CERV I: The First Mid-Engine Corvette

Some of the most incredible cars of the 1960s wouldn’t exist without Zora Arkus-Duntov’s secret weapon: the Chevrolet Engineering Research Vehicle (CERV) I.

These days, concept cars tend to be exercises in pushing the boundaries of aesthetics, technology, innovation, and a variety of other buzzwords. Computer-aided design largely solved much of the issues regarding aerodynamics, suspension configuration, and comfort. It should go without saying, but things were pretty different back in the late-50’s. If you wanted to figure out what was going wrong with your suspension, you essentially had to rely on experience and “eyeball it.” And innovations occurred practically every day in the automotive field. Just in 1953, America debuted its first ever sports car, for example. Which also happened to be the first production car with a fiberglass body. V8’s became commonplace for the first time. And new suspension setups created a variety of opportunities for experimentation with ride quality both on and off-track.

Meanwhile, back in showrooms, the era of the Fin remained in full swing. America demanded fullsize luxury. And racetracks were relegated to privateers and hobbyists following the dissolution of factory-backed racing. However, for some people, motorsport remained the ultimate proving ground for developing technologies. People like Zora Arkus-Duntov, racing driver and one of the fathers of the Corvette. He knew, more than anyone, the practical values of pushing a car to its limits. Using this experience, he and fellow Corvette father Larry Shinoda developed yet another first of its kind: the Chevrolet Engineering Research Vehicle (CERV) I. But before we dive into CERV I, let’s first examine why such a platform is such an important test-bed in the first place.

Using Motorsport as a Study Tool

The principles behind suspension, power delivery, and so on remain true no matter what road you’re on. But on a racing circuit, speeds and forces are amplified to the extreme. Suddenly, you get a sense of the subtleties of how a car is behaving. It becomes far easier to tell the difference between suspension stiffness, wheel alignment, brake balancing, and so on. If something’s as smooth as butter on a racing circuit going 200 mph, it’ll be like riding on a cloud at 65.

To put it another way, let’s say your suspension travels so-high when it hits a bump at high speed. If your suspension’s overly stiff, it’ll upset the car and you’ll feel it as if you hit a massive pothole. If it’s too soft, it’ll get floaty over crests and through corners. So as you drive fast, you tune the suspension to handle these forces without upsetting the car’s balance.

Duntov was a master at translating this information to usable, practical roadgoing applications. He was able to extrapolate how a vehicle’s suspension behaves on the road by amplifying those sensations in a racecar. It’s like tuning an instrument, where you plug it into an amplifier to hear the subtleties of the notes you’re playing. That philosophy served as the basis for CERV I. Essentially, it was a test bed for roadgoing technologies like suspension, brakes, and powertrain. And it did this by taking those, turning them up to 11, and working out the nuances there. So that when you brought it back down again, everything ran smooth as silk. As such, CERV I became the first of its kind: a racecar designed solely as an aid for future road cars.

Anatomy of CERV I

Duntov conceptualized the CERV I originally as a racecar. His plans changed following the banning of factory-backed teams, at which point the test bed idea took over. From there, unbound by regulations, he fitted the car with a variety of technological masterpieces. Some of which still boast impressive numbers even by today’s standards. For example, people made a huge deal about one horsepower per cubic inch back then. Well, try one horsepower per pound. The aluminum 283 c.i. powerplant fitted with experimental magnesium Rochester injection did just that. For just 350 pounds, it produced 350 horsepower. Such figures were generally reserved for aircraft builds at the time. The engine was mated to a traditional Corvette four-speed through a magnesium-housed aluminum clutch. Elsewhere, the car featured a Halibrand quick-change final drive, inboard-mounted brakes, and more. So, so much more.

Take, for example, its engine. Which, yes, it’s fairly obvious that CERV I is a mid-engined vehicle, the first of its kind for any Corvette-derivative. It sowed the seed for further mid-engined development, but the monstrous 283 c.i. unit went far beyond just that. It also marked Chevrolet’s first racing V8 with an aluminum block, a blueprint which carried over to the infamous C2 Grand Sport. Then there’s the chrome-molybdenum tube chassis, a first for Chevrolet. Still in its adolescent stages, the extremely stiff frame became commonly used throughout the Grand Prix scene.

Suspension-wise, it featured independent front and rear coilovers, with a high roll center front geometry for driver observation. The rear suspension is a dual-link setup, with the upper links doubling as the drive axles. This suspension served as the blueprint for the Sting Ray, with only minor alterations before being fitted to the C2’s chassis. CERV I also used standard C1 HD-package brakes, being that it’s a test bed for roadgoing technology. However, these were further modified with lightening holes and sintered iron linings. In its entirety, this package (sans body) weighed in at approximately 1,500 pounds wet. This technology represents the most tangible way that the car improved its roadgoing counterpart. But it was far from the only way. The weight distribution, balancing, brake performance, even the way the fuel injection system was set up, all went into the C2’s development processes as well.

Essentially, while CERV I never directly competed in motorsport, it served the purpose of introducing radical new technologies that became vital to sports car racing throughout the 60s. From its fully-independent suspension and tube-frame to its innovative aluminum and magnesium fuel-injected engine, CERV I marked one of the great forerunners of modern sports car technology.

CERV I’s Exterior and Testing

As stated before, Shinoda developed the exterior shell for the CERV I. He designed an open-cockpit, open-wheel streamliner configuration for two reasons. Firstly, it aided driver and engineer observation of wheel and suspension geometry. And second, it eliminated variables like wind interacting with components on the car’s underside.

The car used a mid-engine configuration, virtually unheard-of outside of very niche Grand Prix designs at the time. Designers even placed two fuel tanks on either side, so that sloshing fuel wouldn’t impact testing. The body itself consists of a fiberglass shell, weighing only 80 pounds total, then fitted on the tube chassis, bringing total wet weight to 1,600 pounds. Much like late-50s F1 cars, the body completely houses the engine, cooling system, and transaxle. The body was only modified following the installation of a new engine – a total of seven different engines were fitted over its lifespan. The first, of course, being the infamous one horsepower per pound 283.

Overall, the package wouldn’t look out of place on a Grand Prix roster, and could most certainly hang with such cars. Especially with its roster of drivers. Aside from Duntov himself, CERV I drivers included the likes of Dan Gurney and Sir Stirling Moss. However, the vehicle never saw a race in its life, relegated to testing primarily at Chevrolet’s Milford Proving Grounds. However, its most famous appearance came in November 1960, at the now-defunct Riverside Raceway, just outside of Riverside, California. There, the car made its public debut, allowing a glimpse into the Corvette’s future for the first time. A future only fully realized in February 2020, when the Corvette officially transitioned to mid-engine some 61 years later. Talk about being ahead of the curve.

Photos courtesy of Chevrolet Pressroom

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