Ask any lad under the age of 15 what they’d like to see in a Corvette, and likely they’ll tell you: “A jet engine!” Little does he know that in 1978, Vince Granatelli beat him to the punch, fitting an 880 HP turbine engine into the only modern car that could accommodate such a mill: the Chevrolet Corvette C3.
This is that car. It’s headed to the Barrett-Jackson classic car auction later this month in Scottsdale, Arizona to be sold off to a new curator. We say “curator” because the 1978 Granatelli “Turbine-Vette” is a priceless piece of automotive history, and the only one of its kind.
But ahead of its crossing the auction block, the jet-powered Granatelli Corvette was driven around the track by Autoblog contributor Basem Wasef in the video below. After a brief news reel, Basem takes the car out for a lap around the oval, and we get to hear his thorough commentary on what has to be, hands down, the most novel Corvette ever made.
“It is so rad to hear this turbine jet just roaring along as you go down the track,” remarked Mr. Wasef. When you floor the throttle, “It’s not like an immediate kick in the pants… it’s just this almost gentle, serene ‘whoosh’ where the sound really kind of accentuates the feeling of speed.”
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