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The Chevrolet Corvette has taken on many different forms since the original model made its debut in 1953 with a markedly more pronounced emphasis on style than on performance.
It has been a convertible and a coupé. It has been both monstrously powerful and woefully underpowered. It has been both a pace car and a race car. The seven generations of this emblematic sports car have all had one key aspect in common: a front-mounted engine spinning the rear wheels. Chevrolet will toss this heritage out the window when it releases the mid-engined, eighth-generation Corvette during the 2020 model year.
While some are understandably stunned by the change, we’re surprised it didn’t happen sooner. Chevrolet began testing mid-engined Corvette and Corvette-derived prototypes in the early 1960s and it has come shockingly close to approving the switch on several occasions. Join us for a look at the prototypes the eighth-generation Corvette shares its lineage with:
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The father of the Corvette
The roster of engineers, enthusiasts and race car drivers who wanted Chevrolet to make a mid-engined Corvette grew as the model’s performance increased during the 1960s. The loudest request came from Zora Arkus-Duntov (1909-1996), an engineer often referred to as the father of the Corvette.
He alchemized the model from a lackadaisical boulevard cruiser to a world-class sports car and he firmly believed placing the engine in the middle of the chassis would take the Corvette to the next level in terms of performance and design.
His theory was difficult to argue against, but the Corvette sold so well with a simpler, cheaper front-engined configuration that Chevrolet had little incentive to spend a fortune developing a drastically new variant with a mid-mounted engine. He spent a good chunk of his time as the Corvette’s chief engineer in an engine placement tug-of-war with his higher-ups.
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The CERV (1960)
Arkus-Duntov knew the benefits of a mid-engined layout well; he took first in class at the 1954 and 1955 editions of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Porsche 550. He leveraged his racing experience to develop a prototype called Chevrolet Engineering Research Vehicle (CERV) presented in 1960.
The 350bhp single-seater looked more like an open-wheel race car than a Corvette, and it was never considered for production, but it gave the public insight into the work Chevrolet was doing to improve handling across its range.
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The CERV II (1964)
Arkus-Duntov began developing a second mid-engined engineering test mule in 1961 and this time he hoped for the chance to prove its mettle on the track. Presented in 1964, the CERV II arrived as an open-top race car powered by a mid-mounted V8 tuned to deliver up to 542bhp.
The eight-cylinder channeled its output to the four wheels via a four-wheel drive system made up of two semi-automatic transmissions (one for each axle). This setup was as innovative as it was complicated.
The CERV II performed the 0-60mph sprint in 2.8sec during early test sessions. Arkus-Duntov planned to turn the prototype into a coupé and build a small handful of examples to enter in high-stakes, high-profile events like the 24 Hours of Le Mans but General Motors management banned him from taking it racing.
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The Astro II (1968)
The CERV prototypes had a limited impact on enthusiasts because they were only loosely related to the Corvette and they weren’t envisioned as production models. Chevrolet bridged the gap between race cars and production cars when it introduced the Astro II concept during the 1968 New York auto show.
It gave the general public its first look at what a series-produced, street-legal mid-engined Corvette could look like and enthusiasts couldn't get enough of it.
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The Astro II (1968)
The 1968 Astro II was, as its name implied, a follow-up to the Astro I shown a year earlier. It weighed about 136kg less than a stock Corvette, and it had roughly the same footprint, but it stood out with a low-slung body drawn with aerodynamics in mind. Its design looked like a logical evolution of the Corvette and it was far more realistic than the pie-in-the-sky concepts automakers often displayed during the 1960s; it even had a cargo compartment.
Chevrolet asked its engineering department to deliver the Astro II as quickly and as cheaply as possible so the team working on it used many existing parts to save time and money. Power came from a 395bhp V8 that shifted through (and eventually destroyed) a two-speed transaxle sourced from a 1963 Pontiac Tempest.
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The Astro II (1968)
The third-generation Corvette went on sale during the 1968 model year but rumours persistently pointed to the launch of a quicker, sportier model built to show the world that Ford wasn’t the only American automaker capable of making a mid-engined supercar. Many assumed the Astro II previewed that yet-unnamed car, and General Motors later admitted it came very close to giving the concept the green light for production, but it ultimately remained at the design study stage.
While the stock Corvette certainly couldn’t ridicule a Ferrari on the track, it sold well as a front-engined, rear-wheel drive model. The case for keeping the Corvette as it had always been made itself during the late 1960s. Chevrolet saw no good reason to invest a substantial amount of money into re-inventing it as a mid-engined coupé.
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The XP-882 (1969)
Arkus-Duntov trusted his instincts and his experience, even if it meant contradicting Chevrolet’s marketing department. He firmly believed the Corvette needed to adopt a mid-engined layout. He set out to prove his point again when he began working on a prototype called XP-882 internally. He borrowed a V8 engine and a three-speed automatic transaxle from the Oldsmobile Toronado and mounted the drivetrain transversally, Lamborghini Miura-style.
