Corvette History 101: April 2, 1970 Mid-Engine XP-882 Debut
April 2, 1970 – Chevy Unleashes the Mid-Engine, Transverse, XP-882 Corvette at the 52nd Annual New York Automobile Show
Before the opening of the 52nd Annual New York Automobile Show, the press knew about Ford’s Pantera, Mercedes-Benz’s C-111, and AMC’s AMX III. The inside skinny was that the mid-engine Corvette was as dead as the Corvair. But when the doors opened, there it was; the stunning, aggressive-looking, broad-shouldered, experimental, transverse, and mid-engine Corvette! It was fresh looking, yet it screamed “CORVETTE!”
As this was just an “experimental car,” the interior was cobbled together, but the big news was not just the mid-engine layout, but that Duntov and his engineers were thinking about a mid-engine/transverse layout, with the crankshaft center running left to right. How’d they do that? When you have access to the GM parts bin, it’s not difficult.
Oldsmobile’s Toronado and the Cadillac Eldorado had been using a beefy transaxle to make the top-end personal luxury cars, “front-wheel-drive” – something VERY unique for American cars back then. With the engine turned 90 degrees, a transmission chain was connected to the back of the torque converter, then coupled to a Toronado automatic transmission, and then connected to a Corvette differential via a set of 90-degree bevel gears.
Car magazines went on a feeding frenzy, proclaiming that the XP-882 would be “The Next Vette,” and possibly a 1973 model! After the show, the car went back inside of Chevrolet’s design inner sanctum, never to be seen again. Experimental cars typically didn’t have much cache back then.
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Chevy’s management stalled on the new mid-engine, transverse Corvette. GM president, Ed Cole was gambling on the Wankel engine as “the next big thing” in the automotive world. So the XP-882 became the donor car for the four-rotor, Wankle-powered 1973 experimental, that eventually became the 1976 Aerovette. – Scott
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