Tadge Juechter Says No Mid-Engine Corvette Zora/ZR1 Planned

By Detroit Steel - March 16, 2015

It appears we all might have been misled on the idea that Chevy is working on a mid-engine Corvette.

Either that, or Corvette’s Chief Engineer, Tadge Juechter, has been left in the dark on the project, which I’d say is pretty unlikely given he’s such an integral part of the Corvette team.

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In fact, it’s all becoming a little confusing because Juechter flat-out denied reports of a mid-engine C8 during a recent interview on Autoline After Hours when asked if there is a Zora model in the works.

“I’ll have to check that out because I know no such car exists. Frankly, if such a car exists, it belongs to another division is my best speculation,” he told Autoline, addressing reports we covered here that a rendering for the car might have accidentally been revealed.

The Chief Engineer added, “We looked at mid-engine as an alternative for the seventh-generation car, and we’ve always said that when the whole car gets better as a mid-engine architecture, we would do it.”

Juechter goes on to make a pretty good argument of why a mid-engine car might not make sense for the Corvette lineup.

“Mid-engine requires a lot of compromises. You look at the elite race programs around the world; they’re all mid-engine. So … if all you care [about] is purely performance, then it makes sense to put the engine in the back. If you’re still talking about a car that can be used as a daily driver, long-distance tourer as well, handle benignly on the track, and have accessible performance, there’s a whole lot of other things that come into what is the optimum.”

Hmm … I’m not quite sure what to make of it, but it has certainly killed my buzz on the idea.