Tagged: four-rotor corvette

Corvette Chiefs, Pt. 1 of 5 – Zora Arkus-Duntov, Corvette’s Nostradamus

As a young man, Duntov was into boxing, motorcycles, fast cars, and pretty girls. After his formal engineering training in Berlin, Germany, Duntov started racing cars and applying his engineering skills to racecar construction. In 1935 Duntov built his first racecar with help from his racing partner Asia Orley; they called the car, “Arkus”. Their goal was to debut the car at the Grand Prix de Picardie in June 1935. But after a series of mishaps, the car caught fire and never raced. From this point forward, all Duntov wanted to do was build racecars.

Corvette Timeline Tales: 10.4.73 -The Four-Rotor Experimental Corvette makes its debut at the Paris Salon Automobile Show


Corvette Timeline Tales: 10.4.73 -The Four-Rotor Experimental Corvette makes its debut at the Paris Salon Automobile Show

GM president Ed Cole spent $50 million dollars for the license to develop and build Wankel engines for Chevrolet cars. The plan was to start with a 2-rotor Wankel as an option in the ’74 Vega in October 1973. But the car biz is part show biz, and what a better way to make a big splash for the new “rotor-motor in a Chevy” concept than to build a super-sexy Corvette with not just a Vega-type 2-rotor Wankel, but a 585-CID, 350-to-370-HP 4-rotor monster! Corvette engineer and Duntov’s right-hand man Gib Hufstader, hand-built the unique engine and said that it could have produced 480-HP!

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