Chevrolet Corvette CERV III
I suppose it's inevitable that every car-crazed youngster will at some point fall in love with a Corvette show car. One generation fell in love with the Mako Shark, others became besotted with the XP882. I had the 1990 CERV III.
There's nothing obvious about the CERVIII that explains why it inspired me so. It is fundamentally just another futuristic show car replete with every conceivable electronic trick and gizmo--and like most completely unrealistic show cars, it had very little impact on its production counterparts. For me, though, it meant much more.
While I grew up with an innate love of Corvettes, that love was matched by a basic frustration. As powerful, sleek, and capable as Corvettes were, to me they symbolized a crippling lack of creativity. After the rapid innovation that characterized the Corvette's evolution from its debut as a cruiser in 1953 to a world-class sports car in the 1960s, America's sports car got stuck in a rut. Not in terms of capability, mind you--since the C4 Corvette debuted in 1984, Corvettes have consistently been fantastic all-around performers for the price. No, what bothers me is that Corvettes have been so formulaic.
Since 1968, it's as if all Corvettes have been built to a slowly evolving set of the same blueprints, specifying a pushrod V-8, a long, low, and wide fiberglass body, shark nose, tiny interior, and, until recently, hidden headlights. There have been some excellent cars made under that formula, but slavish adherence to those blueprints have kept Corvettes from really breaking new ground. Tradition overruled innovation.
If I was in charge, I wouldn't limit my design and engineering teams to continually remaking a car according to a 40-year-old formula. Instead, I'd reconsider the definition of what a Corvette really is. I'd define it very broadly--as a uniquely American sports car that provides near-exotic performance, without pricing the car out of the reach of the upper-middle-class.
How you get there isn't nearly as important as the final result, and I find it hard to believe that the best approach to building a sports car hasn't changed over the last 40 years. Perhaps a big sports car with a V-8 and a fiberglass body really is the best way to hit that target, but at the risk of blaspheming, might not a much smaller twin-turbo V-6-powered AWD Corvette be an interesting possibility? And why must we continue to riff on the styling of the 1968 Corvette rather than look back to the more groundbreaking earlier Corvettes?
The CERV III excited me because it was a truly fresh take on the Corvette; it broke down the mental barriers that had limited and defined Corvettes for years. Instead of a fiberglass body, the CERV III used carbon fiber and Kevlar; instead of a front-engined setup, the CERV III was mid-engined. Power still came from a V-8, but it was a twin-turbocharged version of the Lotus-tweaked, four-valve-per-cylinder DOHC LT5 from the Corvette ZR-1. All-wheel-drive and four-wheel-steer systems replaced the Corvette's typical rear-wheel-drive setup.
The styling was even better. The CERV III was still too big, but at least it wore its size elegantly. Aerodynamic but not devoid of character, reminiscent of former Corvettes while still breaking genuinely new ground, the CERV III still looks beautiful to me nearly two decades later. Of course, it also looks an awful lot like the sublime Jaguar XJ220.
Between the structure, the engineering, and the styling, the CERV III was pretty obviously an exotic concept car. But it's the fresh approach I was interested in; and nearly two decades later I still could be interested in even a dramatically toned-down street version of this car. It wasn't to be, of course--Corvettes today are fantastic performers but are still built along the same formula.
I'm also a little biased because the CERV III was my very first video game car lust. The CERV III, along with the Lamborghini Diablo and Pininfarina Mythos, headlined Test Drive III. TD3 was a truly revolutionary 1990 driving game that allowed unlimited freedom to drive through a real-world environment that included multiple routes, short cuts trains, traffic, police, stop lights, a choice of radio stations, short cuts, and even the ability to drive off-road to explore the world off the highway, all rendered in stunning (for 1990) polygonal detail. Oh, and the CERV III crushed the opposition. Forget the Lamborghini--anybody who didn't take the CERV III was a sucker.
I wasted untold hours on TD3 as a teenager, and in so doing have racked up more virtual miles on the CERV III than any real car I've driven. The video below is a 10-minute clip of gameplay, and as I watch it I'm shocked to find that even now I still know where all the corners are and can remember every note of the hideously annoying MIDI soundtrack. Kids, appreciate your XBox 360s and PS3; this is what gaming was like in the early 1990s.