The XP-882 looked shockingly good, it could have entered production with only minor changes, and it drove as well as Arkus-Duntov hoped. In 2019, its fate remains a point of debate among automotive historians, one that Chevrolet - a company more interested in future mid-engined Corvettes than past models - isn’t eager to shed light on.
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The XP-882 (1969)
Some historians claim John Z. DeLorean canceled the XP-882 project for cost reasons when he took the top job at Chevrolet. Others argue General Motors liked it but delayed it in order to power it with a Wankel-style rotary engine to cement its positioning as Chevrolet’s technology and performance flagship.
Either way, Chevrolet displayed the XP-882 at the 1970 New York auto show to make arch nemesis Ford believe it had a rival for the DeTomaso Pantera in its product plan. The Dearborn-based firm imported the Pantera to the United States, installed its own V8 engine in it and sold it through its Lincoln-Mercury dealer network. In reality, General Motors either didn’t consider the Pantera a threat, or got caught off-guard by it, and it had nothing to counter it with.
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The XP-895 (1972)
The XP-882’s career didn’t end when General Motors management canned it. Chevrolet used its basic chassis to build a new mid-engined prototype called XP-895 fitted with an aluminum body manufactured by Reynolds Aluminum, hence why historians sometimes refer to it as the Reynolds Corvette.
Reynolds wrapped the sheet metal around the same 400-cubic-inch V8 engine and three-speed automatic transaxle found in the XP-882. Chevrolet also made a second XP-895 with a steel body.
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The XP-897GT (1973)
General Motors made large investments in Wankel technology during the early 1970s. Its engineering department saw a tremendous amount of potential in the rotary engine because it occupied less space than a comparable piston engine. The firm planned several variants ranging from a small unit suitable for an economy car like the Chevrolet Vega to a high-performance, multi-rotor engine worthy of powering a sports car like the Corvette
Arkus-Duntov’s desire for a mid-engined Corvette was as strong as ever and many inside Chevrolet’s research and development department hailed the Wankel as the Corvette’s ticket into the European market. Work started on an experimental Corvette that broke every tie with the nameplate’s heritage. XP-897GT was a relatively small coupé with an Italian design powered by a mid-mounted Wankel engine.
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The XP-897GT (1973)
Chevrolet didn’t start the XP-897GT project from scratch, according to insiders who later spoke to Hemmings. The team in charge of the project purchased a Porsche 914/6, cut off the body and shortened the wheelbase. Engineers replaced the air-cooled flat-six with an experimental twin-rotor Wankel bolted to a three-speed automatic transmission.
The drivetrain was developed for a front-engined, front-wheel drive car so powering a mid-engined Corvette with it was simply a matter of moving it from in front of the passenger compartment to directly behind it.
Surprisingly, Chevrolet retained the 914’s suspension and brakes. Pininfarina drew a low, wide body with a swept-back windscreen and relatively big door windows to improve visibility. Nothing about the design said Corvette; the XP-897GT was more stylish than the third-generation Corvette and its proportions were markedly different.
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The XP-897GT (1973)
Chevrolet presented the XP-897GT (also called the two-rotor Corvette) during the 1973 Paris auto show to make its focus on the European market crystal clear. It was a sight to behold: a big, old-fashioned V8-powered sports car re-imagined as a true driver’s car with an advanced drivetrain and an Italian design.
Show-goers loved it; it wore an elegant design and its Wankel powertrain was ingenious. Chevrolet took note of every positive comment it received during the Paris show.
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The four-rotor Corvette (1973)
Chevrolet must have worried about how Americans would greet a Corvette tailored for European roads. It made a second mid-engined prototype powered by a 414bhp, quad-rotor engine – essentially two XP-897GT units fused together. The four-rotor prototype shared much of its chassis with the earlier XP-895, so it was bigger than its twin-rotor sibling, and the two cars are often mistakenly referred to as the same prototype.
Interestingly, the four-rotor prototype was one of the experimental Corvette models equipped with double-hinged gullwing doors like the Tesla Model X. It was considerably more advanced than the Corvette in production at the time thanks in part to an array of electronic equipment like an on-board computer and digital instrumentation.
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The end of the Wankels (1970s)
Various reports claimed Chevrolet had finally shown the next-generation Corvette. Many expected to see at least one of the Wankel-engined prototypes in showrooms sooner rather than later. But, as had already happened several times, the project was canceled before either one had the chance to morph into a production model.
This time, Chevrolet killed the mid-engined Corvette when General Motors stopped its research into the rotary engine.
The company explained getting any kind of Wankel engine (regardless of power output or displacement) to comply with emissions regulations proved too costly. The spike in fuel prices after the oil embargo likely played a sizeable role in the project’s demise, too.
