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“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know” Keats: Ode on a Grecian Urn Times are changing.  We may like it or not, but times are changing. As times are changing, also people and their values, and their perception about society, about society values, attitude and ultimately beauty.  And style. Look at Corvette for example. The ultimate example. In the beginning it was like a very well tailored suit. Perfectly done tuxedo. Something special, a brilliant descendant of the Jaguar-inspired elegant original C1 from 1953. And yes, the key-word here was elegance.  Hell, even the name of the black color was tuxedo black. It was the time when having a Corvette didn't mean showing what you have. Everyone knew instantly what it was. It was the Corvette. The perfect sportscar that was dressing its owner. With good taste and style. It was art, and as such it was meant to be something for eternity. As it does. This key word la

It's Time. 07.1 8 .19.20:00 DETROIT — The late Zora Arkus-Duntov, the father of the Chevrolet Corvette, had a vision for a mid-engine Corvette. That vision will come to life the evening of July 18, 2019, in Orange County, California, and the world can watch the reveal via livestream from the comfort of their own homes. The livestream opens at 7:30 p.m. PDT/10:30 p.m. EDT on July 18 and can be accessed through media.chevrolet.com/nextgenCorvette, which also will be sent out on Chevrolet’s social media channels. The stream will include Corvette video footage, a hosted preshow and the reveal presentation. It will be available for viewing across the globe, in all seven continents. “There is a large contingent of Corvette fans across the world waiting for the reveal of the Next Generation. We’re happy to give these fans, and all sports car enthusiasts, a way to see and learn about the vehicle at the same time as those participating live in California,” said Barry Engle, e

07.1 8 .19 1970 XP-882 April 2, 1970 was a notable day for Corvette fans, as the XP-882 mid-engine Corvette concept made a surprise appearance, wowing the crowds at the New York auto show. Even this early in the mid-engine Corvette story, such a model had already taken on mythical status among the faithful, and the XP-882’s drop-dead looks gave Corvette lovers everything they didn’t even know they wanted. And then some. Corvette lead engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov’s team started working on the XP-882 in 1968. Two prototypes were built around small-block Chevy engines, with plans for big-block power and eventually all-wheel drive. Zora had been playing with AWD since his experimental mid-engine CERV II racer. The styling group designed a new look that was crisp, edgy, and low-slung, yet it still looked like a Corvette. Despite fierce resistance from sales, styling, and engineering, Chevrolet general manager John Z. DeLorean canceled the XP-882 project in August 1969 to pur

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

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

Imagine having the confidence of 1980s General Motors. The kind of confidence that bolsters you to design a svelte, tapered, mid-engined hypercar thing loaded to the gills with (then) ultra-advanced tech and a small-displacement V-8 designed primarily to race at the Indy 500, and then proudly proclaim that, yes, this may well be what the fifth-generation Corvette could look like. This is exactly what happened back in 1986 with the mega-cool Corvette Indy concept. Of all the mid-engined Vette concepts, design studies, and engineering prototypes, the Indy and subsequent CERV III perhaps sting the sharpest as the ones that really should have been built. Instead, this pie-in-the-sky concept ended up primarily showcasing the engineering might of General Motors without the company having to bring all the resulting tech to market. Aesthetically, the Indy remains one of the most striking Corvette concepts ever created. It’s a very long and lean supercar shape, like someone took a pari