We Compile All Evidence Pointing To A Mid-Engine Corvette
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After literal decades of ongoing rumors, concepts and more, it seems that finally, finally, the Corvette program is going to get the mid-engined car its always deserved, based on evidence that the automotive media at large have contributed to, including us.
Let’s put forth a basic timeline.
First, we discovered the “Zora” trademark filing. Being that Zora Arkus Duntov was one of the fathers of the Corvette program and went on record that he wanted to do a mid-engine model, this trademark filing of course led us to suspect nothing but exactly that. There are also filings for curious names such as E-Ray, , ZR-1 and more.
What really broke the internet was a sheepishly disguised prototype surface with Holden Commodore ute dressings, where something clearly mid-engined was happening under the tailgate of the pseudo ute. Insert passing time of rumors, mumblings et cetera.
Then, we catch a glimpse of some clear mid-engine Corvette renderings during a design interview. Mid-engine is certainly on the mind.
Most recently, General Motors invested $290 million into the Bowling Green assembly for “new processes and technologies.” GM also stated it will help the Corvette facility become more flexible. Flexible for what? Bowling Green does Corvette, and Corvette only. Minus a short stint in building the Cadillac XLR, Bowling Green is Corvette territory.
And then there are the recent spy shots of a decidedly mid-engined prototype scampering around GM proving grounds. If you weren’t a believer then, you should be by now. Sure, maybe Cadillac will get a mid-engined supercar. But right now? It’s safer to believe that Cadillac is focused on filling out its portfolio with a small sedan and oodles of crossovers.
That single reason alone is why this mysterious mid-engine machine that was spotted has to be a Corvette, along with the the trademark evidence. There’s no other logical choice at the moment, especially with cross-town rival, Ford, sweeping motorsports with its mid-engined GT.
It’s not a Cadillac, it’s a Corvette, whether you like it or not. We’re ready, and the world should be ready.
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There is more evidence than that as I have been posting.
The only real question is will the Stingray live on as a separate model or will the Mid Engine be priced as low as $80K as Car and Driver suggest.
It is not a matter of if but how the program is handled.
Cadillac is said to be getting a coupe version at some point but if JDN is taken for his word it would not happen before 2025. That is what he stated personally so I will take that as their time table.
I have heard they were looking to sell the C7 and C8 together and now I hear a lower price on the Mid Engine car. Also there was talk that new platform could support a front and mid engine layout with the way it is designed.
Note sure what is right here but that is where the real story is in how GM will handle this program.
Either way this car may be able to out run a Ford GM but there will be still be a sub $100K Corvette for the masses yet. Just what and how it is presented TBA.
I would literally bet massive amounts of money that they are concurrent. Its the only thing that makes any logical sense.
If you make billions selling budget exotics, why would you stop and throw billions away? It doesn’t make any logical sense. They gross over 10k on every corvette they sell.
The mere idea of moving the price up 30k just to compete more in a barely-profitably highly competitive segment makes absolutely NO business sense, and the guys at Corvette and GM are not that stupid.
On the flip side, moving the ZR1 territory into mid-engine space isn’t crazy. Create a halo effect on the brand, increase proliferation by having your exotic-competitor differentiated by the cheaper alternatives, and finally beat out the higher priced competition? THAT makes sense.
The fact is, when you make 10 grand on a 50-60k car, and the buyers CANNOT afford an 80-90k car, only the dumbest businessman in the world would make that move, and barra is actually pretty smart.
Its not like they are facing encroachment on their niche- no one else can play there! Its a defensive move, not an offensive move.
Well I would not say billions are made but a good profit is made.
As for more expensive generally the cars even at very small volumes make more money. This is how Ferrari lives at such low volumes.
But I agree both cars may live on if not there will be a cheaper version of the C8 at some point.
I think the clues are in the names and not just being a Corvette anymore.
If you go back and look at old issues of Car and Driver and other magazines and find their prognostications about “The Next Vette” they consistently are not correct.
And the other thing is that anyone that projects forward to what a car company will do in NINE years is having a wet dream. It’s too far ahead and too many unanticipated things could happen.
Another observation is that Chevrolet typically does things in an evolutionary way, and NOT in a revolutionary way – which very much frustrates car enthusiast magazine writers that LOVE playing “Car Designer.”
We have about 18 months to the 2018 North America Auto Show when the C8 makes its grand debut. We’ll see.
Well in this case I agree the magazines are usually off. Nothing new there.
