Home » Let’s Summon The Spirit Of The Legendary Aerovette Concept To Make A Cleaner Corvette C8

Let’s Summon The Spirit Of The Legendary Aerovette Concept To Make A Cleaner Corvette C8

Aerovette 2025 Ts
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The future, for the most part, always kind of sucks.

All of those jetpacks and two helicopters in each garage which were promised in the pages of 1960s-era Popular Mechanics never happened. Wrist radios and TVs? We got them, and they turned out to be just digital leashes so you can read your wife’s text of WHERE R U without reaching for your phone.

Vidframe Min Top
Vidframe Min Bottom

Another thing that glossy images inside of car magazines showed us was a Chevy Corvette with a mid-mounted engine like some Italian sportscar. This marvel that first appeared in 1973 was eventually called the Aerovette; truly a sight to behold and something that would have upstaged and outclassed production Ferraris and Lamborghinis of the time. Wrapped in a clean and understated skin, you could be forgiven for thinking that the car below was from Modena or Turin (and save your breath, since I already know that fountain is actually less than a mile from Woodward Avenue at Cranbrook).

Aerovette 3 25
General Motors

Nearly fifty years later, Chevrolet finally gave us that mid-engined Corvette: the C8. In terms of technology, this Stingray is indeed a close match for some of the world’s greatest sports cars. In terms of styling, well…

2020 Chevrolet Corvette C8 02e
General Motors

Look, I know that the C8 has its admirers, and that’s great. For me, though, the latest Corvette was a bit of a disappointment. Actually, it was a major disappointment. Where’s my fucking Aerovette? Or, at the very least, something that looks a bit like it?

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Hell, I’d settle for something that actually resembled a car that should have the Corvette badge and the lineage that goes with it (or at least a classic GM product of some kind). Apparently, I need to use my meager skills to do a crappy job of this myself.

Baby, You’re Much Too Fast

Everything is subjective, but to me the era of the mid-sixties though the early seventies had to be the high point of General Motors design. Even their most run-of-the-mill cars like the fastback 1968 Chevelle or the first Vega were aesthetically so much better than anything that had come before or since. The end of this era-largely under the influence of styling guru Bill Mitchell- saw two absolute masterpieces from these studios.

One was a production vehicle: the 1973 GMC Motorhome, a ground-breaking camper with a design which Adrian just wrote about that has yet to be topped by any company half a century later. The other spectacular creation was supposed to be a production car: the mid-engined Corvette “Aerovette”.

Aerovette Front 2 3 25
General Motors

Starting life as what was called the XP-882 in 1969, the project was cancelled but quickly reignited when GM found out about Ford’s plans to import the Detomaso Pantera. At the time, General Motors was developing a two-rotor Wankel rotary engine that was supposed to go into the Vega (yes, The General was considering a motor for the Vega that likely would have been even more unreliable than the one they ended up putting in it). The XP-882 was to have received two of these engines bolted together to create a four-rotor 450 horsepower monster mounted in the middle of the car. The engine naturally bit the dust when that rotary program collapsed in the gas crisis, so a 400 cubic inch V8 was put in its place and the car dubbed the “Aerovette”

Aerovette Front 3 25
General Motors

Forget guys with New Balance shoes, white socks and tucked-in shirts at the local burger joint parking lot: this was a Corvette that looked more at home on the lawn of an Italian car show with designers in black turtlenecks looking at it and scratching their chins.

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Aerovette Rear 3 25
General Motors

Reportedly the work of Jerry Palmer, the styling is so balanced front and rear that it’s hard to tell where the engine actually is. What is not hard to tell is that it’s every inch a Corvette. From virtually any angle, all of the hallmarks that would make up the Stingray aesthetic before and after were present in the design from the “Mako Shark” nose to even the large vent just above the rocker panel (but, in the Aerovette’s case, it’s at the back instead of on the front fender as with all other production ‘Vettes). It’s magnificent.

Aerovette Doors 3 25
General Motors

Production was supposedly approved to start around 1980. However, the main champions of the mid-engined Aerovette such as Bill Mitchell and Ed Cole retired, and the new regime thought that a mid-engined car would lack the market appeal of a front-engined product similar to traditional Corvettes and the Datsun Z Series that was selling like hotcakes at the time. The Aerovette died entirely, the bright spot being that Jerry Palmer captured much of the clean, crisp aesthetic with the awesome traditional-layout C4 ‘Vette that was released instead (and you can read more about here).

