Jet Turbine-Powered Corvette Accelerates to 60 MPH in 2.5 Seconds

Between January 10th and 18th, auction house Barrett-Jackson will hold its Scottsdale event in Arizona. After a little peering through the digital catalogue, our attention was grabbed by a particular Corvette, which is arguably one of the maddest concept vehicles to be built in the United States.

The punchiest mill ever offered on a production C3 Corvette was the 427 cubic inch (7.0L) ZL1 big-block V8, which produced a SAE gross 450 hp and a lot of low-end torque. But a fantasy car based on the third-generation Chevy Corvette tops that almost twofold.

Cue in the 1978 turbine-powered Corvette C3 and its Pratt & Whitney ST6B turbine engine, packing a humongous 880 horsepower. Vince Granatelli, the guy that came up with it, then claimed it clocked 2.5 seconds to 60 mph (96 km/h), while a Motor Trend magazine editor managed to hit that speed in 3.2.

It’s an impressive package, more so when you consider the body shell looks like the production model’s, minus the space-age wheels. Want to hear the best thing about this blast from the past?

Even to this day, this machine is the fastest street-legal Corvette. As you know from an older Spider Man flick, with great power comes great responsibility, more so when you have to keep a turbine in check.

This is why Vince Granatelli fabricated an all-new subframe for the turbine, fitted NASCAR-spec disc brakes, fortified the drive shaft and gave this baby 3.03:1 gearing and a reduction gearbox. Why the latter? Well, Vince needed to bring down the turbine’s 37,500 rpm for very obvious reasons like NVH.

It’s hard to put a price on the winning bid, but a Corvette fitted with a jet turbine and an airplane-inspired instrument panel... well, not even the 2015 Corvette Z06 can top it on the coolness scale.

Turbine-Powered Corvette C3 - photo gallery