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07.1 8 .19 1976 Aerovette IMDCB

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

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The Chevrolet Aerovette was a concept car created by Chevrolet, beginning life as Experimental Project 882 (XP-882) in the late 1960s. It had a mid-engine configuration using a transverse mounting of its V8 engine. Zora Arkus-Duntov's engineers originally built two XP-882 prototypes during 1969, but John DeLorean, Chevrolet's general manager, canceled the program believing it to be impractical and costly. However, when Ford announced plans to sell the DeTomaso Pantera through Lincoln-Mercury dealers, DeLorean ordered that one XP-882 prototype be cleaned up for display at the 1970 New York Auto Show. In 1972, DeLorean authorized further work on the XP-882 chassis and gave it a new project code, XP-895. A near-identical body in aluminum alloy that resembled the XP-895 was constructed, and became the "Reynolds Aluminum Car." Two of the Chevrolet Vega 2-rotor engines were joined together as a 4-rotor, 420 horsepower (310 kW) engine, which was used to power XP-895.