We didn’t know it at the time, but we hadn’t seen the last of the mid-engined Corvette. Still, would the real mid-motor Vette live up to what we hoped it would be?

Got It Goin’ Like A Turbo ‘Vette

Over most of its seventy-year life, America’s most enduring two-seat sports car has been able to maintain an unmistakable identity. Looking at the evolution of the front-engined car in this quick video below, it’s especially visible in the three decades smack dead center of the timeline.

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From the refreshed 1978 third-generation (C3) to the second-to-last of the front-engined cars (the 2013 C6) the basic shape was remarkably unchanged from the same basic formula:  long, tapering nose with a glass rear hatch over a kamm-like tail featuring four-shot taillights.

C3 3 25
Midwest Car Exchange
C4 3 25
General Motors
C5 3 25
General Motors

Up through the C6, Corvettes in general (barring the hyper-performance versions) were clean, pure shape with limited adornments in a manner similar to most Porsches.

C6 3 25
Cars & Bids

Starting with the last front-engined ‘Vette (the 2014 C7), things started to change. The bubble window in back was gone, and virtually every fender now had some kind of scoop or vent or design detail that added visual complexity but not necessarily sophistication. As a person at my office said quite eloquently: “why don’t they just stop sticking shit on that that thing?” The one below is about as clean as you could equip it:

2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray
General Motors

This person at work would be no happier when the mid-engined C8 appeared for 2020.

2020 Chevrolet Corvette C8 12
General Motors

At best, you might say that it vaguely resembles a giant Lotus Elise. There’s nothing wrong with the Elise, but the C8 has even fussier detailing and, more importantly, it’s doesn’t say Corvette.

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Lotus Elise 1 23
Lotus

At worst, some have described it as looking like the front of a C7 Corvette being consumed from the back by a shark; the whole rear section appears to be sort of grafted on. Indeed, from a few angles the front and rear don’t seem to be from the same car. Overall, I hate to say it but it’s a car I’d buy in spite of its looks, though I probably wouldn’t buy it at all.

2020 Chevrolet Corvette C8 11
General Motors

There’s no reason we couldn’t at least try to summon a bit of the Aerovette and give us the mid-engined ‘Vette that we dreamed of fifty years ago.

Hedge Your Bet On A Clean Corvette

Starting with a new C8, the first thing to do is strip off much of the trim that offends me and make the front and back of the car a more unified whole, like on the Aerovette. The tapering tail of the old ‘Vette concept looked cool but from a practical standpoint of cargo (and likely aerodynamics) we’ll need to do more of a wedge. The pointed nose recalls the Aerovette and C3, while the large glass rear window improves rear visibility and interior lights beside continuing a Corvette design touchstone. There’s still an intake vent on the rocker panel but it’s a far less pronounced thing than on the current C8.

Front View 3 26
General Motors (base image)
Aerovette 3 3 25
General Motors

The animation below makes it hard to believe that it’s the same front greenhouse, doors, wheelbase and even rims as the standard C8. Honestly, I spent most of my time photoshopping out surface detailing. Yes, the nose might ultimately need to be a bit taller to meet pedestrian standards, but if you put your cursor on the fender lines you’ll see that I haven’t dropped it nearly as much as you’d think:

Front View Animation 3 26

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Overall, it’s a far cleaner-looking thing that would hopefully do a better job of holding its own at among snotty jerks at a country club parking lot. You’ll see that the length of the nose has been extended slightly. A headlamp-free nose is very much a Corvette thing, plus it makes that front end appear to be lower. Actually, combined with the shape of the backlight it also bears a bit of a similarity to a fourth-generation Firebird like our boi S.W. Gossin owns and loves.

This “Aero8” will have pop-up units with a twist. As the panels raise, they reveal bullet-shaped lights with voids between them to let air through, creating retractable lights with far less of the horrific frontal area assault that most of these things do when raised. The animation below shows it:

Ligths Up Animation 3 26

The rear fascia is a bit of a mix of the last few Corvette generations, but adding more body-colored material was key to keeping a legacy look without going straight-up four round lights. You can see the cut lines for a raise-up spoiler behind that backlight.

Rear View Vette 3 26 R

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It’s a rather dramatic change as you can see below in an animation:

Rear View Anim 3 26

 

Here’s an animation below of that spoiler electrically rising on a German market car with amber signals and rear fog lights integrated into the lamp clusters:

Vette Rear Spoiler 3 24 Anim

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I’d expect that ZR1 and other higher-performance models might get a larger, permanent wing which might not even look that bad. That giant rear window really makes this thing appear not only Corvette-like but with the new proportions it seems to almost be an updated Acura NSX (the first generation NSX, not the poorly selling revival).

