Automotive history is full of enough what-ifs to fill a library. What if the four-seat Pontiac Fiero hadn’t been canceled? Would the 2020 Mercury Cougar have lived up to its legacy? What if, like the Chevrolet Corvette, the Ford Mustang had also gone mid-engined, like the Blue Oval envisioned back when the pony car was still a foal? That last question needn’t be left to the imagination, though, because Australian insurer Budget Direct Car Insurance has commissioned renders of such a car, along with similar reinterpretations of six other similarly popular sports cars and supercars.
This take on a front-engined Acura NSX will likely incense those of you who think Acura should’ve never revived the nameplate in the first place, though it wasn’t some insurance company that first imagined the NSX with its engine up front. No, Honda itself planned a spiritual, front-engined successor to the NSX in the 2000s, though after the 2008 banking crisis, the vehicle was reappropriated as a race car called the HSV-010 GT. The re-imagined, no longer rear-engined Porsche 911 down below is also not a pure fantasy; Porsche racked up dozens of race wins in the 1990s campaigning the mid-engined 911 GT1.
Also bordering on the believable are the firm’s rear-engined Dodge Viper and Nissan GT-R renderings, both of which may have reason to exist in the future. Rumors have suggested that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles could bring back the Viper with its motor mounted behind the driver, though the signature, super-sized V10 would be a thing of the past—it’d allegedly be superseded by a V8. A successor to Nissan’s long-in-the-tooth “R35” GT-R is slightly closer on the horizon, and the automaker may be forced to move the motor amidships to fulfill its lofty promises about the “R36” GT-R.
Though it’s hard to see Aston Martin exchanging cabin space for performance in its DBS grand tourer, it has no need to, as a mid-engined Aston analog will exist in the not-so-distant future. Similar can’t be said of a mid-engined Toyota Supra, in part because packaging an inline-six out back would be a nightmare, and in part because it’d preclude the need for an MR2 reboot. You’d also never hear the end of the BMW M1 jokes, and that alone is reason enough for Toyota (and BMW) never to make this rendering a reality.
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