Automotive Engineering - July/August 2019 - 42

READER
FEEDBACK

Mid-engine Corvette concepts rock!

Thank you, SAE, for the article on GM's mid-engine Corvette
concepts in your June issue of Automotive Engineering. I've
seen some of these beauties in various magazines before, but
never all of them in one article. The background story was very
well researched. I never knew before reading this that GM even
put a Corvair "boxer six" in one of the Corvette concepts.
Jim Cartwright
via email
The photos of the many GM Concept
Corvettes were a nice surprise in
your latest issue. I never knew about
the Wankel rotary-powered exercises. My dad worked at a supplier
back in the early 1970s when GM was
gearing up to put rotaries in small
cars. They lost a lot of money on
their tooling investments when the
program was cancelled due to the
Clean Air Act. I'm a software engineer with clients in the auto industry
and own a pristine Mazda RX-7. I love
all rotary-engine history.
T. "Felix" Katz
via email
The article on GM's mid-engine
Corvette history was very good. Like
so much of GM's product development history, many great ideas never
left the proving ground, or the styling
dome in Warren, or couldn't get approved by the bean counters that gave us low-rent interior
trim on so many cars and trucks.
Sam Benedetto
Clarkston, MI
If GM's bloated bureaucracy would have only followed godfather Zora Arkus-Duntov's direction, the world would have had
a mid-engine Corvette decades ago. I plan to purchase a
2020 model as soon as I see the color palette and wheel/tire
option list. Can't wait.
Alex Kunaris
via email
I really enjoyed AE's coverage by Don Sherman of the midengine concepts that came before. GM should have built this
car years ago.
Batwings85

42 July/August 2019

GM will finally unveil the mid-engine Corvette to the automotive public on July 18th. No doubt it will be enthusiastically
recieved by aficionados. However, I believe it will lose its iterative design (C's, Z's) distinction. Like most mid-engine cars,
their design iteration is very limited. A recent Road & Track
article reported that Chrysler toyed with the idea of making
the Viper a mid-engine car. But as stated, that would have
destroyed what the Viper had become: an icon with its frontengine, rear drive, V10-powered configuration. As noted by
Herb Helbig, "I'm glad they're building a mid-engine Corvette,
because that just continues to separate the Corvette from the Viper."
Thus the mid-engine Corvette will
simply be another European base
designed mid-engine sports car.
Colin
Ohio, via email
The June article on mid-engine
Corvette concepts rocks!
Emily Siegrist
Rochester, NY

Noise, Vibration and Hardship

I work in the NVH testing field and
found your June AE article informative. It also helps to raise awareness
of an increasingly important engineering field that was considered a
"specialty" not long ago. We work
with Bruel & Kjaer, who provide highvalue services in our facility. Without their expertise, NVH
reduction would be more like Noise, Vibration and Hardship.
Name withheld
Marysville, Ohio
I, too, remember well the early Lexus TV ads that editor
Brooke recalled in his June article. At the time, I worked in
vehicle development and this ad was kind of a breakthrough
in articulating what is an abstract to most people (attenuating
high-frequency/high-amplitude vibration) to a visual that
anybody can understand.
Reese Stiles
via email

READERS: Let us know what you think about Automotive
Engineering magazine. Email the Editor at Lindsay.Brooke@
sae.org. We appreciate your comments and reserve the
right to edit for brevity.

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Automotive Engineering - July/August 2019

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