Inside, it’s amazing how the Aerovette concept’s cockpit-style dashboard seems to have inspired the C8 fifty years later; they’re extremely similar. Both feature digital displays in front of the driver and a central “band” covered in switches that rises up at an angle towards the dash top and separates the driver and passenger (and note that both the Aerovette and C8 are two-pedal cars).

Corvette Inteiror 3 26 B
General Motors

Thankfully, at least the interior of the C8 is keeping the Aerovette dream alive.

My Fuel Injected Stingray’s Really Startin’ To Go

Naturally, a person that’s driven black or grey sedans and station wagons for the last twenty-five years like me is going to draw up a conservative-looking car, which many won’t like. “I think it’s too clean and kind of boring” you say? I bet that a number of people will agree with that. Thankfully, we can always add more detailing and I’m sure that plenty of spoilers, flares, vents, rear-snow-plow-like diffusers, taillight louvers and even “split rear window” trim kits will be available from the aftermarket to let you customize it to your heart’s desire. As with Corvettes from the very beginning, if you want to make this Aerovette-inspired Stingray into a paragon of bad taste there will absolutely be people out there glad to help you with that.

“Young people don’t care about Corvettes, and definitely not Corvette history” are the next words out of your mouth. That might be true, but the aesthetic values that worked so well on the ‘Vette for buyers of generation after generation from pre-Boomers all the way up through older Millennials should resonate with buyers today that decades later are still cross-shopping 911s (another car that, despite being enormous now, has stayed very true to its visual roots to great success for over half a century).

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Please, Chevy, leave the scoops and swoops and slots to nameplates that haven’t been around for over seventy years and can’t do 200MPH. The Corvette has absolutely nothing to prove. We might not have Jetsons-like robots to do our housework, but we’d at least like to have a mid-engined ‘Vette that looks closer to what our school-age imaginations thought we’d be getting.

Relateds

The 233-MPH 2025 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Is Officially A Hypercar – The Autopian

Our Daydreaming Designer Imagines How 1980s American Muscle Could Have Revived The Lost British Brand ‘Gordon Keeble’ – The Autopian

What It Could Have Looked Like If Chevrolet Had Spun Off ‘Corvette’ As Its Own Brand And Sold A C4 Corvette SUV – The Autopian

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Our Daydreaming Designer Imagines Corvette Sedan And Wagon In 1978 – The Autopian

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Taargus Taargus
Taargus Taargus
4 days ago

Both clean, and exciting. Nice. I especially like what’s been done to the rear third, which is where I think the C8 looks especially overwrought. Getting a potentially usable rear windshield from this evolution is also nice.

Taargus Taargus
Taargus Taargus
4 days ago
Reply to  The Bishop

I’m very against sitting in dark pits so I’m one to agree. When zipping around a landscape, ideally I’d like to both feel the presence of, and see the landscape.

Jason Snooks
Jason Snooks
4 days ago

Sure, and they’ll downgrade the engine to a 300hp V6 since that’s all the cooling they can afford with that giant rear window.

Mike F.
Mike F.
4 days ago

I can’t say I dislike the C8 all that much. It’s a lot to look at, but for whatever reason, it doesn’t put me off the way I would expect it to. Still, the Aerovette version is far cleaner and more the kind of classic design that will look good decades down the road. It’s even possible that I could bring one of those home without getting a huge eyeroll from my wife!

Last edited 4 days ago by Mike F.
Evo_CS
Evo_CS
4 days ago

My main beef with the C8 (and C5 and C6) is the requirement that the car should be able to carry a set of golf clubs. The C8 would really benefit from having less width in the rear if it didn’t have to package the damn things. Less surface excitement would be helpful, but some much needed plan view taper would do wonders.

sentinelTk
sentinelTk
4 days ago
Reply to  Evo_CS

I wondered the same thing when they unveiled that it still managed to have a trunk. If engineers were free to repackage without that, what would it look like. That said, actually touring with your Vette is a huge thing, so having actual load space steers into that longstanding tradition of the Vette and does some work to mitigate the reaction from the “purists.” People wouldn’t be driving their C8s cross country to Spearfish, SD if they couldn’t fit more than a toiletry bag.

Joe L
Joe L
3 days ago
Reply to  sentinelTk

Yeah, the one thing that has my wife somewhat amenable to the new Corvette is that it has way more luggage space for road trips than something like the Miata.

