Does The Mid-Engine C8 Corvette Suffer From Toyota Supra Syndrome?
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General Motors and Chevrolet finally let the public in on a very poorly kept secret. The automaker and brand announced that the 2020 mid-engine C8 Corvette will debut on July 18 this year, effectively stamping an official date for a highly anticipated car.
These are exciting times, no?
Maybe. Believe it or not, rumors and speculation about the eighth-generation Corvette date back to 2014. It’s been five years since we jumped aboard the hype wagon, and perhaps it’s been far too long. I like to call it Toyota Supra syndrome. What I mean by that is the mid-engine Corvette has been outed so often, spotted so much in the wild, and seen so much information leak about the car that putting a hypothetical gauge on the excitement produces ho-hum results.
Let’s recap what’s spilled out about the mid-engine C8 Corvette in five years very briefly. We have potential names such as the “Zora” nameplate to honor the father of Corvettes. We’ve heard about powertrains ranging from an upgraded LT1 V8 engine (potentially called the LT2 with 500 horsepower) to a 1,000-horsepower hybrid Corvette with all-wheel drive. We’ve seen purported body panels, rumored badges, and more spy photos of the car testing than I can even recall.
A similar situation unfolded with the reborn Toyota Supra. By the time enthusiastic Japanese executives unveiled the new sports car at the 2019 North American International Auto Show, it felt like we already knew the crux of things and had a pretty good idea of what the car would look like. The excitement was gone.
Contrast the never-ending hype building with another mid-engine supercar: the Ford GT. Very few people knew of Ford’s plans to re-introduce its banner supercar, and frankly, it was refreshing to view the car unspoiled four years ago in Detroit.
I’m certainly not saying the mid-engine C8 Corvette isn’t exciting, there’s no doubt it will carry the torch as a supercar killer on a budget. Corvette engineers have been doing that for decades. However, I’m ready to pull the cord and exit the hype train. Here’s hoping Chevrolet can keep a few things secret ahead of the big reveal.
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No.
The Supra really does not matter as it is a car that comes and goes and really has no staying power.
The Vette is an icon globally and will remain so.
While the Vette is in the news much because magazines and we sites make money from making up things we really still have 90% of the car to learn yet.
This cycle happens with every C car.
Even at the intro it will only be the start of what we will see.
I hope I can fit a car seat in the front passenger seat….
Dangerous and a bad idea. Get a Camaro instead…
There is always the frunk. Just be sure to punch some breathing holes in the liner and it’ll be fine.
Supra was a flop because it had low power, low appeal for a high price. The kia stinger was more exciting than the supra. Pretty much everyone that looked at a supra would say, I could buy a high performance mustang/camaro/charger for the same price, and loyal supra enthusiast felt cheated from high power. It killed itself. Corvette will awe audiences with new tech, power output for the dollar/car class and track times. It will have drift capacity and everything people want out of cars. If its a corvette in name only then yes it will flop, but all the tech and delays in the program tell me otherwise.
Supra fans felt cheated because the new Supra is a German coupe with hideous styling.
It’s a great coupe kneecapped by bad styling. Kind of like the Camaro, but without the loyal fanbase as a buffer.
The BMW 3.0T I6 is also one of the best engines on the market. It’s more than enough power for the street and uses much less fuel than the V8 engines that can beat it. For a daily driver I’d take the BMW engine for sure.
I bet there will be dealer markups and alot of customer pre-orders, just like what happened when the Camaro was re-introduced in 2010. The Camaro was one of most supposedly overhyped and overexposed pre reveals ever, and look what happened with it, sales took off. It’s very likely that there are many Corvette fans that have been wanting a mid engine version for many years, and now’s their chance.
No… The Supra was a reintroduction and sinfully ugly during concept and development. That added to the hate.
The other thing is that this mid-engine corvette doesn’t have mythical performance to match because it has an unbroken history of real performance it can absolutely beat. No one “remembers” an older corvette being remarkably better than a new one because there were no generational gaps to make people forget how much worse older cars actually are.
LOL the new Supra is definitely ugly as sin. It almost makes the Camaro’s 2019 refresh slightly less bad.
Almost.
I love these sorts of articles on websites like this. Leaking info on a vehicle for the better part of 2 years and then suddenly when the vehicle is slated for official announcement, we get articles saying the hype is dead and the website acts like it wasn’t implicit in the leaks. It makes me chuckle like Santa.
Then again, I’d expect no less from the “lead staff writer”.
no because people have been talking about the mid-engine corvette for 50years. a year or two is nothing.
those suffering from “supra syndrome” dropped out decades ago.
In the Supra the check engine light would not be illuminated. And the engine stays where people recognize the car as a Supra to boot.
Few people realize the Porsche 911 has inherent stability issues with its rear engine design, hard to drive sideways without spinning it. Yet, they stuck with their original layout and kept improving on it. Evolutionary changes, not revolutionary ones, those keep the customers coming with a car with history.
When GM feels like they have to light the interior of a pre-production car to show a smiling Mary Barra riding through the streets of NYC in a camouflaged test vehicle, all to announce the unveiling of a car more than three months away, they’re certainly approaching Supra hype territory.
Didn’t that smiling douche tell us in no uncertain terms there were no plans for a mid engine C8 not two years ago? Way to lie to your fan base Tadge.
Your president lies to you all day long. Are you offended gsM6?
Does the president trigger you to the point that he’s all you think about?
He certainly makes sure he dominates the news cycle.