Chevrolet AeroVette (1976)

Chevrolet Aerovette history began long before the concept found its beautiful aircraft name. Even in 1969, under the leadership of the "father of Corvette" Zora Arkus-Dante started "pilot project 882". Mid-engined car is conceived and not shelving them, in the same year built two copies of XP-882. However, General Director, Chevrolet John DeLorean turned the project due to its high cost and impracticality.

This story would have ended, and if Ford has not announced plans to sell in the United States supercar DeTomaso Pantera. This damn attractive car was built in cooperation with the firm known rider Alessandro de Tomaso. DeLorean did not want to lose face, and pulled out one of the XP-882 on the stand New York Auto Show in 1970. Wipe colleagues nose, so to speak.

However, unlike the Panthers, commercially available since 1971 XP-882 project has received the green light from the DeLorean only a year later, and then only for the continuation of work on the chassis. This prototype index changed - now it was called XP-895. A little later, there was a much more global event: instead of the previous V8 under the hood placed rotary-piston Wankel engine! Crossing a couple of two-section "Rotor" from the Chevrolet Vega, General Motors engineers gave birth to one chetyrehsektsionnny 420-horsepower engine.

The first XP-895 was shown at the end of 1973. The car was intended for a glorious future, but the energy crisis has made adjustments - the plans of GM changed dramatically, and, unfortunately, is not in favor of expensive "rotary" projects. Fortunately, the cross on the future of the rotor at GM does not mean the demise of the project. In 1976, the brainchild of Felix Wankel and Walter Freude thrown from under the hood, replacing it with the usual V8, and the concept has received a new life under the name Aerovette. Artfully balanced proportions Henry Haig made this "plane" incredibly attractive: panoramic windshield, like a fighter-interceptor, the four exhaust nozzles, the doors of the "gull-wing", and in the profile of the car at all was like a flying saucer.

Interior worked much better than a typical concept car that indicates a serious proposal "Aerovetta" for mass production. Not without its original solutions: electronic instrument panel, for example, moves with the wheel when adjusted up and down. With the electric drive can be moved and pedals.

However, shortly after the creators of the project in the face of Dante, Bill Mitchell and Ed Cole left the GM, David R.MakLillen - successor of the Dante - Aerovette wrote off the scrap for reasons of economic inefficiency. To tell the truth, personal guilt Aerovette it was not: a mid cars sold poorly in the US and Porsche, and "Fiat". Now a concept which is not very lucky, is a part of the museum collection, GM Heritage Center.