But with what we do know there is a Mid Engine Corvette coming. Now just how it is marketed as one platform or two platforms with the Stingray.
We have enough quotes from people like Bob Lutz Tadge and others that have given us a good indication where they are going. There comments also help rationalize some other un confirmed things that have been floated.
Odds are we will see more of this car in the next year and will not have to wait till 2018. We have hot weather testing coming up and we will see more mules on the road in camo but we will have a good clue about where this is going.
The smaller details like engines and styling will be the only things we will not know but the lay out should be pretty much confirmed soon.
General Motors is spending $290 Million at the Corvette facility and this suggests that Chevy might be planning more than simply building a street version of their Corvette Daytona Prototype car as there may be ambition to build a competitor to the Ferrari LaFerrari and/or Porsche 918 which means this car even priced at $200K would be considered as a bargain just as the C7 Corvette Z06 is a bargain at $80K and why Chevrolet sold over 2,600 Corvettes in May.
I still hope for the front engined one. There’s a lot of alienation that goes on with moving the Corvette to mid engine. I’m hoping they find a way to keep the Stingray front engined and make the ZR1 the mid engined and sell them side by side.
Yep, that would make sense to me too!
I agree also. I own a 2011 Grand Sport and although I like the concept of a mid-engine Corvette, it will probably be a lot more expensive. I’ve read that it will start around $150,000. That may not be a great deal of money compared to the Ford GT, but compared to a C7 Stingray or Grand Sport it will be a big jump. I like Hoffa’s idea build it and sell it side by side with a front engine Corvette.
$80K base price for a Corvette? They can’t sell them at $55K now.
Mid-engine cars are poorly shaped and grossly disproportionate. The current C7 sells on its looks and performance. Compared to the C6 which they couldn’t give away in its final years, the C7 and C2 are the most popular models.
Will the Corvette base accept a mid-engine after all these years? Would the 911 base accept anything but a rear engine?
Seems like a huge gamble for little reward, unless GM is trying to kill off the Vette.
Looks are subjective. I just saw a Laferarri Convertible and I must say it is one of the most stunning cars i the world. I like the C7 too but they both have their sweet designs.
As for price the Mid engine is more expensive to build and possibly will be more carbon fiber infused. The key is they want weight out. Also they are hard pressed to make the present C7 at $55K now. You start adding the good things and more carbon the price can go to over $108 pretty fast.
As for acceptance we heard this same song when they went to the C3, Then to the C4 and then to the no pop up head lamps. Finally the loss of the round tail lamps were to be the end of the car. Yet today it still thrives.
As long as they provide better performance than even more expensive cars the car will thrive.
I still think they will do two models at least for a while. I am not sure on the $80K price as that is what C&D reported and I have not heard it from anyone else. The $170K came from someone from GM that had a friend say to wait on his Z06 and that was the price he was quoted. It also fits about where I would expect them to go.
As this all goes down GM will have a hit car and make a lot of money with it. Corvette pretty much sell themselves as long as you keep them updated. The times they did get into trouble is when they go to long on new models. The C4 and C5 almost killed them selves due to the lack of changes.
Even with a Corvette there are only so many people that will buy a two seater. You have to keep them coming back for more and change is how you do it and not over building a model.
“They can’t sell them at 55k now”?
Very confused by this statement.
In 2015 they sold 33,329.
In 2014 they sold 34,839
Compare that to 5 years ago.
In 2010 they sold 12,624
And in 2009 they sold 13,934
When they introduced the C6, they sold 32,489
When they introduced the C7 they sold 34,839
So where is this justification for “They can’t sell them at 55k now”?
Sales of C7 have collapsed 20% this year compared to 2015 ytd even though Chevy is offering a $2k rebate on top of thousands in dealer discounts. The C7 is selling worse than the C6 at less than 3 years.
http://www.corvetteblogger.com/2016/07/01/june-2016-corvette-sales/
Despite all its acclaim, the C7 is less successful than the C6 which was the ugliest model of them all. How in the world could Chevy bump the price 45% to $80k when the market is going to SUVs and trucks? Even Porsche has figured this out.
I wholly agree that 80k will never fly, and I wrote a response above about how there is a 0% chance of that happening.
What I disagree with however is that “They can’t sell them at 55k”.
In 2005, Chevy had no Camaro. In 2006 Chevy had no camaro. There was no camaro until 2009.
