NOW! FREE ADS for CORVETTE CLUBS! click here to list your club and much, much more! HOW TO FRESHEN- UP YOUR ENGINE BAY © AllAboutVettes.com 2012. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any material on this website is a violation of copyright and is expressly forbidden without permission. This website has not been prepared, approved or licensed by General Motors. Some words, model names, images and designations herein are the property of the trademark holder and used for identification purposes only. C5 BRONZE HEADLIGHT MOTOR GEAR UPGRADE (article continues on next page) The styling similarities of XP-819 to the Mako Shark and the C3 generation of Corvettes is undeniable and understandable, since Larry Shinoda was the styling genius responsible for all of them. stands for “experimental prototype,” a designation given to any vehicles that GM used to try out new engineering ideas or to further refine ongoing styling ideas. In the case of XP-819, the engineering exercise was to check the feasibility of a rear-mounted engine for the Corvette back in 1964. The story of XP-819 begins with Frank Winchell, the engineer then in charge of Chevrolet's research and development program. Winchell took that position in 1959, just in time to see the lawsuits start rolling in from Corvair buyers complaining about their cars' tendency to roll. Winchell, who conducted many tests on the Corvair in 1963 to provide engineering data that would defend and exonerate the Corvair in those lawsuits, soon focused his new enthusiasm for rear-engine layouts in a couple of different directions: on the track, via Jim Hall and his Chaparral race cars, and on the street, via the Corvette XP-819, which was pitched to test the feasibility of a balanced, rear-engine, V-8-powered sports car. Zora Arkus-Duntov, famous for his pursuit of mid-engine layouts for the Corvette during his tenure at GM, initially scoffed at Winchell's concept, but later came around to it when presented with Larry Shinoda's renderings, an evolution of sorts of the Corvair-based Monza GT and Monza SS show cars that Shinoda designed two years earlier. Corvette historians will also point out how much the XP-819's design foreshadowed Shinoda's later design for the Mako Shark, a design that would, of course, greatly influence the third-generation Corvette's styling. Within two months, the XP-819 was built and running, using a marine version of the small- block V-8 (taking advantage of its reverse rotation to turn the two-speed transaxle in the correct direction), a custom-built backbone chassis, and Chaparral-like wheels running larger tires on the rear to compensate for the rearward weight bias. The distinctive wheels used on the XP-819 were the same used on Jim Hall’s legendary Chaparral race cars. 9.71-SECOND, 140MPH RUN ON STOCK C5 ENGINE VIDEO