It’s rare to find anyone in a good mood after being involved in a road accident, but GM Authority reader Carlton Phillips is a remarkably happy man considering the damage that was recently sustained during his 2020 Chevy C8 Corvette crash.
While driving his Zeus Bronze Metallic 2020 Corvette Stingray Coupe, Phillips found himself in trouble as another car was approaching him. Stating that the mid-engine Chevy sports car responded well to his attempts to save the situation, Phillips soon realized that his C8 Corvette crash story was inevitable, leaving him with only two options.
“With only the choice of a pole or T-boning another vehicle, I chose the car,” he says. “In a split second it came to me that if I could hit the front right wheel of the car and hold my line we would both end up facing the same direction. And my decision worked.”
Phillips says that the crash felt as if he had casually bumped a curb in a full-size SUV, and says he has been in a more violent impact in bumper cars at an amusement park. His immediate concerns were for his passenger and for the driver of the other vehicle. He was able to reassure the driver that help was on its way, as the Corvette’s OnStar system had already made the customary emergency call, via the OnStar Automatic Crash Response feature.
It was only after this that he understood the extent of the damage to the mid-engine Corvette C8. “The car had transferred the entire force of the impact diagonally across the front end, shut itself off, and turned on the emergency flashers for me,” he says. “This was critical as we were in the middle of a soon to be a busy and darkening intersection.”
The worst part for Phillips was that he inhaled some dust while the airbags were deploying, which is particularly unfortunate since he has a pre-existing lung condition. But considering how much worse things might have been after his C8 Corvette crash, he’s not all too concerned about that.
“I would give the car a 10-star crash rating on a 5-star scale in its crashworthiness. And my utmost respect to the staff and assembly line workers who build our cars at Bowling Green Facility ensuring the hidden quality of these magnificent machines.”
Phillips plans to have the car rebuilt, and while he would probably prefer not to go through anything like this again, he wouldn’t mind if he did.
“I’d do it without a second thought,” he concludes.
The GM Authority Take
We’ll keep this one short and sweet: that’s as good a testament as it can get regarding the C8 Corvette’s safety. We’re glad Mr. Phillips is ok, and we wish him the best of luck in rebuilding his C8 Stingray.
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Comments
I would want this to be written off if possible.
It will be. I’ve seen less damaged ones totaled already
Upmost respect to the staff and assembly line workers. What about the engineers who designed the vehicle?
And suppliers that built all of the crashworthiness components (seatbelts, pre-tensioners, airbags, on-star module, antennas and all of the stamped parts that take much of the hit) and engineers reviewing and approving all of the manufacturing process.
Once again, we seem to see these new C8 Corvettes performing well in all instances, “punching way above their weight”, in total overall performance, on the streets & highways, on the race track and at various gatherings like Cars & Coffee events throughout America. We’re now witnessing these amazing mid engine sports cars also performing as a “well engineered safety vehicle” (although end results usually are not an enviable one, and in some case “fatal to the vehicles existence”) in crashes that can be expected for many different and varied reasons, from owners personal mistakes to being taken out by careless people not paying attention to what they’re supposed to be doing while driving, but so far, to my knowledge no C8 Corvette driver or passenger has been fatally injured, which speaks volumes about the design and engineering of the new C8 Corvettes…bravo to the GM Corvette engineering team at Chevrolet.
They say “they don’t build ’em as they used to”…and thank god they don’t, for if every Corvette were built like Corvette’s from the 1950′ thru the late 1980’s we’d be seeing some serious data showing many deaths and serious more injuries but because of modern technologies and crash standards, we’re all much safer now even though some of the accident data on Corvette’s in particular is sometimes “unique” (think excessive speed and poor judgement from the driver) we’re seeing that the more modern Corvette owners are usually “walking away” from some serious accidents that years ago, could have been way more serious or even fatal.
While there’s no good excuse for “the loose nut behind the steering wheel”, I’m impressed with how these new C8’s are performing in every instance when it comes to overall safety and also…accident avoidance features that some cases
I’m sure were activated by the vehicle itself, avoiding serious accident and injuries. ‘Ya got to love modern technology, not just in vehicle acceleration performance, handling, mileage and cleaner emissions but in safety standards too! I’m sold.
It’s great that this man survived, but damn, some of these owners really need to learn how to drive these cars, 2020 certainly has been the worst year so far with the number of C8’s being totaled.