I’m excited about the mid-engine layout. I think the Corvette will continue to be the fastest car available at its price point. This will be a track monster. I love manuals, but a paddle-shift dual-clutch is the best choice for a 500 horsepower car.
It is, however, pretty bad looking. The hood is bland. They failed to integrate the side intake into any of the styling lines, so one line that looks like it should circle the car instead looks gets eaten by the monstrous intake that glommed itself onto the car’s side. And what’s up with the growth on the door? I have Arnold Schwarzenneger’s voice in my head saying, “it’s not a toomah!” They tried to hard to preserve at least a few styling cues from the C7 Corvette, particularly the headlights and taillights, which look awful. The front intakes (which I assume are mostly for brake cooling) look like over-sized frippery to scream “aggression!” I really hoped for some interesting mid-engine design but none of the styling really works for me. This car is a revolutionary change for Corvette. They should have gone with revolutionary styling but instead it’s a weird hybrid of leftover styling choices from earlier models grafted onto new proportions. I still want one.
I was never a fan of the plastic fantastic C4+ models that came before. C3 was the last Corvette that had any real character. However, I appreciate what GM is attempting to do with this full redesign of the Corvette. Kudos to them for the price point. But it’s a design that is derivative of every other more recent supercar that did it first and does it better. And they still can’t seem to figure out how to design the rear end of the damned thing. It’s like they get past the rear wheels and are just too exhausted to go on.
You know, the C3 was also a pretty radical departure from the previous generations when it was introduced in 1968. Wasn’t that one pretty controversial at the time as well?
I suspect that a lot of long-time Corvette fans aren’t going to be fans of the C8. And, I also suspect that GM is OK with that fact.
Corvette has suffered, for years, from having a core audience of drivers who have been “Corvette guys” for decades. This 2013 article, from Motley Fool, notes that, at that time, the average age of a Corvette buyer was 61, and that was seven years older from the average age of a Vette buyer a decade earlier – in other words, they were largely still attracting the same buyers.
My father-in-law has been a “Corvette guy” for 50 years or longer. He bought a brand new Stingray (and took delivery of it at the plant in Bowling Green) three years ago – when he was 78 years old. Regardless of whether or not he likes the new Corvette, he’s pretty unlikely to ever be buying another one.
Yes, they clearly are trying to appeal to drivers to whom European supercars appeal (even if they can’t actually afford them), because the traditional Corvette driver is, if not dying off quite yet, at least getting to the age where a lowslung two-seater sports car isn’t feasible.
Reminds me of a McClaren, right down to the front headlights, the forward-tapered hood and the side body panels. And since I think McClarens look delish, I like the new 'Vette.
It’s pretty much what I expected on the outside: a mishmash of the last three entry-level Ferraris, except for the nose which retains some cues from the C7. GM obviously doesn’t have anyone on staff who knows how to incorporate functional aerodynamic features without making a car look odd; they should have paid whatever it took to hire Ford’s GT styling guy. But there hasn’t been a good-looking Corvette since the C3, so that’s okay. Nobody buys Corvettes because they’re pretty. They bought them because they went quickly in a straight line, and (since the C5 at least) because they were good to drive. I don’t doubt that this will be a quicker track-day toy than anything else you can buy at the price.
The interior is truly awful. Is there a line of buttons shoehorned into the spar above the center console?!? Did they borrow the steering wheel from an Austin Allegro? Have major manufacturers still not figured out that infotainment screens should not look like you glued an iPad to the dashboard (the Jalop article talks about how it isn’t tacked cheaply on top of the dash, but that’s only because it’s tacked cheaply in front of it).
I’m not sure how anyone can think it looks like a McLaren. The proportions are roughly similar, but that’s because it’s a mid-engined two seater. Other than the position of the side intakes (which again are dictated largely by the layout), there aren’t even any similar details.
I’m not a Boomer, or a Corvette fan, but I’m a little sad. We already have Ferrari and Lamborghini and Audi and Honda and lots of tiny European companies building mid-engined supercars. The Corvette kind of stood out by remaining front-engined.
1 “wanna-be Viper”? What is it about this mid engined car that reminds you of a Viper? I don’t see any resemblance.
2 “Dead for years”? How so? In terms of performance? Sales? I’m no Vette fan, never wanted one, but they’ve always punched above their price point in performance, and sold well.
3 You think it might have a 5 speed? You could get a 6 speed Corvette 20 years ago. This one has 8 gears.
4 I haven’t seen the torsional stiffness numbers, but sports car frames tend to be stout compared to regular passenger cars. I’ve seen photos of the C8 frame. Not what you’d find in a Kia.
Yes it’s clearly to expand the age range of buyers. But, it’s really not a marketing gimmick to go to mid engine, it’s to continue to advance performance, real engineering reason.
Recent generation Corvettes are pretty good all around sports cars, they don’t really fit the stereotype of just looking cool to a certain (older) demographic, going fast in a straight line, but being crappy track cars. It’s not unheard of even for last generation upper level Corvettes to be no faster straight line than their Porsche/BMW counterparts but beat them around a track. And performance for money is quite attractive, even if the interiors maybe still cheesy, ride unrefined, you have to deal with GM fit and finish and reliability doubts, etc.