So in 2015, the Corvette is being sold alongside the camaro, and the camaro does pull from the bottom end of the corvette buyer segment. That means those that would buy a C6 but would have rather had something cheaper had no alternative.
If you put corvette sales and camaro sales together, in ’05, the first year of the new vette, they sold 32,489 total sports cars. In 2014, the first year of the new Corvette, they sold 121,136!
If you don’t think the camaro is an influence, look what happened to corvette sales in 2009, the year the camaro went on sale. Corvette sales dropped immediately from 26,971 down to 13,934. The Camaro crushed the corvette sales by almost HALF. THAT is a collapse. The C6 dropped 26% from year 2 to year 4, so seeing a 20% drop in roughly the same time period doesn’t seem like a collapse, the pent up demand and newness wore off. (I was one of the buyers who went from a C5 to a Camaro SS)
The fact that the C7 can sell a whopping 35,000 corvettes at 55k is amazing. That is hugely successful. at the same time they have another sportscar overlapping it on the market. Yes, they are different cars with different demographics, but there is a significant overlap in buyers.
Chevrolet is selling over 120k sports cars… Porsche sold only 51k cars and only about half were sports cars… Chevrolet sells more corvettes than Porsche does total sports cars, and more than double the sports cars porsche sells in total cars.
So I hugely disagree that the “c7 is selling worse than the c6”- when put into context. I also disagree that they can’t sell C7s at 55k. I can’t believe they can move more than 30k when they have such a potent car positioned right below it. That is astounding. The Stingray is a huge success.
A 2k rebate isn’t unheard of or even that extreme on a 55k+ car, and after 2 years virtually every car begins to receive rebates and discounts to move volumes. the same company (chevy) is giving 20% off of most their other models (thats $6400 off a averaged priced car).
The 2016 corvette stingray ended production 2 weeks ago, and 2017 is starting. They ALWAYS discount last year’s model when the new models come out.
No it is not hard to sell them cheaper now. I is just hard to get one that stickers at $55K. Few are built and sold as base models. Generally the average price is well into the 60’s and with the higher sales of Z06 and Grand Sports the price average will go even higher.
It is not that they can’t sell them at that price it is that few people buy ones that cheap. If they are buying a Vette few go cheap and pile on the options. That is nothing new since the 70’s.
I remember the early 80’s model I saw with steel wheels. Not a common sight even then.
You know what fact no one has pointed out?
The current car is the
Corvette STINGRAY.
Not The “corvette”
The Corvette STINGRAY.
I think that is significant, because it suggests to me you could go to the store and say,
“I’m trying to decide between the “Corvette Stingray and the Corvette Zora”
When the stingray came out I thought it odd that they made it a big point to call it the stingray. I thought it was brand dilution. Boy was I wrong- its brand proliferation.
This has been covered many times. As have the names being registered.
I expect the Corvette to remain a Chevy here in NA but globally it will become a brand with several models.
Mid engine or not that is something we have been watching for a while.
Just adding more fuel to the fire, we all can name all the manufacturers that market both designs, front and rear, side-by-side, successfully. It is being done, and I believe GM/Chevrolet marketing and sales will do the same and be successful at it. A limited production model, for those that can afford them, to park next to their _ _ _ _ _ _ .
B-T-W, Sean, with all due and utmost respect to and for ZAD, Zora was the God Father to Corvette, not one of the fathers. The distinction of being Father of the Corvette belongs to one person only, Harley Earl.
I would bet that the C8 mid-engine Corvette will share it’s platform with a Cadillac sibling. I did the XLR proposal for GM as soon as Dave Hill replaced Dave McLellan. Dave Hill had come from Cadillac and was chief engineer for the Allante. He missed the mark with that front wheel drive turd and this would give him a chance to redeem himself. The XLR which shared the C6 platform was a step in the right direction for Cadillac. Johan de Nysschen who now heads Cadillac championed the mid-engine Audi R8 which shares it’s platform with the Lamborghini Gallardo. For these reasons I believe the mid-engine platform will be shared. I would think the Cadillac version will be powered by a V12 version of the LS motor to separate it from it’s C8 sibling, and only available with an automatic transmission.
“I would think the Cadillac version will be powered by a V12 version of the LS motor to separate it from it’s C8 sibling, and only available with an automatic transmission.”
The LS is dead, and has been dead for 2 years now.
