Whether It’s a Corvette or a Cadillac, I Want GM to Build a Mid-Engine Car
I have long be a skeptic of a mid-engine Corvette going into production. It’s like finding Bigfoot or the new Ford Bronco; it just seems like it’s impossible. But with the newest batch of spy photographs to hit the internet, there’s a chance GM is actually working on something mid-engine. That makes me happy.
While I have been extremely critical of the rumors, that doesn’t mean that I don’t want it to eventually happen. I don’t want it to happen because GM needs a more powerful Corvette. I don’t want it to happen because they want to build a Halo car in hopes to sell more Cadillacs. I want it to happen because I want to see the rivalry with Ford get even hotter.
The Ford GT is, by all definitions, a halo car. It also just creamed the competition at Le Mans. We all know that Chevrolet, and General Motors as a whole, is capable of building a rock solid reliable race car. By not having to worry about how much the end product will cost to the consumer, GM could go all out and bring in all the necessary engineers to make a mid-engine super sports car rock solid, reliable, and an absolute hoot to drive.
I often wonder if some of the teething issues that were present with the C7 Corvette come from the company trying to hit a specific price point target? Someone obviously isn’t going to spend $150,000 on a Corvette regardless of the performance. They probably were trying to not pice themselves out of the market in a way Dodge did with the Viper.
In an effort to provide us with the cheap speed we demand, plus improve many of the perceived quality points on the car, I wonder if other areas were skimped or missed? At this point that’s just a theory, but it could explain some of the issues you all have had.
With a mid-engine car, GM wouldn’t need to hit a price point. They could easily charge $400,000 for their halo hypercar and people would pay it. Granted it wouldn’t be the same people who would buy a $60,000 Corvette, but there’s a market out there. If they limit the production run or quantity, they’ll have an even better chance of selling through the ones they build.
Ford doesn’t really make the GT themselves. Multimatic does. Multimatic also handles a lot of the race team’s work. GM could go straight to Corvette Racing for the engineering of the car regardless of the badge it wears to work out all the kinks.
At this point we don’t really know a whole lot about the car, other than they’ve build at least one prototype. That doesn’t even mean they’re planning to put any car into production. But I really would like to see what GM is capable of doing if they put their mind, and their money, into it and go after the global super cars. They succeeded with the sports cars, so it’s only logical to assume they can do it again.
Join the discussion with the other mid-engine Corvette fans over in our forums!
photo [1986 Corvette Indy Concept via GM Archive]
