#corvette

Over the weekend I penned a screed calling baby boomers to task for embracing retro style over the the values that made the revolutionary cars of their era so revolutionary [editor’s note: there’s nothing like having a carburetor on your 35 year-old motorcycle magically fix itself to inspire faith in old, simple machinery]. The new New Beetle was square in my crosshairs over the weekend, but it’s hardly the only example of boomer retro-madness. Another favorite for nostalgic boomers are the legendary muscle cars that marked the high-water point for Detroit thunder, and this feverish demand combined with limited original runs have run the prices of famous muscle cars into the Barrett-Jackson stratosphere. It’s also inspired a legion of knock-off and replica manufacturers, who see huge money to be made by aligning supply with demand. They, in turn, have inspired a number of huge lawsuits from the original creators of the limited-edition legends. Carroll Shelby’s prolific legal battles against creators of Cobra replicas have given him the reputation of being a guy who never met a buck he didn’t like, and now GM has joined the Shelby legacy, suing Mongoose Motorsports for daring to produced replicas of the 1963 Corvette Grand Sport roadster.

The history of mid-engined Corvette concepts is almost as old as the car itself, but even more colorful. Once the performance and racing potential of the ‘Vette was unleashed by its father, Zora Arkus Duntov, ambitious developments intended for the race track, Futurama, or the front pages of buff books speculating about the coming mid-engined production Corvette have never ended.

Duntov is shown here, proudly posing with his 1959 CERV (Chevrolet Engineering Research Vehicle) I, clearly a racing-oriented concept intended to test advanced designs and components for future use. The CERV’s independent rear suspension was adapted to the 1963 Corvette. It’s 350 hp 283 CI V8 featured aluminum block and heads, and fuel injection. A grand start to a long series of exciting Corvettes, even if they never made it into production.

Along with flying cars and hydrogen fuel cells, the mid-engined Corvette occupies the most spurious level of automotive rumor-mongery. GM has a deep, rich history of flirtation with the idea of a mid-engine ‘vette (too deep and rich for us not to commission a forthcoming brief history from Paul Niedermeyer), but even in the last three years the engine configuration of the C8 Corvette has attracted intense speculation. In October of 2007, Motor Trend kicked off the modern era of mid-engine ‘vette rumors with a lengthy piece which “revealed” that

GM vice chairman Bob Lutz reportedly has been pushing for a mid-engine C7… We hear Lutz is backing down from his support of a mid-engine C7, though other powerful GM execs reportedly still favor it. Those at GM who prefer an evolutionary, front-engine C7 are facing a tough battle.

Almost exactly a year later, MT took it all back. With GM facing bankruptcy and bailouts, plans for a new Corvette were put on hold and the RenCen pendulum was swinging back towards an evolution of the front-engined C7. And yet now, with bankruptcy still less than a year in GM’s past, the mid-engine Corvette rumors are bubbling back up again.

GM is cautiously putting its toes back in the shark-infested waters of Europe and plans to sell Cadillacs and Corvettes to EU buyers, says Das Autohaus. When their previous importer, Kroymans in the Netherlands, went belly-up in summer of 2009, sales had ceased. At the time, GM had more pressing matters on their plate.