The mid-engine Corvette C8 prototype that Chevrolet paraded through Manhattan last week featured a subtle hint to Zora Arkus-Duntov – the first-ever chief engineer for the Corvette program and a major proponent of the mid-engine layout.
Zooming in on a few of the photos reveals a small black and white sticker featuring a silhouette of Duntov’s head. One of the stickers is located on the portion of the side scoop that moves with the doors, while the other is on the side-view mirror.
These stickers were first noticed by Corvette Blogger. The website also intelligently notes that the sticker on the side scoop could be a visual cue for the door handle, which, as we know, is located underneath the scoop on the door.
The ‘Zora’ name has long been affiliated with the mid-engine Corvette C8, with General Motors filing to reserve the rights to the name for use on automobiles last summer and then again in January of this year. Spy shots of the supercar’s interior have already revealed that it will retain the Stingray name, however, so Zora may be reserved for a certain trim level, like a potential high-horsepower variant.
It was Duntov who spearheaded the development of the CERV (Chevrolet Engineering Research Vehicle) – an experimental open wheel car designed as a testbed for its emerging suspension, engine and transmission technology. The CERV was the start of a long campaign by Duntov to make the Corvette a mid-engine car and the beginning of Chevy’s foray into mid-rear layout experimentation. His efforts have ultimately culminated in the mid-engine Corvette C8, so it would be fitting for Chevrolet to include some sort of nod to the Belgian-born engineer on the car.
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Source: Corvette Blogger
Comments
Might watch for the emblem to be on something. The ZR1 had Jake the Corvette racing mascot molded into the intake tube. Zora could be placed someplace on the car.
Or this is just one of the many Easter eggs they have used over the years.
There will be a book on this cars development once it is out. This will be a one of the most interesting development stories we will ever read due to all that took place. Some things you had right in front of you and missed will be explained.
But the question is, would you be able to disable the engine noise coming from the speakers?
Keep the ZR, stupid!!!!!!!!!!!!
If a baseball, a hotdog, and a bowtie were embossed into the frame of the C4, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Zora silhouette was somewhere in the C8.
In today’s GM a maverick like Zora would never survive!
To be honest the world is much different.
The cost today are just so much higher today. There is little room for failure anymore or experimentation.
I grudgingly have to agree.
The only way most good ideas get off the ground nowadays is if an extensive cost-break downs and cost-projections are produced, and even then any good idea is only one bad quarter away from getting the chop.
There is also one of these Zora stickers up by the headlight.