The Shape of Vettes to Come - Corvette Concept Prototypes from 1970-2011

In partnership with Reynolds Aluminum (the Reynolds Wrap people) Chevrolet built an all-aluminum prototype Corvette in 1972 - they started with a leftover chassis from the 1970 XP-882 prototype, and kept the mid-mounted V8 format in this concept vehicle. Apart from the interior and parts that absolutely had to be steel, the whole car was made of aluminum. While this vehicle never saw production, as an engineering exercise this was another Corvette that was ahead of its time. Today, many performance cars use aluminum and other alloys to reduce weight.

After the initial changeover from a straight 6-cylinder engine to a V8 in the mid-fifties, the idea of anything but a V8 engine in a Corvette seems strange. But Ed Cole, President of GM in the late 1960s and early 1970s, put some engineering effort behind the "GMRCE" (General Motors Rotary Combustion Engine) - similar to the Wankel engine used by Mazda in the same period. He wanted to test the rotary engine idea for a possible new Corvette, so the design team took a Porsche 914 chassis and mated it to a Pininfarina steel body and put the GMRCE into it. Ultimately the rotary project was abandoned, but the XP-897GT lives on in Great Britain in the hands of a collector.

Along with the XP-897GT two-rotor Corvette concept, GM President Ed Cole also asked Bill Mitchell and the Corvette design team to make a more powerful four-rotor concept prototype. The resulting car was built on one of the XP-882 chassis that Zora Arkus-Duntov had created. The four-rotor engine was produced by bolting two of the smaller two-rotor engines together, and mounted amidships in the same space that used to house the V8 engine in the original concept. The new four-rotor engine produced 350 horsepower, which was great for that era. But like its two-rotor cousin, this concept was abandoned when GM gave up on the rotary engine, although the chassis was used again for the 1976 Aerovette concept.

This concept was built by taking the four-rotor engine out of the previous concept car and replacing the small block V8 mounted transversely behind the driver. GM Styling Chief Bill Mitchell loved this design and the concept was approved to become the 1980 Corvette! Ultimately, however, the traditional Corvette's sales strength made GM reconsider, but this vehicle almost became the C4 Corvette!

In 1986, Chevy was going high-tech, and built this concept car in cooperation with British sports car maker Lotus to showcase everything that might go into a future Corvette. The list included all wheel drive, four-wheel steering, backup camera, electronically controlled active suspension, traction control, and an electronic throttle. At first, the car received a turbocharged Lotus 2.6-liter V8 engine, but that engine was abandoned in favor of a V8 engine that bears some relationship to the later LS-series engines. What's impressive about this concept is how many of its features have found their way into later Corvettes and other GM products.

This version of the Chevrolet Engineering Research Vehicle arrived in 1990 and brought forward many of the features that had been found on the Indy Concept Corvette before it, including all wheel drive and a prototype of the first ZR1 engine. Looking at the car, it seems to be an alien life form version of a C4 Corvette. This concept showed that GM was still enamored of the mid-engine design, and its prototype turbocharged engine produced 650 horsepower - more than a current ZR1!

Looking ahead to the C6 Corvette, the GM Design team created this concept in 1992. This car originally had a turbocharged V6 (the latest in a series of design notions to take the Corvette to a high-tech forced induction V6 - all of which failed) but later was gifted with a V8 engine. The car also used carbon fiber in place of much of the fiberglass on a conventional Corvette and was equipped with four-wheel steering. It's worth noting that this prototype also included a rear-mounted transaxle - a feature that was adopted in 1997 for the C5 Corvette. This concept prototype was contemporaneous with the CERV IV, which ultimately did become the C5 Corvette!