All American car lovers are well aware that the Chevrolet Corvette is famous for its powerful V8 engines, but in how many among sports fans Yankee remember the ZR-12 version with the twelve cylinder engine? We should go back to the nineties to (re)discover this little-known chapter in the history of the American automaker. In 1991 Dodge took out Snake, a large car that turned out to be amazing in terms of design. The new sports car had an immediate impact on its rivals and, as if that wasn’t enough, the beauty of the bodywork was combined with a large 10-cylinder engine. Chevrolet did not want to be challenged and so the top floor of General Motors issued an order for engineers to create. A Corvette with a V12 engine. The car, however, never saw the lights of the assembly line: it was done sample example only.

Chevrolet’s optional V12 engine came out Ryan Falconer Industries, a factory specializing in the construction of marine engines produced by General Motors. Total displacement was 10 liters and the engine was so large that engineers had to make room for it by lengthening the C4 Corvette’s wheelbase by 20 cm. The maximum power was of 686 horses and maximum torque 921 Nm: mind-boggling numbers for a naturally aspirated engine from the 90s.

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Shortly after it was built, the model was tested by some special magazines, resulting in very difficult to drive due to the longer wheelbase, which distorted the Corvette’s normal road behavior. More than that, The engine had a terrible tendency to overheat, causing serious doubts among the managers and engineers of the company about the advisability of putting the car into production. If it has gone into production it would have cost approx $70,000 in 1990. That’s 10,000 more than the current ZR-1 and nearly 40,000 more than the V8 Corvette of the time. In short, no one came back, and Chevrolet soon realized that the Corvette with the V12 would remain just a dream.

All American car lovers are well aware that the Chevrolet Corvette is famous for its powerful V8 engines, but in how many among sports fans Yankee remember the ZR-12 version with the twelve cylinder engine? We should go back to the nineties to (re)discover this little-known chapter in the history of the American automaker. In 1991 Dodge took out Snake, a large car that turned out to be amazing in terms of design. The new sports car had an immediate impact on its rivals and, as if that wasn’t enough, the beauty of the bodywork was combined with a large 10-cylinder engine. Chevrolet did not want to be challenged and so the top floor of General Motors issued an order for engineers to create. A Corvette with a V12 engine. The car, however, never saw the lights of the assembly line: it was done sample example only.

Chevrolet’s optional V12 engine came out Ryan Falconer Industries, a factory specializing in the construction of marine engines produced by General Motors. Total displacement was 10 liters and the engine was so large that engineers had to make room for it by lengthening the C4 Corvette’s wheelbase by 20 cm. The maximum power was of 686 horses and maximum torque 921 Nm: mind-boggling numbers for a naturally aspirated engine from the 90s.

.

Shortly after it was built, the model was tested by some special magazines, resulting in very difficult to drive due to the longer wheelbase, which distorted the Corvette’s normal road behavior. More than that, The engine had a terrible tendency to overheat, causing serious doubts among the managers and engineers of the company about the advisability of putting the car into production. If it has gone into production it would have cost approx $70,000 in 1990. That’s 10,000 more than the current ZR-1 and nearly 40,000 more than the V8 Corvette of the time. In short, no one came back, and Chevrolet soon realized that the Corvette with the V12 would remain just a dream.