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The Aerovette (1977)
General Motors reluctantly accepted that the Wankel engine was stuck in a technological and regulatory dead-end but many decision-makers at Chevrolet had warmed up to the idea of making the Corvette mid-engined. The firm developed one final evolution of the XP-882 prototype called Aerovette that was powered by a mighty 6.6-litre V8 engine.
The fact that the prototype had an actual name rather than an internally-assigned alpha-numeric designation hinted that it represented a serious effort to take the Corvette in a more exotic and more dynamic direction. Chevrolet even tentatively floated a 1980 release date.
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The Aerovette (1977)
The 1980 model year came and went without a mid-engined Corvette – or any kind of new Corvette. While the project was approved for production, the men who spent decades pushing for a sportier Corvette were no longer around to enthusiastically see the project through.
Zora Arkus-Duntov notably retired in 1975. Chevrolet chose Dave McLellan to replace Arkus-Duntov as the Corvette’s chief engineer and he resisted internal efforts to move the engine behind the passengers because he preferred the traditional front-engined layout. The final call was his to make. The fourth-generation Corvette made its debut in 1984 with a front-mounted V8 engine.
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Corvette Indy (1986)
After the Aerovette project sank from sight, Chevrolet didn’t dare speak of a mid-engined super Corvette until the Corvette Indy concept made its debut during the 1986 Detroit auto show. The coupé's futuristic, muscular lines wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Ferrari catalog but it proudly wore a Corvette emblem on its nose.
The Indy’s specs were even more impressive than its design. Power came from a 2.6-litre V8 engine derived from Chevrolet’s IndyCar racing program and Lotus – which General Motors was in the process of buying at the time – tuned the concept’s suspension. Four-wheel steering, drive-by-wire technology, satellite navigation and a digital instrument cluster were all on the menu and these ingredients blended to create what was then the most advanced car Chevrolet had ever released.
Nothing suggests anyone seriously considered turning the Indy concept into a production model, though. It was largely a rolling display of engineering built to publicize Chevrolet’s IndyCar effort and its parent company’s on-going acquisition of Lotus.
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CERV III (1990)
While the Corvette Indy wasn’t intended as a preview of a production model, Chevrolet couldn’t resist the urge to prove that it could build it if it wanted – and if it sensed a strong enough demand for it. It also once again felt the Corvette was being left behind in the performance car world. The Porsche 959 and the Ferrari F40 were still making headlines and Dodge was about to steal its thunder with the original Viper.
Chevrolet wanted to be back on top. The CERV III concept it revealed in 1990 was a more realistic evolution of the Corvette Indy with an updated design, a new powertrain and an array of modifications made with an eye on homologation. Composite materials like carbonfibre and Kevlar kept the CERV III’s weight down to 1545kg while making it eye-wateringly expensive to build.
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CERV III (1990)
Lotus played a role in the CERV III’s development. It helped Chevrolet squeeze 641bhp out of the concept’s quad-cam, twin-turbocharged 5.7-liter V8 engine, which was enough to send it to a 225mph top speed (about 25mph faster than a Ferrari F40). The eight-cylinder shifted through a complicated six-speed setup made up of a three-speed automatic transmission backed by a two-speed unit. Power eventually traveled to the four wheels.
While the CERV III remained at the prototype stage, its engine later powered the Corvette ZR-1 and some of its styling cues appeared on the fifth-generation Corvette launched in 1997. Chevrolet stopped openly experimenting with the idea of a mid-engined Corvette for over a decade after it relegated the CERV III to museum car status.
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Corvette Stingray (C8, 2019)
Zora Arkus-Duntov would be proud. The Corvette shifted to a mid-engined layout for the first time in the nameplate’s 64-year history when it entered its eighth-generation in 2019. It wasn’t an easy decision to make, and Chevrolet knew the development process would be arduous, but its decision-makers finally felt the timing was right. What changed its mind?
Travel back to 1997 with us. Like all of its predecessors, the fifth-generation Corvette arrived with a front-mounted engine spinning the rear wheels. Its overall silhouette didn’t change much, either. The sixth- and seventh-generation models stuck with the layout, too. Chevrolet resisted change for a variety of reasons ranging from market demand to cost, but it ultimately fell into a form of design complacency.
Corvette owners are a loyal bunch, they’re likely to buy the newest version of the car either to replace the one currently in their garage or to add it to their growing collection. Relying on this group was a strategy that worked well until its members stopped buying sports cars as they aged.
Younger buyers weren’t around to take the torch, Chevrolet hadn’t done much to lure them into showrooms, so the only way to jump-start sales – and the model’s career – was to start with a blank slate. We can’t wait to drive it. It’ll be revealed officially on Thursday 18th July 2019 - in the meantime, here’s our artist impression of what we think it’ll look like:
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