Corvette Forum Tours GM Heritage Center
Your mid-engine Corvette overload is found right here in the GM Heritage Center.
“What might have been?” Perspectives like that are a fun way to look at cars, and of all the things we like about the GM Heritage Center, it’s the concept cars that stand out most.
Technology advances throughout the years have seen a wide variety of experimental Corvettes, including mid-engine technology. Rumors abound for a mid-engine C8 Corvette, so we’ve decided to take a closer look at the concepts that represent the MR configuration.
Reynolds Corvette Experimental
This concept is, as you’d expect, mid-engine, but ends up coming off less like a Corvette with an engine behind the driver, and more like a completely different angle on a sports car all together. Having been made in 1972, it comes right on the brink of the oil crisis, as evidenced by a 6.6-liter engine.
It’s powered by an automatic transmission, which almost puts it into what we’d currently think of as an exotic luxury coupe.
Chevrolet Aerovette
Coming in after the Reynolds concept is the Aerovette. Again, noting the oil crisis, the main purpose for this Corvette was experiments in both aerodynamics and engine technology. Powered, oddly, by a four-rotor rotary engine, this concept was very much ahead of its time.
Similar to Mercedes’ C111 concept, this soon switched to a V8 motor, but was transverse-mounted. Still, this Aerovette played an important part in the development of aerodynamics for future Corvette models.
These aren’t the only Corvettes in the Heritage Center, and if you’d like to see more, our friends over at LS1Tech have an awesome write-up that you can find right here.
Chime in with your thoughts on the forum. >>
