What year did Chevrolet come out with the Corvette? Who was the designer? What was the one color that the first year's models came in? What was the body made of? What was the manufacturer's list price?

From memory:

1953
Bill Mitchell
White (with red interior)
Fiberglass (always has been)
Don't know

Extras: It came only with a "Blue Flame" 6 cylinder engine coupled to a three-speed transmission. The Chevy Nomad "wagon" was originally a Corvette concept car. The current iteration of the Corvette is known as the C-6 (sixth generation) and is built in Bowling Green, KY. And oh yeah... I passed on buying a '53 in 1967 at a price of $500. A decent '53 brings $100k or more now.

The first Covettes, with fiberglass bodies, did indeed show up in 1953, and were only available in Polo White. But Mitchell was not the designer.

Zora Arkus-Duntov?

Nope. This man was in on the Corvette before Duntov.

Okay... Harley Earl was the head of GM design at the time but Bill Mitchell is the individual that most automotive historians credit with the actual design of the Corvette. Duntov was an engineer, not a designer. I think the original price was around $3500.

I erred in using the word "designer." I should have said, "Whose idea was it". However, after reading over 100 sites about Corvette history, I did not see Mitchell's name. Obviously, Harley Earl was the name I was looking for. The MSRP was $3250, although one site had it at "over $3500."

"Most of GM's flamboyant "dream car" designs of the 1950s are directly attributable to Earl, leading one journalist to comment that the designs were "the American psyche made visible." Harley Earl loved sports cars, and GIs returning after serving overseas World War II were bringing home MGs, Jaguars, Alfa Romeos and the like. Earl convinced GM that they needed to build a two-seat sports car. The result was the 1953 Corvette, unveiled to the public at that year's Motorama car show." - Wikipedia

Harley Earl is the father of the Corvette. The Corvette was his idea pure and simple. He was influenced after World War II watching Jaguars and MG's run road-racing courses like Watkins Glen. He felt America needed its own sports car and he convinced GM to develop its own, inexpensive two-seater.

"Originally code named "Project Opel", Earl kept the Corvette program pretty much to himself. He had a special small studio with a handful of people working on it. At the time, Earl wasn't sure which GM division ought to sell the Corvette, But he felt close to Ed Cole at Chevrolet and decided to give the "Bowtie Division" first shot. Cole was sold the first time he saw the prototype. He knew it was just what the stodgy Chevrolet division needed." - National Corvette Museum, Corvette Hall of Fame

Article, including newspaper clippings from that era, giving Earl the credit for the idea and design.

H. Earl: Yeah. Because, you know, with me, it’s just like when I finished the LE SABRE…I’m going to show you a car right now…let’s see, the Corvette was a little thing that I started. I ran that LE SABRE up pacing a race, and then I got the idea…sports car race at Watkins Glen, that’s where I got the idea for the Corvette… (Interview by a local Detroit writer, Stan Brams, in January 1953)

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It's also well known among automotive historians that Harley Earl could barely draw stick figures. It's not at all unusual for the head designer to be given the credit even though the lines flowed from someone else's pen. Earl was GM's very first design chief. He had a huge ego. It's not surprising that he insisted on credit for designing the car. But it's also common knowledge among designers of the time that he did not draw a single line of the Corvette.