Concept Corvettes 1959 to 1992

[Cameron 77C3]

The Corvettes That Never Were:  With all due respect to the Dodge Viper, the Corvette is America's sports car
By Frank Markus
Photography by David Freers
//motortrend.com

Concept Corvettes: 1959 Sting Ray, 1973 XP-895 Reynolds, 1977 Aero-Vette, 1990 Cerv III, 1992 Sting Ray III

[align=justify]It was our first one and it was our only one for way too long, so it got as tightly woven into the fabric of our nation as television, the microchip, and the space program. National pride may explain why generations of American car enthusiasts, even though most could never own one, have taken such an inordinate interest in the Corvette. For a half-century, General Motors has fed this insatiable fascination with a steady stream of concept cars, leaked drawings, and unofficial factory rumours, each of which could be relied upon to produce a flurry of magazine covers asking the timeless question "Is this the new Corvette?"--Motor Trend's included.

Most of these pinup fantasies never lived to leak oil on suburban driveways, but each has an interesting story to tell. Many established new trends in sports-car styling. Some explored technological dead-ends. Some great ideas got ash-canned when their champions lost corporate political battles or ran afoul of the cost accountants. All have interesting tales, and many are still around to tell them.[/align]

[align=center]Part 1 In a Six Part Series[/b]
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[align=justify]So, now, let's pry open the doors of GM's Heritage Museum and take a drive in five of the world's most storied Vette prototypes and concepts.
Light, agile European sports cars began making inroads in the U.S. just after WWII, but few of the decision-makers in Detroit had ever driven one. Fewer still were interested in shifting resources away from the big, profitable sleds the public was voraciously buying in the early 1950s. Design chief Harley Earl was an avid sports-car fan, however, and he wielded enough power within GM to have his own secret sandbox. In 1952, his team holed up in that box and built the EX-122 show car, named it after a fast Royal Navy warship, and put it on display in December as one of the dream cars at the GM Motorama auto show in New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel. Audience reaction was so overwhelming that the car was rushed into production by June 1953.

That it survived its first few years is largely thanks to a Russian Motorama attendee born in Belgium. Zora Arkus-Duntov loved the Corvette's design but was so bothered by its pushrod-six-cylinder, two-speed automatic drivetrain that he talked his way into a job at GM. Within a few years, Corvettes were winning races and the sporty-looking slowpoke had earned its reputation as America's sports car.[/align]

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Part 2
1959 Sting Ray

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[align=justify]The man behind most of the Corvette concept cars that graced magazine covers throughout the 1960s and 1970s was Harley Earl's successor, Bill Mitchell. This son of a Pennsylvania Buick dealer grew up racing sports cars on the East Coast, so he took an intense interest in the Corvette. The second-generation (C2) car of 1963 was his, and its design first appeared on the Sting Ray racer of 1959. Mitchell built the Sting Ray because he believed deeply in the value of racing. After the Big Three banned factory racing in June 1957, he talked management into letting him race using his own money, and he purchased an exotic Corvette SS tube-frame chassis (for $1) that had been prepared to race at Le Mans. The only condition? He had to rebody it so it wouldn't be mistaken for a Corvette, SR2, or SS racer.

Mitchell and young styling recruit Larry Shinoda sequestered themselves to the basement and designed a unique new shape. It made its public debut at Maryland's Marlborough Raceway on April 18, 1959, powered by a 283-cubic-inch small-block with experimental 11:1 compression aluminium cylinder heads and took fourth place with Dr. Dick Thompson "The Flying Dentist" at the wheel. It raced through 1960 wearing only "Sting Ray" badges, before retiring to tour the auto-show circuit in 1961.[/align]

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1959 Sting Ray[/align]

[align=justify]General Motors has restored the Sting Ray to its show-car brilliance, but listening to the Rochester-injected 283 snarl through mostly open side pipes and watching the rear tires jerk and skid in tight turns, thanks to the welded differential, one marvels at the notion of Bill Mitchell using this car as daily transportation in between races. But slip into the metallic-silver driver's bucket and there's less bite than bark. The engine starts readily and idles evenly. Engage the unsynchronized first gear with a click of the clockwork-precise shifter, release the pedal to smoothly engage the clutch, and you're off--straight-cut gears whining and side pipes howling. It's so docile that even Elvis could drive it--which he did in his 1967 movie "Clambake." With roughly 300 horsepower pulling only 2150 pounds of Sting Ray, it's easy to see why Mitchell was only too happy to put up with the wind rushing over the short screen and directly into his eyes.[/align]

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Part 3 Tomorrow Night[/align]




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[jolinari]

Good read & quality post...