So you could view the image change as trying to wake people up to how good the cars already were for the money, as well as making them better.
I’m a BMW M guy at the moment. Average age of M3/4 owners is said to be 20 yrs lower than Corvette, 41, but a two humped distribution of people younger and older than that average. I’m in the older hump (with an M2 which probably has a lower avg age them M3/4). I’ll look at the mid engine Corvette in a few years when the bugs are somewhat worked out, and when my M2 is older. I would not have considered being another old guy in a traditional (ever since ‘Stingray’) style Corvette. I guess I’m part of who they are after.
I thought the C5 was amazing looking until the C6 came out, at which point the C6 was amazing looking and the C5 looked like a bit of plastic garbage. And then the C7 came out and it was amazing looking, and the C6 looked like plastic garbage. The C8 is not a looker. And that line of buttons in the center console is laughably bad design.
That said, it’s a 500hp mid-engine car for under $60k, this is going to change the game. Even if it doesn’t look great, it has the proportions of an exotic, and you’re going to see them everywhere in 5 years. Head-turning mid-engine proportions are no longer reserved for the rich. The layout is going to make the inevitable 900hp supercharged versions that much better, the interior will eventually get fixed, and by the time the C9 rolls around the designers will have figured out how to make it look decent.
It might make the purists grumble, but I approve of the evolution. The Corvette is not a front-engined car with round taillights; it’s the great American sports car that anyone can aspire to own. And the C8 is still that.
The thing I keep thinking when y’all complain about the look of the car is that ISTM that today, people are used to OEM parts to customize their car’s aestethic. I can see people buying the C8 for the mechanical and structural car, and then customizing it for an endless variety of C8s.
I know a guy ( much older than me…in his late 60s ) who has been a self identified “corvette guy” for about 50 years. They can be a hidebound bunch. I remember one conversation referring to the then new C6 model. He didn’t like it: No pup-up headlights. Can’t be a real Corvette if it doesn’t have them, he said. I’m not a corvette guy, but a car guy, asked him “what about the first generation…the '53 through '62 cars? They have fixed headlights; they’re Corvettes too, right?”
He paused, blinked, displayed a look of mild surprise, and said “You know, you’re right!”, and thanked me for this epiphany ( though he didn’t use the term epiphany ). He went out and bought one ( a used one, two or three years old ). True story.
The thing is, he was not the least unaware of the existence of the earlier cars, even pretty knowledgeable about them. I don’t get it.
There are certainly going to be OEM and aftermarket parts that will help (the OEM wheel options, I feel, are disappointing) but if the Jaguar E-Type with its long, low hoodline is the pinnacle of car design (it is), then a mid-engined car is always going to be starting out on the back foot in terms of style. Lamborghini has sidestepped the issue by going nuts, McLaren hasn’t bothered trying to make a car attractive, and the new Acura NSX designers spent great effort trying to make everyone forget the car even existed. Only Ferrari seem to have cracked the mid-engined layout styling puzzle, and even then with mixed success (I’m looking at you, 360 Modena).
IMO, it’s the front-engined cars that are visually compromised, just as they compromise performance for practicality. They don’t have low hoods, they have high hoods, in order to clear the engine and radiator. And the cockpit is pushed to the rear, like the bridge of an oil tanker.
For me, the ideal look for a sports car is closer to that of a rocket, or jet fighter. With all due respect for the E-type, I prefer the Mclaren F1.
I think you’re right on here. I’m not a ‘Corvette’ guy. Not a car guy. I buy what I need, end of story (I have to use 4x4 6 months out of the year where I live, the idea of a sports car would be ridiculous for me). Doesn’t mean that I haven’t appreciated the look that Corvettes have had for so long. The new design is unrecognizable as a Corvette, sorry to see it go. I think GM dropped the ball on this new look.
It better bloody well come with at least an OPTION for a manual transmission, if not, sorry, not interested.
automatics have no place on true sports cars (yes, yes, I know, many sports/supercars have stupid automatics now, that’s a problem that I utterly hate (see the release of the Bmwyota Supra)
sludgebox based torque converters are a bad choice, CVTs have NO place on ANY car, except for those horrid, soulless “transportation appliances” that are about as much fun to drive as getting a root canal with no novocaine, and DCT/DSG/“Automated Manual” are borderline acceptable, leaning more towards “not acceptable”
True, the DCT/DSG utterly decimates and stomps all over the sludgebox, and CVT (utterly horrid transmission, those CVTs), but the manual transmission STILL utterly decimates and stomps all over the DCT/DSG
I can say this as I have a 2007 VW Rabbit 5 speed manual and a 2012 Golf TDI with 6 speed wet clutch DSG (DQ250), the Rabbit is overall more engaging and fun to drive, but the Golf is bloody close to it, it’s taking a while, but I AM warming to the DSG, it does have its good points, but if I had to do it all over, I’d hold out for the manual Golf TDI…
