Rumours and stories have circulated about the coming of a mid-rear engine Corvette for nearly a half century. It’s no small wonder as everyone that knows anything about car- and driving-dynamics will tell you the closer the weight is to the middle, the better the car’s handling will be. That’s an over-simplified explanation but think Ferrari, Lamborghini and McLaren…
It only makes sense that GM has wanted to put an engine in the “right” place in America’s premier sports car for all this time. Multiple reasons over the decades have delayed what we and everyone else thinks will happen: The next generation C8 Corvette will have a mid-mounted rear engine.
The details that are circulating involve a piece of news that might not please everyone. A C8.R race car was spotted at a track and those who heard it fly by said that it did not sound like a Corvette and its V8 roaring but rather more like a Ford GT and its boosted V6… Cadillac has a very decent 400+ horsepower 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6. It’s certainly a start.
The other element that we’ve actually discussed among us is pricing, or the value that a Corvette represents. It seems clear to us that a mid-engine Corvette will not be priced below $70,000 like a basic C7 Stingray with a 7-speed manual gearbox. Some think the base price might be more than double that amount.
Will the C7 and C8 be sold simultaneously, at least for a short period of time? Will the C8 be called something else? Will there be a Stingray and a Zora (Zora Arkus-Duntov known throughout the car world as the “father of the Corvette.”)
So many questions, and still so few answers. The 2019 ‘Vette is already for sale so the new car will be a 2020 or 2021. We hope to see the new Corvette next January at the Detroit auto show. We’ll be there and report back to you. It’s a promise.
