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Remember when Chevy made a mid-engine rotary Corvette?

Mitchell Tulk
Contributor
4 Sep 2018
2 min read

There are a lot of images floating around the internet hinting heavily that the next gen Corvette will be mid-engined, however this isn't the first time Chevy's sports car has been fitted with an engine behind the driver.

Named the Experimental Project 882 (later called the Aerovette), it first appeared in 1969 when Chevy was playing around with the idea of taking a V8 from the front of a Corvette and shoving it in the middle.

It didn’t take long for John DeLorean to can the program, but the sleek sports car was revived in the early ‘70s when Chevy kickstarted its own development of the rotary engine.

The Experimental Project 895 (XP-895) used a 6.4-litre four-rotor made by combining two Wankel engines from the prototype Vega.

Even America's rotary engines are huge.
Even America's rotary engines are huge.

Power was rated at 310kW and it could out accelerate Chevy’s big-block 7.4-litre V8.

The prototype was displayed at the ’73 Chicago and Paris Motor shows, but thanks to the energy/oil crisis the rotary-powered Corvette program was brought to an unabrupt end.

A 6.6-litre V8 replaced the rotary, and by 1980 the Aerovette was approved for production, but the plan backflipped with the decision it was cheaper to build a front-engined Corvette instead.

However, mid-engine Corvettes still appeared throughout the years with the 2.65-litre V8-powered (taken from Chevy’s Indy car program) Indy concept revealed in ‘86 and 1990 saw the creation of the twin-turbocharged CERV III. Neither reached production.

It's now 2018 and the world is getting closer to what Chevy has teased for decades now, but is there a chance that at the 11th hour it'll suffer the same fate as its predecessors?

Should Chevy bring back the rotary-powered Corvette? Let us know in the comments.

Mitchell Tulk
Contributor
Following a passion shared by his father and grandfather, Mitchell’s love of cars really kicked off with his Godfather’s purchase of a new Mazda RX-8. Exposure to that car changed his world forever, leading to an RX-7 obsession. To feed his automotive addiction, Mitchell decided to become a motoring journalist and made his mark at several high-profile motoring publications before landing at CarsGuide. While he is a rotary loyalist, Mitchell also has a massive love for Aussie muscle cars, and dreams of one day getting behind the wheel of a Charger R/T E49 (if anyone will let him). His other passions include Queensland, and spending Saturdays with the boys.
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