the world’s first concept car, the 1939 Buick Y-Job.  Earl created the car to answer America’s rising demand for sports cars, which had seen an influx of sporting imports to the US, primarily from Jaguar and MG in the UK. Although built in 1952, it made its public debut in January 1953 at the GM Motorama, at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.

It was named Corvette by Myron Scott, an American photo-journalist and founder of the original Soap Box Derby races, after a small French warship renowned for its manoeuvrability.

The intention was to create a sports car that would use affordable existing mechanical components, but would be clothed in an ultra-modern, aerodynamic body. It was also the first mass-produced sports car (and one of the first cars) to have a production fibreglass body, which allowed the designers to create moulded curves, saved weight and also prevented corrosion, which was a common problem for other models of the era.

The first models came with a derivative of GM’s renowned ‘Blue Flame’ in-line six-cylinder engine, with the now legendary V8 units first appearing in 1955. In 1981 Corvette production moved from Missouri to Bowling Green, Kentucky – one of the USA’s oldest industrial cities, immortalised by the Everly Brothers in an eponymous 1967 hit.

Six generations later, the Corvette comes from the same production line, and remains America’s most popular high performance sports car. Over 1.3 million Corvettes have been built since the model’s inception.