A few years ago, in one of the “diesel” truck magazines doing an article on the Duramax diesel was a “oh by the way” shot of a mid-engine Corvetter prototype sporting an experimental version of the 4.5l duramax diesel engine with twin turbos. Of course the 4.5 has yet to be produced (a huge blunder on GM’s part). Perhaps the new supercar will have this engine as an option, no??????????????????????
Emissions are getting too strict and the cost would be even greater.
Audi played around with the Diesel in their cars but they are moving away from them in light of the cost, regulations and the VW issue.
Governments are making damn near impossible to build and sell diesels anymore.
Gm’s Tonawanda engine plant, is already retooling for Cadillac’s new TTV8 engine. That will power a mid-engine future sports car from Cadillac, and Cadillac models, but also power a mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette Zora.
The TT V8 if got the CT6. As for a Cadillac Sports car maybe someday by nothing is approved as of yet.
As for the Corvette I expect a turbo option but not convinced it will be the Cadillac engine yet. Odds are it could be but Cadillac wants to keep their engines all to themselves moving forward. All of this will depend on the GM board.
So Chevrolet is building there own v8 engine from these gen 5 small block v8? A TT V8 engine?
It is not entirely clear yet.
Cadillac is planning on having their own engines that are not shared with the rest of GM. It will not happen over night but their goal is to work to this and then offer things like 32 valve TT engines along with their own V6 which they have in the TT V6 already and at some point later they will have their own 4 turbo.
As for Chevys plans I expect they will continue to expand the LT line and V6. Now this is where it is not clear. Will they use the Cadillac turbo for now or will they turbo their own engine?
I Know they in the past had planned on making a engine that could support DOHC and in block cams. Also they have worked to offer a cam that has a cam with in a cam that provides different timing for intake and exhaust.
It is hard to say where they are going. As of now it could even just be a more advanced supercharged V8.
I suspect there is a turbo of some kind lurking as in the IMSA series the turbo is at an advantage. I see them at least offering some kind of turbo option so they can race it.
For Cadillac to get all their own engines it will take time and a lot of money so I expect some sharing but I do not see them using the present TT V6 as it is not high enough HP yet. Also the new Cadillac V8 engine is not for a performance model at this point.
Word had leaked out GM had tested a V8 with the Corvette people and it was over 1,000 Hp. They could not get all the power to the ground. The un named source stated that they would only put in the power they could get to the ground.
Either way I would easily expect something in the range of 800 HP very expected and possibly more?
Lutz in a interview said he expected a Mid Engine and he expected it to be cheaper than the Ford and to have enough performance to blow away the Europeans less the Bugatti and other mega super cars. That is in the present Road and Track.
Keep in mind while Lutz may not know all the plans he has a good idea what is going on. Much of what is happening started when he was still there.
He said he expected a Corvette that would make the Ford GT look less the value. In other words a much faster and better performing car for less money. His estimate was around $150-170 on a mid engine car. I had heard $170 from a GM employee.
That price would play into the two car system too. one Stingray and one Mid engine.
As of now all we can to is toss the puzzle pieces out there and see what we can fit together over time.
I had heard they were looking into the platform where it could support front and mid engine both. Not sure they pulled it off but if anyone could the Corvette team could. Already having a rear trans axle is a good start. Now just figuring out the hard points to be flexible to moving the cockpit and engine mounts.
As for the LT the engine is not even near its limits yet. The block is very strong and stiff and we have already seen the aftermarket make over 1,000 HP with just some small changes.
Scott 3, I’ve just seen a new gm patent for a TT ohv v8 engine, and a ohv v6 TT with a new two stage turbo patent system and cylinders deactivation system patent, on them. Mid-engine, c8 zora zr1 TT ohv V6 engine (3.7-liter), c8 zora zr1 TT v8 engine (4.4-liter), PHEV+ TTV8 engine , Base c8 corvette FMN Rwd, 4.9 liter v8 engine, with cylinder deactivation system, that’s how I think it’s going to be. The c8 corvette will have these Small Block Gen 5 OHV v8 engine’s, and ohv V6 engine.
Your right scott 3, it wouldn’t be Cadillac’s TT v8 engine, it will be a ohv ” TT v8″ LT8″ engine (Gen 5 SB), may have Two camshafts in the block, with three valves, ( 24 valves) in all. There will be a v6 TT engine as well, Two camshafts, three valves, cylinder heads, I’m saying this because, know one has said what’s going to happen too these Gen 5 small block V8 in these C8 corvette ?