How does a mid-engine Corvette with a rotary powerplant sound to you? Two great tastes that could have gone great together – and that GM recently commended in a series it’s been running called “Retro Rides.” Here’s the teaser:
The eighth generation Corvette that sits in Chevrolet showrooms today, with its mid-engine layout and world-beating performance, may feel like a bold new chapter in the nameplate’s history – but the idea of a Corvette with its motor mounted behind the driver and passenger has been simmering for decades. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Chevrolet began exploring different powertrain applications and engine layouts under the Chevrolet Experimental Research Vehicle program. Among them was a mid-engine, Wankel rotary-powered concept dubbed the “XP882” Four Rotor Corvette…alongside a smaller, less powerful “XP-987GT” Two Rotor Corvette concept.
As the company notes, chasing Wankeled propulsion initially meant a Vette that was more about handling than muscled-up power. And about gorgeous, gull-winged design and a groovy (yet minimalist) interior that boasted a digital instrument panel. The whole thing was thoroughly ahead of its time…and never escaped the concept stage.
Enter the Aerovette
Rotary engines had their moments, most famously with the Mazda RX-7 and RX-8 sports cars. The concept Vette, however, later dropped the technology while retaining the car’s stunning lines. Design legend Bill Mitchell brought the styling out of the archives and plunked a 6.6-liter V8 behind the driver. The Aerovette was born in 1976, and I mean, just look at it! It takes everybody’s favorite production Vette, the “Boogie Nights” C3, and alters the proportions, shortening the hood and elongating the tail so that the entire affair is fantastically balanced.
The triumphant results gave the Italians a run for their lira. Mitchell owed the design to Corvette’s Zora Arkus-Duntov, who had proposed the rotary mid-engine model before giving up and retiring from GM in 1975 (according to Motor Trend). On the car show circuit, the Aerovette set off a torrent of speculation about whether the marque would finally move the motor out from under the front hood. That speculation persisted for several more decades, until the mid-engine C8 Corvette debuted in 2019.
Remember the Aerovette!
For students of the sports car and engineering geeks who appreciate the rotary engine’s advantages over conventional piston motors, there is something special about that mid-1970s period. For example, the Ferrari 308 arrived in 1976, two years after the Dino 246 was wound down by Maranello. There’s an argument to be made that the Aerovette outshone them both. And if Arkus-Duntov’s earlier concept had even made it to production, there would have been something extra-special about that curvaceous yet perfectly calibrated bodywork in combination with an engine design that, thanks to its compactness, was ideal for an amidships location.
From my perspective as a Ferrari 308 superfan and a person who was always intrigued by the rotary engine, the initial concept that became the Aerovette would have been an apex Vette for me. However, after waiting, like, more than forty years for a mid-engine Corvette, I had actually become a devotee of the front-engine car. The C7 Corvette GS is now the pinnacle in my world. And even though like every other automotive journalist I routinely pressed GM execs to give up the goods on the mid-engine rollout, I was sort of disappointed – and in the minority for that reaction – when it arrived. Oh well. I’ll always have the Aerovette so that I can imagine what might have been.
