The tradition actually started in Baseball back in 1955 by Sport, a now-defunct magazine, whose monthly publication started naming a World Series “Top Performer”. The winner was voted on by its editors, and along with General Motors they gave each winner a Chevrolet Corvette. That year, the first set of keys went to Brooklyn Dodgers lefty Johnny Podres.
Sandy Koufax and Frank Robinson were among other baseball icons who walked away with a snazzy Corvette for their athletic accomplishments. At a time when many athletes worked in the off season to make ends meet - winning a $5,000 Corvette was a significant prize.
https://www.ellingsonmotorcars.com/blog/SuperBowlMVPsAndTheirCars
https://www.townfairtire.com/blog/are-super-bowl-mvps-the-most-exclusive-car-club-in-the-world.html
Namath was given a blue Charger R/T, the first non-Vette ever handed off. And with it: a gift tax. He re gifted it to his mother, Rose, who was still a proud and soft-spoken woman when the youngest of her five children became the king of New York and the toast of the nation.
She had managed to go 60 years without owning a car. Making the Charger her first. The catch: Rose didn’t know how to drive.
Joe left the nervous job of teaching her to his older brothers while he went off on a USO tour. When he returned a month later to his hometown of Beaver Falls, Pa., Rose insisted on taking Joe for a ride downtown to the market. The five-minute journey—over a two-lane, downhill stretch—felt like a ride on a rickety old roller coaster from where Joe sat. He can still see his mom pawing at the wheel, still hear that V8 snarling, still feel that land yacht rocking. “Even though she was going about 20 miles an hour, I was sweating it, holding on,” he says. “Mind you, she did get downtown. But when we got parked, I told her, ‘Wow, mom. That was terrific and all, but please let me drive you back.’ ”
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