MST3Karr
MST3Karr
4 days ago

AMEN, brother. The C8 is such a great car, but with an AutoZone feel to its styling (and yeah, that started with the C7). I love your neo-Aerovette but would also like to see a bit more of a boattail influence.

Shooting Brake
Shooting Brake
4 days ago

I like this general direction a lot better and with some refinement would be significantly better than the real C8. Unfortunately everything has to be angry and hyper aggressive now.

7Cincinnatus
7Cincinnatus
4 days ago

You mentioned the NSX yourself; my first reaction (once I’d seen the rear end you sculpted) was that someone was challenged to fuse the styling of an OG NSX and an F-body Camaro, and use 75% of the parts of both.

This is not a criticism. It’s the best-looking ‘vette I’ve ever seen.

Tbird
Tbird
4 days ago
Reply to  7Cincinnatus

I was thinking NSX as well before Bishop said it for me.

Comet_65cali
Comet_65cali
4 days ago

Silly Question, has anybody backdated a ZR-1? I love the early C4s, but I kind of hate the refresh on the models. Especially the interior. (Yes I know the digital dashboard stinks, that’s what Vette-Aid blank and a racelogic dash is for)

The Dude
The Dude
4 days ago

Now this looks like a Corvette. The current C8? It’s a fine looking car but does not look like a Corvette.

Vee
Vee
4 days ago

The headlights are a problem. Not only will they buffet like hell and likely be damaged from the wind, but it’s likely their projection would be terrible because they can’t rise high enough. Most old pop-ups actually have a concave piece that prevents water intrusion and allows the sealed beam lamp to sit lower than it would have to in order for the beam to clear a flat lip. It’s either that, or there’s a little lip that overhangs slightly so that when the headlight is flipped up there’s less bodywork down low to block the beam projection. That’s why the fixed headlight conversion kits for cars like the FD RX-7, C5 Corvette, and Firebird/Trans Am have two small round projectors, because it’s easier to fit them in where the beam can fit through the concave piece or cutout in the bodywork without needing them to be placed higher up.

The rear end is definitely an improvement, though. I feel like Chevrolet was so intent on scaring away old men and preventing another Cadillac audience with the C8 that they scared everyone away.

Toecutter
Toecutter
4 days ago

I’d have started with the original Chevrolet Astro concept, and given it C6 styling cues, but made it small like the C1.

https://gmauthority.com/blog/2019/12/1967-chevrolet-astro-i-experimental/

Imagine a sub-2,500 lb mid-engined streamlined terror, powered by an LT7. 50+ mpg highway on your daily commute, but when you put the hammer down, it’s scarier to drive in a straight line than most high-performance motorcycles!

Urban Runabout
Urban Runabout
4 days ago

It’s 100% less hideous.
That said: make the taillamps properly round please.
The headlamps tho- they don’t need to be round.
They can be LED strips, requiring minimal eyelid openings. Maybe even have the body panels ahead of the LED’s drop instead of the lights raising – think Aston Martin Bulldog.

Last edited 4 days ago by Urban Runabout
1978fiatspyderfan
1978fiatspyderfan
4 days ago

Really? The Corvette had some great designs than sucked in the 70s now they are better than the 70s design but no where as good as the previous 70s designs. I always say when things go off the rails go back to when they were on the rails instead of trying to put the crash damage back on the rails. That Corvette in the picture looks like a Corvette that shrunk in the car wash. Or maybe a Sebring? Bishop you disappoint

Scott Ross
Scott Ross
4 days ago

I got to see the real aerovette about a decade at the GM heritage center. but when it comes to making a modern aero coupe to quote a wise man” I dont think so Tim”

Channel 61
Channel 61
4 days ago

I like it! Pop up headlights for the win! You should submit the design to General Motors. It does not look like the typical over-priced electric truck designed by the monkeys with computers that Mary’s company utilizes in lieu of real car designers. Where is the next Earl, Mitchell, Jordan, Welburn or Lutz?

Last edited 4 days ago by Channel 61
SBMtbiker
SBMtbiker
4 days ago

Hate it! GM used to add unused length on cars just for styling! Loved the C6 because they chopped off all the unused length from the C5. Let’s see what you can do with the same footprint as the C8!

Xt6wagon
Xt6wagon
4 days ago

LED for DRL are needed. Could go farther to ditch the dumb pop up headlights

Ottomadiq
Ottomadiq
4 days ago

nah

Alpine 911
Alpine 911
4 days ago

All of Bishop’s designs are so much better than the OEM ones, hard to understand why they went with theirs. In this case, I would even consider buying the Corvette just off these designs.

