By John Mellberg

I’ve had these photos filed in a brown envelope since leaving GM Styling in 1972. The car in the photos was a Firebird that was underway when I was assigned to the Advanced Pontiac Studio, initially working for Gordy Brown, Studio Chief Designer, and then, when management decided to shuffle the Chiefs around—Jerry Hirshberg became the Studio Chief Designer for Advanced Pontiac and Gordy Brown took over Advanced Buick Studio. It was a great learning experience working with both of these talented design leaders and the Advanced Pontiac team members. We had a lot of creative fun working together, while learning from one another in the process.

Working in Adv. Pontiac when I came on board was Roger Hughet (Assistant Chief Designer), Elia Russinoff (a lifelong friend), John Houlihan, Dennis Burke (a then GMI Co-op designer), Dave Rossi (Chief Modeler) Cliff Gabler, Kurt Struckmeier, Dean Towne, Juergen Stoldt, Klaus Brink (a good friend and Studio Engineer), and Rick Stuhlstatz (Klaus’ assistant). If I’ve forgotten anybody, my sincere apologies, as this was a long while ago.

This Firebird design was initially developed from a series of 1/5th scale clay and fiberglass models, from which one was picked to do full-size.  We had been working on the refinement of the design for about 6 months when Jerry Hirshberg joined us. The design went from a single theme, to 2 themes, or variations, with one side the sporty design with full wheel cuts, and the other side, a boulevard design with the rear wheels skirted. This gave the model an interesting split personality. At the time these photos were taken by Bob DeMerrill, a Design Staff Photographer, the clay model had been fully di-noc’d and details were cartooned by this writer to add visual substance to the design. The modelers foiled the headlight bezels/cans and trim around the tail lights. It was a bold, striking design, clearly a complete departure from the then current FIrebird, and would have been a hatchback. The large round headlights give the car a place in time, as it wasn’t long after we had worked on this that rectangular headlights emerged on GM automobiles and the others. The model’s color was a metallic orange, somewhat like the recent 2005 GTO Ram Air 6 Concept that Kip Wasenko’s group put together adding muscle to the Australian GTO beyond its appearance as had been shipped to the States as a Pontiac.

If I recall correctly, we abandoned work on this car when the then new Federal regulations for front and rear bumpers became law, as this design would not have been compliant. I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen photos of this concept proposal ever published. Perhaps my fellow design colleagues from Advanced Pontiac Studio who also contributed to the design of this vehicle can further add to the pedigree of this design and its history.—John Mellberg

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This lithe concept mounted a 180-horse Wankel transversely, driving a new automatic transaxle being developed for the forthcoming X-body Citation. Designed by GM’s Experimental Studio and built on a modified Porsche 914 chassis by Pininfarina, the 2-Rotor made its debut at the 1973 Frankfurt show.

Mitchell had the car crushed.

Ron Will recalls this about the car: “Bill Mitchell absolutely hated the 2-Rotor and was very verbal about it calling it all kinds of nasty four letter words. I think he hated it because it was not his Corvette image of a big powerful sports car. Plus he had no input in the design. He also hated Porsches and thought this was in the Porsche class of Sports cars. Not long after it was shipped to the U.S. for review, I believe Mitchell had it crushed. He didn’t want anyone to get the idea that this could ever be a Corvette. That’s why you don’t see it at any of the retro show car gatherings.”

Or did he?

This is from Remarkable Corvettes: Tom Falconer now owns this little Corvette. That story began with a strange phone call from Tom’s friend, Geoff Lawson, the late Jaguar design chief, who in 1982 was head of styling at Bedford Trucks in Luton. He called to tell that the next day they were going to crush a Corvette that had a steel body. Tom instantly knew that this was no ordinary Corvette but the mythical two-rotor show car, supposedly lost in a fire in California in 1977.

Having begged Lawson not to crush the car straight away, Tom rang the head of GM styling, Chuck Jordan, who he had come to know while writing a book about the Cadillac Seville, and a meeting was arranged at the GM Tech Center in Detroit to discuss the future of the orphan prototype. Jordan soon explained the reason for the two-rotor Corvette’s death sentence: it was a shameful embarrassment, a painful reminder of the expensive Wankel interlude and an ideological dead end; no Corvette, as far as he was concerned, would ever have a steel body or a mid-mounted engine.

Tom pleaded for the car’s life and convinced Jordan that he should be allowed to take it into protective custody. Since 1997 it has been fitted with a Mazda 13B rotary unit (much more in the spirit of the original concept) matched to a Cadillac front-wheel drive automatic gearbox so that everything lines up. With a respray in its original Candy Apple red (the paint in the door shuts is original), Tom “relaunched” the two-rotor at the National Corvette Restorers’ Society Flight 2000 event six years ago. “I quite often get Americans coming in wanting to see it; they can’t believe it’s here,” he says.

American Racing Vector Wheels

I remember Tom Covert telling me that he designed the wheels for the 2-Rotor Corvette, and that American Racing Wheels copied or perhaps was involved in the tooling for the prototype wheels and decided to put them into production as the American Racing Vector. I don’t know the actual story.

Thanks to Wayne Ellwood of Corvette Articles and Photos, Kip Wasenko, and General Motors Corporation for the photos.

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