Tag: 4-rotor corvette

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

Published on by Scott

October 4, 1973 – The Four-Rotor Experimental Corvette makes its debut at the Paris Salon Automobile Show – Video Below
1-Four-Rotor-Corvette-TN

Photo: GM Archives

Dateline: 10.4.15: 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!

 VP of Styling, Bill Mitchell directed the look of the Four-Rotor and Hank Haga and Jerry Palmer worked out the details. Inspiration for the design came from the Mercedes speed record-breakers of the late ‘30s. Getting to the teardrop shape Mitchell wanted wasn’t easy, but the end result definitely looks like a “Corvette” and Continue reading “

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