In 1983, General Motors took a break from building the Corvette but while many thought that the year was taken to prepare for the launch of the C4, engineers were assigned to a new skunk works division to build a Group B racer to compete with Porsche in the 4,000cc class.
The engineers started with a spare 1976 Aerovette prototype and started building a mid-engine race car that would feature 4-liter engine based based on a destroked 4.1-liter sourced from Cadillac. Work continued and a running race car was tested in Michigan in 1985.
However, when the FIA brought an end to the Group B category for the 1986 season, the project was shelved and rolled into the corner of a spare shop building at the GM Proving Grounds in Milford, MI.
It would sit there until a group of engineers were testing Pontiac Sunfire mules at the proving grounds in 1992 and noticed the Aerovette race parked in the corner of the shop building. They pulled it out and got the records from the original team.
They hatched a plan to convince the bosses to rebody the Aerovette Group B race car with a Sunfire body and use it as a promotional vehicle for Sunfire which was to launch in a couple years time. To their surprise, the marketing department approved the plan and they went to work.
They were only allowed to work on the project at night and on the weekends but it was completed in the spring of 1995 just in time for the J-body Sunfire to hit the streets. It would be called the Pontiac Sun40 for the 4-liter engine it contained.
It would tour the country and give demonstrations for potential Sunfire customers until 1997 at which point it was leased by a production company to be used in the “Sun Racer” TV show that would compete with the “Viper” TV show.
Once the “Sun Racer” TV show was cancelled in 1999, it would be returned to GM at which point it would be taken to their Heritage Center where it sits to this day.
Image: Me
Words: Bozi Tatarevic