Profilin’

The 2020 mid-engine ‘Vette. (Photo by Greg Pajo — Car and Driver.)

—A while ago a fellow retired bus-driver sent me something about a new mid-engined Corvette.
My reaction was “It’s about time;” followed by “It may be too late.”
People were advocating a mid-engine ‘Vette back in the ‘70s. “Mid-engine” meaning the engine is behind the driver, yet in front of the rear driving wheels.
Racecars started doing this in the late ‘60s. Locating engine-mass behind the driver, yet ahead of the driving wheels, allows -a) rear-wheel drive to work better, -b) rear brakes work better, and -c) it reduces polar moment of inertia, allowing quicker turn-in.
All capital ideas, I was smitten! The most desirable hotrods of all time, were the Can-Am cars ’69-‘71. (Canadian-American Challenge Cup.)
First the mid-engine Chaparrals of the United States Road Racing Championship in the middle-to-late ‘60s, then the McLaren Can-Am racers ’69 through ’71.
They were mid-engine two-seaters powered by unlimited Big-Block Chevy V8s. (The Chaparrals were Small-Block at first.) Incredibly light and incredibly fast. Can-Am cars were essentially run-what-ya-brung; the only limitations were two seats and covered wheels.
Most desirable was the fact they were powered by Detroit-iron (although those Chevy Big-Blocks were usually cast aluminum).
I will never forget the sound of a Can-Am field coming toward me. Rolling thunder! Gobs and gobs of torque! That’s goin’ to my grave.
“The new C8 Corvette is an engineering moonshot,” says Car and Driver magazine. “A marketing leap of faith, and a statement about what an American sports car can truly be.”
Just packaging everything required ”moonshot engineering.”
Yr Fthfl Srvnt says the mid-engine ‘Vette may be too late. Us aging car-guys are dying off, replaced by techno-geeks and gamers not interested in automotive performance.
Conspicuous consumption of hydrocarbons, and all the noise it made, is no longer attractive. I’m guilty myself: coal-fired choo-choo trains, a screaming Ferrari, the Packard-Merlin V12 in a Mustang fighter-plane.
Top speed of the mid-engined ‘Vette is projected at 190 mph. Where, pray tell, do you propose to do that?
Yer lucky if you can average 50 on L.A.’s freeways. I have an old train video that shows a bumper-to-bumper traffic-jam inching into Philadelphia.
My almost 55-year subscription to Car and Driver is winding down. My attraction to performance automobiling wained.
My paternal grandmother won: automobiles are only a means of carting our bodies pillar-to-post. Performance is a sham to sell cars to macho wannabees.
There goes a Shelby Mustang: WHOOP-WHOOP-WHOOP! Probably good for 175, which you can’t do on Canandaigua’s City-Pier.
Would I buy this mid-engine ‘Vette? I’d just be profilin’. I’m not Mario Andretti — a mid-engine ‘Vette would be way faster than me.
So there’s my YMCA buddy in his red C5 Corvette, the “shampoo-bottle.” He’s parked in the sunshine on Canandaigua’s City-Pier, top down.
“Aren’t you the guy with the Spitfire?” I ask.
“Yep, but I got this too,” he boasts.
He’s not doing what his car will do. He’s profiling. (“Hey, look at me!”)
And most ”moonshot engineering” will suffer the same fate.

STAND BACK!
Race-driver Denis Hulme blasts an M8D McLaren
out of the hairpin at Mosport (Ontario, Canada).
(1970 photo by BobbaLew.)

• A Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches. It was made in various displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation. The Chevrolet “SmallBlock” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first to 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The SmallBlock is still manufactured, though much updated. The “Big-Block” could be immensely powerful, and the “SmallBlock” was revolutionary in its time. The Can-Am McLarens used the Big-Block, although usually cast in aluminum to save weight. Corvette uses a 6.2-liter (378+ cubic inches) version of the SmallBlock, vastly developed since 1955, good for 495 claimed horsepower.
• Corvettes came to use “C” for each version. The first Corvettes (1953-1962) are “C1;” the first Sting-Rays (1963-1967) are “C2;” the manta-ray Corvettes (1968-1983) are “C3;” the “C4” was from 1984 to 1996; the “C5” was from 1997 to 2004); the C6 was from 2005 to 2013; the “C7” (currently on sale) is 2014 to 2019. Usage of C-letters came after the C4.
• An editor-friend and fellow car-guy at the Messenger newspaper said the C5 Corvette reminded him of a shampoo-bottle. I always call the C4 the “disco ‘Vette.”
• For years Triumph made a tiny sportscar called the “Spitfire.” It looked great, but needed a lotta engine winding to get anywhere. It’s motor was tiny. I remember only 1,200 cubic centimeters, 73+ cubic inches. Although there may have been slightly larger motors later. A friend bought one for her first car. She let me drive it, and I had to wind the dickens out of it. It was four-speed floor-shift.