TheFanciestCat
TheFanciestCat
4 days ago

You do my favorite things at The Autopian, and I think this ranks near the top of the top.

My complaint about the C8 is that it comes across as trying too desperately to convince you it’s fast with its styling. That Civic comparison works perfectly. A sporty Civic is trying to distinguish itself from a commuter car base model. A Corvette, though, starts as a Corvette. It doesn’t need the C8’s degree of visual gimmickry. What you’ve done here fixes the exterior completely. In fact, it’s more than a fix. It elevates the car to its potential. It’s not trying to convince me that it’s fast. It’s self-evident that it’s fast.

However, I still think the C8 interior matches the C8 exterior perfectly but not in a good way. I want something that’s actually fast to be more simple, not more styled to look fast. I don’t mind a little pretending, but those HVAC controls on what looks like it should have just been a nice grab bar for a very impressed passenger are asking me to pretend in the wrong way. See, I want to pretend I might take a car like this out on the track and be a total stud in it, not pretend the HVAC controls aren’t incredibly goofy.

All that said, I mostly like the C8 anyway and am always rooting for Corvettes to be great, but you’ve shown me I could really love it with what amounts to a well executed midcycle refresh.

Bruno Ealo
Bruno Ealo
4 days ago

I remember building a model of the Aerovette when I was a kid and always loved it.I can’t afford a C8 but really thought they kinda just killed the natural progression it always had and went for the “typical” supercar look.Every time I see a C8 I still wonder what kind of car it is at first glance and I’ve been a huge Corvette fan since the first time I saw one as a young boy.

Maymar
Maymar
4 days ago

If I had my way, GM would just drop the body from the CERV III on the C8 and be done with it, which I’m sure is pinpointing my age a bit.

https://www.motortrend.com/uploads/sites/11/2019/07/Mid-Engine-Corvette-History-40.jpg

Also, sample size of one, my kid was pretty excited to sit in a Corvette at last year’s auto show, although I’m sure that was just general excitement at something low-slung and exotic to a 4YO that he could touch.

kingOFgEEEks
kingOFgEEEks
4 days ago
Reply to  Maymar

That is tasty. I haven’t thought about CERV III in a while.

Also, what about the Sting Ray III concept as well https://www.motortrend.com/features/1602-1992-sting-ray-iii-concept-aka-the-california-corvette/

10001010
10001010
4 days ago
Reply to  Maymar

We must be similar in age, I remember making a model of that when I was a kid.

Tbird
Tbird
4 days ago
Reply to  10001010

I recall the Corvette Indy and Pontiac Banshee from the late ’80s. Think CERVIII was an update to the Indy concept car.

Mike TowpathTraveler
Mike TowpathTraveler
3 days ago
Reply to  Tbird

Yes, it was.

Mike TowpathTraveler
Mike TowpathTraveler
3 days ago
Reply to  Maymar

I had to scroll a long ways until I came upon someone bringing up CERV III, which is what the mid engined Corvette of 2020 should have been. Note the long boat tail rear, I want to believe that McLaren used that idea a couple decades later.

I’ll take the smooth, C5-like rounded flanks & the overall C5 as a mid-engine theme over the hard edged, insectoid look of the C8 every single time.

Jack Beckman
Jack Beckman
4 days ago

A huge improvement.

4jim
4jim
4 days ago

This sort of reminds me how Lamborghini cleaned up its exterior look and smoothed everything out, this is sort of a similar vibe

SAABstory
SAABstory
4 days ago

A C8 that doesn’t look like the angry transformers Civic? I like it.

I don't hate manual transmissions
I don't hate manual transmissions
4 days ago
Reply to  The Bishop

Not by a long shot. Your design is a vast improvement. (They always are.)

I fear someday soon one of the major manufactures is going to steal you away from us. (Though if you get such an opportunity and it appeals to you, take it! We’ll be sad, but thankful for the time we had with you.)

Howie
Howie
4 days ago
Reply to  The Bishop

Well done. A lot more slick and clean. Reminds me of how bad a Countach or a Pantera looked after all the tack ons. Maybe a bit Bertone?

Ranwhenparked
Ranwhenparked
4 days ago

How are the C8’s plastic panels attached? Could somebody theoretically market something like this as a kit?

Ranwhenparked
Ranwhenparked
4 days ago
Reply to  The Bishop

Fieros were fantastically easy to rebody, it was about a 10 hour job start to finish to completely replace every panel

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