While your local Chevrolet dealer may have various cars on the lot that you don’t know as well as others, everyone is familiar with the Corvette. This two-door luxury sports car has been the fodder for daydreams for over 60 years.
Now in its eighth generation, the Corvette is considered a marvel of engineering. It combines the ultimate style with powerful performance and modern technology. It’s one of the most recognizable brands on the road today.
Of course, the Corvettes we know and love today would have never made it on the sales floor of a Chevrolet dealer had it not been for concept cars. Concept cars are essentially prototypes that show off the imagination of Chevy designers.
One such concept car is the 1986 Indy car. Of all of the concept cars to appear at auto shows, this model is the one that people wish was in production the most. It had the feeling of a futuristic vehicle combined with everything we love about the Corvette.
Power Where It Matters in this Corvette
Most concept cars don’t come with a list of confirmed specs. Since the vehicle was never fully produced, it didn’t go through the various tests and inspections that other vehicles do to confirm their numbers. There are, however, reliable data points about the 1986 Indy concept that impress car enthusiasts even today.
This Corvette was supposed to come with a massive V8 that would produce at least 600 horsepower. It was paired with a three-speed automatic transmission. This non-manual powertrain was probably the biggest complaint from Corvette lovers, but it’s unclear if the production version would have come with a stick shift option or not.
What we do know is that rumors suggest that this beast could jump from zero to 60 mph in a mere 4.7 seconds at a top speed between 180 and 210 mph.
Showing Off That Tech
While budding technology of the 1980s almost seems laughable in the modern world, it was an exciting time. This concept Corvette took some pretty big leaps for the time. For example, it had a rearview camera. Today, every new vehicle at your favorite Chevrolet dealer has this option. Back then, virtually no other vehicle had this feature.
The Indy concept car also had displays on the door for climate and entertainment information and a CRT cluster for navigation. Keep in mind, GPS wasn’t something a regular person could have, so any kind of navigation felt like something out of a sci-fi novel.
This Corvette jumped ahead in time by offering anti-lock brakes and four-wheel steering. These features might be commonplace today, but they pretty much didn’t exist in the 80s.
Concept Lead the Way in the Corvette
All manufacturers have concept cars that don’t make it into production. These prototypes may not be practical, cost-effective, or well-received. In some cases, nothing from the concept vehicle is passed on to other cars that make it into production. The Indy concept car is not an example of this.
This concept car was a huge inspiration for the Chevrolet Engineering Research Vehicle III and eventually evolved into the C8 Corvette E-Ray. Maybe the 1986 Corvette Indy concept car never made it to a Chevrolet dealer, but it served as an inspiration for the Corvette models we enjoy today.
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