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For a period starting in the late 1960s, it looked like everyone was going mid-engine. After Lamborghini turned the world on its head with the excruciatingly beautiful Miura in 1966, mid-mounted drivetrain layouts became de rigueur in 1970s supercars. Ferrari followed suit with the 206 Dino and later 365 GT4 BB, Lancia with the Stratos, and even Maserati joined the fray in 1971 with the mid-engined Bora. It wasn’t just the Italians, either—Mercedes-Benz tested the handsome C111 platform, and later BMW launched the M1. If there was a high-performance, high-dollar car in the 1970s, you can be sure the automaker at least tested a mid-engine platform. Unsurprisingly, that also included General Motors. After its CERV II concept successfully demonstrated the General’s capacity for cutting-edge tech, serious attention was turned toward moving the Corvette’s V-8 thumper amidships. Papa Corvette—Zora Arkus-Duntov—really, really liked the idea of a mid-engined Vette to keep up with Europe’s...

Thanks Zerv!

07.1 8 .19 1976 Aerovette IMDCB

During his tenure as the general manager of Chevrolet, John Z. DeLorean always seemed to have his eye fixed on something over the horizon. After the Corvette XP-882 mid-engine prototype chassis improvements were approved (the 882 would morph into the XP-895), DeLorean authorized the design team headed by Bill Mitchell to create a new body for the updated prototype. Something rounder, with big wheel flares, a sugar scoop rear roof treatment, and NACA ducts on the hood. While the final design was nice, it strayed further away from the Corvette “look,” and was actually closer in style to the Two-Rotor (XP-987 GT) mid-engine Corvette prototype. Oddly, the body was mostly made of steel and the car weighed about 3,500 pounds all in—about 100 pounds more than that of a production ’73 Corvette. This would yield no performance improvement at all, so what was the point? It needed to be lighter. It needed to be a car like the Reynolds Aluminum Corvette Prototype. Reynolds Metals (of alum...

07.1 8 .19 1986 Indy

By 1976, the Chevrolet Corvette, once “America’s Sports Car,” had been well and truly neutered. The C3 Corvette launched in 1968 had started off well enough, with svelte chrome bumpers, curvaceous styling borrowed from 1965’s Mako Shark II concept, and a standard 300-hp, 327-cubic-inch V-8 engine. GM’s engineers had even developed a “for racing only” L88 engine: a 430-hp, 427-cubic-inch V-8 that many say was closer to a 500-hp, 500-lb-ft monster in reality. Alas, the times were changing and as the U.S. rolled into the 1970s, the performance car seemed to suddenly be under threat. Emissions regulations began to become more strenuous, causing automakers to detune their fire-breathing performance motors with weak compression ratios and milder cams and carburetors. Oil shortages were leading to high gas prices at the pump and Corvette buyers themselves were aging, resulting in increased demands for comfort and, for the first time ever, more automatic-transmission Corvettes being sold ...

07.1 8 .19 1990 CERV III IMCDB