--Chris H.
rob the SVX guy on July 10, 2008 at 07:12 PM
http://dhost.info/thesupercars/supercars/oldsmobile/aerotech/aerotech2.jpg
I still have a model of that somewhere. You could build the short tail or long tail version.
Chris Hafner on July 11, 2008 at 08:47 AM
Ah, yes, the Aerotech. I remember the commercials said it was powered by "the same Quad 4" that powered your Cutlass Calais. Um, yeah.
I remember hating the Aerotech just because I had an irrational hatred for A.J. Foyt, and he was in all the Aerotech ads.
Rob the SVX guy on July 11, 2008 at 11:49 AM
I thought it had a Northstar or something? It definitely had a v8 in my model.
Ian on July 11, 2008 at 02:03 PM
Rob: The original Aerotech had a turbo Quad 4 in it, but there was a later version with a Northstar-based V8, as well.
on July 22, 2008 at 12:34 PM
When the C5 was developed, a lot of the "traditional" layout was seriously questioned. Corvette engineers initially took a long hard look at other engine layouts, including other cam options than pushrods, but in the end they determined that the most economical means of developing the sorts of power and reliability levels they were after was with a pushrod V-8. Consider that you can buy a Corvette with over 500 hp and a 100,000 mile powertrain warranty even if you live in Death Valley. Also consider that GM has a lot more experience with front engine rear wheel drive layout. It's not that GM couldn't build a mid- or rear-engine AWD Corvette, because I'm sure they could. It's just that the total development cost of that sort of vehicle would be significantly higher than the Corvette they have today, and it's certainly debatable as to whether or not the car in question would perform as well as the current Corvette does. The Corvette team's number one goal is to deliver the highest performing car they could in the anticipated price range. The changes you propose take them out of that price range, which limits sales, which splits development costs among fewer cars which raises the price.... If there was a $220,000 supercar with a Chevrolet badge on it, would anyone buy it? The newest ZR1 Corvette outperforms many of the world's supercars that cost three times as much, yet so many people still snub it. I for one am very glad that Chevrolet is producing such a phenomenal vehicle at such an amazing price for what performance you get.
Chris Hafner on July 22, 2008 at 12:43 PM
If Chevy truly did take a look at the Corvette with an open mind, and still decided that the current formula was the best way to make a world-class sports car for the price, then I'm happy. I'm not pushing a twin-turbo V-6 Corvette, and I'm very cognizant of the advantages of V-8s with pushrods. I was just questioning that the same basic formula, even refined over the years, is automatically still the best way to go.
> If there was a $220,000 supercar with a Chevrolet badge on it, would anyone buy it?
I wasn't really proposing a $220K Corvette. My quote: "If I was in charge, I wouldn't limit my design and engineering teams to continually remaking a car according to a 40-year-old formula. Instead, I'd reconsider the definition of what a Corvette really is. I'd define it very broadly--as a uniquely American sports car that provides near-exotic performance, without pricing the car out of the reach of the upper-middle-class."
Note the emphasis on performance for the price. Again, if a large front-engine, rear-drive car with a big pushrod V-8 and a fiberglass body is the best way to achieve that goal, great. But I don't think the Corvette should necessarily be restricted to that formula - the formula should serve the goal, not vice versa.
V8 hot laps on November 25, 2008 at 12:23 AM
Hi,
The Chevrolet Corvette CERV III is one of the most advanced concepts ever created. Never before has so much working technology crammed into one car for performance purposes. The cost to develop a car like the CERVIII would be astronomical.
speedo on December 26, 2008 at 12:07 AM
haha the game got it wrong the real cerv has 2 wipers that go one on top of the other from the center not 1 on each side lol.
i got to see the cerv III a last year its a really cool concept it would be nice to see the vett like it one day
Peter on April 08, 2010 at 11:20 AM
HA! i had that game. I got it for christmas in 1990. I was a big fan of the second Game Test drive 2: the duel. I had all the expansion packs. Unfortunately our 8088 CGA 4 color computer didn't have the EGA 16 colors required for this game and i could only play it at my dad's office on occasion for a few years before i finally got my own PC in 1995. Ironically by that time the game ran too fast and i had to use a program called Mo'slo to slow the pc down to 386 specs (it ran too fast on 486's) I later found the rare expansion road and cars with the stealth and the nsx. As for the CERV 3 it was my favorite car in the game as well although the diablo was a close second.