One poor C8 Chevrolet Corvette owner in Florida went from the highs of taking the keys to seeing their mid-engined sports car wiped out by an apparently drunk driver. There’s a silver lining to this sad story, however – the stricken ‘Vette has been snapped up by Rob Dahm, who’s pledged to give it a four-rotor conversion.
This might seem like a curious and perhaps even sacrilegious choice, but there’s some history at play here. The XP-895 prototype predecessor to V8-powered Aerovette concept was powered by – you guessed it – a four-rotor Wankel unit made by joining a pair of Chevrolet Vega engines.
Dahm also has previous in this arena, having converted a C5 Corvette to rotary power. However, with the Aerovette and the XP-895 being mid-engined, the current ‘Vette with its midship layout seems all the more fitting.
Unfortunately, the car he’ll be working on is in a bad way. Billed as the first crashed C8 (probably the first wrecked customer car – one of GM’s C8 pre-production prototypes was very publically crashed last year), it has significant front end damage, including a bent subframe. It also has a ‘notice of destruction’, so it won’t be possible to get it back on the road again.
Dahm’s previous projects are suitably bonkers enough for us to have no doubts about this C8’s rosy future, however. The first order of business will be to nurse it back to health in its stock configuration before the build project begins in earnest. We’re can’t wait to see it progress.
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