With modern automotive design influenced more and more by numerous regulations, many of the production cars do not look nearly as exciting as their respective, original concept models. For the same reason, many design studies never made it to production or had to be heavily altered. While there are concept cars that made it to the real world, the Chevrolet Corvette Manta Ray is, sadly, not among them, but now, we have a modern interpretation of the 1960s design and, once again, we wish GM could give us a production version of it.

The rendering is dubbed Project Mantra and was done by graphic designer, Toghrul Hasanov (Toggie). It takes the original design from 1965, known as the Mako Shark, which in 1969 evolved into the Manta Ray, and put it through a “Cyberpunk filter”. What we mean by that is that the retro-futuristic concept now has more modern features such as LED lights, a more modern side-mirror design, and…that’s about it, actually.

The original design, penned by Larry Shinoda, had internal designation XP-755, but was known as the Mako Shark II. The C3-based concept was an evolution of the Corvette- C2-based XP-700, also known as the Mako Shark I. In 1969, the Mako Shark II was returned to the GM Design Studio for revisions. What came out on the other end was the original Manta Ray. Compared to the Mako Shark II, it had a revised front fascia, new front splitter, and extended tail end, with additional pop-up taillights.

The two-tone livery gives the Manta Ray an even more futuristic look and we think it definitely belongs in the Cyberpunk 2077 video game. Maybe the game developers can contact the pixel artist so they can include it as part of a special DLC car pack. As for the engine, the one-off Manta Ray, which exists in the real world, featured the Corvette C3 ZL-1’s 427 cubic-inch (7.0-liter) V-8, which was (conservatively) rated at 425 horsepower and 480 pound-feet (650 Nm). Given the futuristic approach seen here, we think the C8 Corvette Z06’s 5.5-liter flat-plane V-8 would be a perfect fit here.