[Cameron 77C3]

As promised


[align=center]Part 3
1973 XP-895 Reynolds

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[align=justify]Over the next few years, Bill Mitchell's Shark and Mako Shark concepts steered public opinion in the direction the C3 Corvette's styling would take in 1968, but life got more interesting in the late 1960s. America's sports car has seldom been seriously threatened by any real competition, but the fear of a mid-engine rival drove some very cool concepts that kept magazine covers broiling with Deep Throat exposes and prognostications. And political intrigue behind the scenes drove more than a few decisions in the day.

Ford scared Chevy into designing the first round of mid-engine concepts when it showed the GT40-inspired Mach 2 (in 1968) and then announced it would sell the De Tomaso Pantera in Lincoln-Mercury dealers beginning in 1970. Rival camps within the Chevy empire set about designing Corvettes to answer these threats. Frank Winchell's R&D team built the first, dubbed Astro II, powered by a big-block 427 driving through an anaemic Pontiac Tempest transaxle. Corvette chief engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov's team built the second, known simply as XP-882, using more production-viable Toronado drivetrain parts.[/align]

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1973 XP-895 Reynolds[/align]

[align=justify]Competition improves any breed, but in any contest to design the next Corvette the smart money was always bet on the Duntov project. Motor Trend drove the Astro II, but at such low speed that we commented only on its cramped seating position. Of Duntov's New York show car we hyperbolized: "Chevrolet roared out of the sun with the throttle wide-open and the wind shrieking and watched their tracers stitch into the shining sides of the new De Tomaso," concluding that Chevrolet "needs the mid-engine car to sustain the dreamlike idealism of [its] devoted followers." Nevertheless, freshly ascended Chevy boss John DeLorean called a halt to round one on account of excessive cost and realization that the competition posed no real threat.[/align]

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Part 4 Tomorrow night[/align]

[Cameron 77C3]

[align=center]Part 4
1977 Aero-Vette

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[align=justify]GM president and Chevy engineering alum Ed Cole instigated round two as a showcase for his pet project: the lightweight, power-dense Wankel rotary engine. R&D got the job first and built a light, agile small sports car around a 180-horse, two-rotor engine. Duntov and Mitchell were unimpressed and responded by hitching two such rotaries together, souping them up to make 420 horsepower, and mounting them to the modified Toronado drivetrain in a recycled XP-882 chassis. The aero-sleek skin penned by Henry Haga, under the direction of Chuck Jordan (and Mitchell), blew the rival 2-Rotor's away and stole the Paris show where the two cars shared a stage. This round was called on account of the OPEC oil embargo that doomed the thirsty Wankel's future.

Round three was almost tooled for production. In 1977, the 4-Rotor show car was dusted off, outfitted with a 400-cubic-inch small-block, and rechristened Aero-Vette. Between Bill Mitchell's loud advocacy of this gorgeous mid-motor Vette and perhaps a perceived threat from ex-Chevy boss John DeLorean's own mid-engine DMC 12, GM chairman Thomas Murphy approved the Aero-Vette for production as the 1980 Corvette. But Mitchell's retirement that year, combined with then Corvette chief engineer Dave McLellan's lack of enthusiasm for the mid-engine design and copious marketing data about other slow-selling mid-engine cars, killed the last best hope for a mid-engine Vette.[/align]
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1977 Aero-Vette[/align]

[align=justify]Our loss. The Aero-Vette is a stunning piece of design. Bill Mitchell is said to have laid a T-square down and demanded a straight line be drawn from the front bumper to the windshield header, resulting in a 72-degree windshield. From the fixed seating position (the pedals and wheel adjust), the dash meets the windshield 50 inches forward of the driver's eye. That's exotic. So are the innovative bi-fold gullwing doors, the main drawback of which is that their windows don't open.[/align]

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Part 5 Tomorrow Night[/align]

[Cameron 77C3]

[align=center]Part 5
1990 Cerv III

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[align=justify]But it's the driving dynamics afforded by the mid-engine layout that the world missed out on. The light, direct steering enunciates its messages about what's happening at the contact patches better than can any car carrying 50 percent or more of its weight on the front axle. Both the Aero-Vette and the Reynolds Corvette that rides on an identical XP-882 chassis feel incredibly light on the nose and quick to change direction. In December 1976, we noted: "Even when pressed hard through a corner, the Aero-Vette remains neutral, although the tail can be brought out with a little throttle-induced oversteer." Journalists who sample the world's best cars loved the Aero-Vette. But would the Corvette have lost some of its quintessential American-ness without the long hood a front engine demands? Quite possibly.

