Hey Rotary group,
Here is a bit of interesting history from the 70's many of us didn't know about GM planning Corvettes with Rotaries from NSU.
I find it interesting that even back then GM thought that the wankel had potential enough to spend 50 million for the license alone!
Vaughn.


The Rotary Engined Chevrolet Corvettes

In 1970, Chevrolet obtained a licence for the Wankel RCE from NSU, for a cost of $50 million, at the direction of GM President Ed Cole, whose background was
engineering. They began building a two-rotor and a four-rotor Corvette [1, 2], in the highly desirable mid-engine format. Zora Arkus-Duntov met with Bill
Mitchell to discuss a four rotor Corvette in 1970. Zora gave him the chassis from the XP-895 mid-engine experimental car shown at the April 1970 New York Auto
show. A fibreglass model was approved in June 1971 by Cole [4].

On Jan. 14, 1972, a chassis was shipped to Pininfarina, Turin, Italy so that the body could be constructed by the famed design studio [4]. In June of the same
year, a 2 rotor Corvette with a steel body was viewed by GM management [4, 5]. The same year DeLorean at GM commissioned a two-rotor version of the XP-882 and
built it as the XP-987GT [2].

In January 1973, a Corvette body, also based on the XP-882 chassis, was built for an experimental four-rotor car [4]. This was designed by Charles M. Jordan
and William L. Mitchell's staff. It got the project name XP-895. A second version of this body was made in aluminum alloy and got a 454 V-8 [7]. Two of the
two rotor Wankels were glommed together into a four rotor 420 bhp engine and this was installed in the first XP-895 by Gib Hufstader [8]. Mitchell's staff
under Henry Haga [8], at Duntov's urging, designed an all-new body for the "Four-Rotor Car" [7,8].

By April, the GALCIT wind tunnel in California was used to test the aerodynamic qualities of the 4-rotor Corvette [4]. The coefficient of drag came out very
low for its time: 0.325. The car was only 44 inches high and had gull-wing doors [7]. The interior had digital instruments.

In September 13, 1973 a 266 ci two-rotor Corvette (XP-897GT) was shown in Frankfurt, Germany [1, 3] with a steel body. The four-rotor 390 ci mid-engined
Corvette was shown at Paris, France on Oct. 4, 1973, as well as the two-rotor [1]. Oct. 17 they are both shown at the London Auto Show.

On September 24, 1974, GM Pres. Ed Cole postponed the introduction of the Wankel engine, ostensibly due to emissions difficulties [6]. He retired the same
month. In 1976 the body was resuscitated with a V-8 400 engine and redubbed the "Aerovette" [7]. On April 12, 1977, GM announced it is stopping all R & D on
rotary engines [9].

The 74 Chevy Vega was originally planned for a rotary engine. This was delayed to a later plan for 1975, but was dropped in 1974. The engine was a two rotor
water cooled with oil cooling of the rotors. There was a single spark plug per rotor. The housings were all iron. It is also reported that a 206 cid 2 rotor
engine was intended for the 75 Monza 2+2.

A GM rotary was going to be used for the American Motors Pacer. The compact size of the engine allowed a flattened hood and radical styling.

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