Corvette History

The C5 Was Almost the First Mid-Engine Corvette

The 1990 CERV-III Mid-Engine Corvette was too much, too soon

Scott Teeters··
Last updated:
Image Credit: GM Archives

The Mid-Engine Corvette We Finally Got

We are now entering the seventh year of the C8 Corvette, and it has been a huge success for Chevrolet. The C8 did everything better than any Corvette before. The 2023 Z06, 2024 E-Ra, ZR1, and ZR1X raised the bar to unimaginable levels.

The all-wheel-drive ZR1X just set a new Classified as Prototype/Pre-Production track record at Nurburgring with a time of 6:49.275. And ponder this: Chief Engineer, Tony Snow, recently said that his team isn’t done yet with the C8 platform. Perhaps something beyond the 1,250 horsepower. So, what took Chevrolet so long to go mid-engine? The short answer is the success of the Corvette since the C5, C6, and C7.

Why Not Mid-Engine for the C5?

Because there was no customer demand and no need.

Corvette sales went from 21,513 in 1963 to a record of 53,807 in 1979. Every year from 1970 to 1979, as performance went down, sales went up. Corvette was broken, so Chevrolet wasn’t interested in fixing it. From Chevrolet’s customer feedback, there was interest in a midengine Corvette. The interest was coming from Corvette styling and the automotive press.

Members only$35 / year

Keep going. This is where it gets good.

CorvSport Membership is for people who'd rather spend an hour inside one engine option than skim ten headlines. The rest of this story — and every other one like it — is a few seconds away.

  • Every members-only story

    Deep history, market reports, buyer's guides, and the full archive back to 2010.

  • No ads. None.

    The whole site reads like a magazine, on every device.

  • Every model year, 1953 to today

    Production numbers, VINs, RPO codes, colors, options — one page per year.

  • 30% off the shop

    Every CorvSport shirt and piece of merch, all year.

Join CorvSport — Keep Reading

$35 a year. Cancel anytime, no hoops.
Already a member? Sign in

BY CORVETTE PEOPLE, NOT A CORPORATION. Your membership keeps a small independent team of historians, photographers, racers and writers doing this.

Join — Keep Reading $35/yr