The Aerovette Was a C8 Four Decades Too Soon

By the late 1970s the paperwork was done. General Motors had signed off on a mid-engine Corvette for the 1980 model year, with a 350 cubic inch (5.7L) V8 mounted behind the seats, gullwing doors that folded in the middle and a projected window sticker between $15,000 and $18,000. That car never reached a showroom floor. The one that eventually did arrived in 2020 wearing a C8 badge, forty years after the model year Chevrolet had penciled in.

The Aerovette usually gets remembered as a beautiful concept born too early. The record supports something harder to shrug off. Chevrolet decided to build this car, then changed its mind and never really said so out loud.