With the Aero-veto's cancellation and the retirement of Vette protagonists Duntov and Mitchell, the dream-car factory ground to a virtual halt. It would be 11 years before the next "Super Secret" Corvette graced Motor Trend's cover (October 1987). That car, which we dubbed "Super Vette," was to be GM's magnum opus--a world-class exotic, featuring a mid-mounted four-cam V-8 powering all four wheels with four-wheel steering, active suspension, and virtually every technology to which an acronym could be assigned. Slippery minimalist styling was previewed by the 1986 Corvette Indy concept. We predicted a 200-mph top speed, a $120,000 price tag, and a 1991 launch date.[/align]

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1990 Cerv III[/align]


[align=justify]A running car, with all the features we anticipated--a twin-turbocharged LT-5 (ZR-1) engine good for 650 horses and 225 mph in street-legal, crashworthy trim--appeared at the 1990 Detroit show. It bore the humble moniker CERV III, but, even today, the car looks viable as a world-class supercar. Lift the handle, and the door pops out an inch or so, then swings up and out of the way. As in most of the earlier mid-engine Corvettes, the seats are fixed, the pedals and wheel movable. Its myriad electronics are multiplexed and networked on a primitive data bus that goes wonky if battery voltage drops. Despite our disconnecting the battery whenever the car wasn't running, voltage issues caused the headlamps to pop up and down and the wipers to swipe unprompted. Riding along, the engine's deep rumble was punctuated by motors and solenoids whirring and popping periodically.[/align]

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Final Parts 6 & 7 Tomorrow Night

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[Cameron 77C3]

[align=center]Part 6
1992 Sting Ray III

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[align=justify]The active suspension's optical sensors shine four beams of white light down from the undercarriage, and four-wheel steering allowed us to hang a U-turn on the two-lane road in front of the GM design office. The seating position, rakish windshield, and accelerative force would all feel familiar to a Lamborghini or mid-engine Ferrari owner. The car was considered for production, but the $300,000-plus price tag was deemed prohibitive for a Chevy--even a 225-mph one.

In 1989, design honcho Chuck Jordan staged an internal competition between three studios to style the C5 Corvette. His favourite was that penned by the newly established Advanced Concept Centre in Southern California. This roadster explored a radical rethink of the Corvette's proportions, stretching the wheelbase 6.7 inches and the width 3.3 inches, bobbing the tail by some four inches, and pulling the steeply raked windshield way forward.[/align]

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1992 Sting Ray III[/align]

[align=justify]The original running prototype proposed fitting a high-output V-6 engine (which may have influenced the odd three-spoke, three-lug wheels), but by its 1992 Detroit show debut it was packing 300 horses' worth of LT-1 V-8 muscle.

Climbing into the fixed seats is made easier by low side sills and an instrument-panel pod that articulates up when the door opens for improved knee clearance. The seatbacks are raked to a nearly recumbent position, and the hybrid analogue/digital gauges are visible over the top of the small, fat steering wheel. Organic dash forms and featureless door panels surround occupants without crowding them.[/align]

[align=justify]In the end, the Sting Ray III's design was deemed too similar to that of the Camaro (also penned in California), and elements of the three proposals were blended into the final design of the C5. If he were here, Bill Mitchell would probably counsel his successors that this amalgamated committee approach was responsible for the lukewarm reception the 1997 Corvette's styling received. And he'd probably coach current design chief Ed Welburn to take just one more stab at a mid-engine, fixed-seat Corvette dream car.

Magazine covers the world over are waiting.[/align]

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Part 7
Cool Mules

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[align=justify]Our focus here has been on full-blown concepts and prototypes, but along the way there have been some cool mules wearing civilian Corvette duds over wondrous hardware that never made production. The ZR-2 was a GM aftermarket proposal to sell kits for adapting a 454 marine engine to fit a C4 Corvette, generating ZR-1 performance on the cheap (MT, February 1991). The ZR-1 SS, aka "Snake Skinner," massaged a stock ZR-1 engine to 450 horses (hotter cam, better breathing) and lightened the body by 500 pounds with a Kevlar hood, Plexiglas hatch, and an aluminium-intensive chassis. Chevy claimed a 4.0-second 0-to-60-mph time (MT, May 1992). Most outrageous of all was the ZR-12, a C4 stretched eight inches to accommodate a Falconer V-12--the all-aluminium small-block-derived 90-degree pushrod engine used in marine, aircraft, and hot-rod applications. The ZR-12 weighed 100 pounds more than a stock Corvette and packed a claimed 686 horses, earning our moniker "Conan the Corvette." (MT, May 1992).[/align]

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If You would like a full printable Microsoft Word transcript of this including the pics, CLICK ME.  Depending on your connection speed, this may take a while.[/align]

Information provided :-

By Frank Markus
Photography by David Freers
At //motortrend.com

THE END

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[69 DIRTY RAT]

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