elegant

Foretelling the ME’s design? I recently watched a C7 GM-produced, April, 2013 C7 video, specifically listening to a comment by Kirk Bennion, Corvette Exterior Design Manager. Kirk has been with GM design since 1986, and in it, he listed his key “design parameters” about how he sees and performs Corvette design.

While the below conversation was about the C7, more than a little will translate forward to the ME. As one specific, when I talked with Kirk at the BASH, just the two of us surrounded by 1 GS, 1 SR, and 1 Z06, my pointing to each of the them around us, I first thanked him for all C7’s being a bold/ exciting design, and then said, “ I am not asking for any response from you in return, but I/WE hope that the next generation Corvette will be this bold.” He smiled his typical wry smile and said, “at some time there will be a next generation Corvette, and it will not be boring.”

Kirk, despite his 32 years within GM design is not an old world, traditional car designer, but a very highly skilled Corvette high speed driver, in fact hired by NCM and other tracks/program to teach HPDE (high performance driving event) classes. Additionally, Kirk is also skilled and knowledgeable in aerodynamics, personally spending over hundred hours in the wind tunnel fine tuning the C7’s design, and most recently, spending more than a week in GM’s moving ground plane wind tunnel helping to develop the ZR1’s advanced aero components. And IMO, he has a fantastic sense of design!

Here were Kirk and the C7’s design team five overriding design parameters as they then approached the C7:

Additionally, in a December, 2013 GM teaser, C7 video, Kirk noted, and here his high speed driving expertise comes to play, his belief and practice that:

“Beautiful form follows performance driven function.”

Keith Cornett also reported that Kirk then talked about the new C7′s crossed flag design, “because that design is everywhere on its on the apparel and its in all the advertising. We wanted to give it a little more speed, its got a lot more “V” to it, a lot more gesture, and we really think it typifies the performance of the car?”

Thus, IMO, one other things that will carry over to the ME’s design is a further tightening of the V emblem’s design — denoting the aero-design and speed of the ME. In this regard I believe that CRABBYJ’s ME design emblem below, will be very close to what we see as the ME’s emblem.



Wonder if some of GM’s design parameters for the ME are?

* Be as beautiful as the great European exotics;
* Have all (or at least most) of its aero be fully integrated components of body panels;
* (Repeating one the C7’s five standards), “we want a new type of sculpture you haven’t seen before.”

Exciting times ahead, as we all in the interim try to peel off layers of the onion still cloaking the ME from our view.

Shaka

Nice posts except for the European part. Bill Mitchell was inspired by Italian car designs but Americanized them. The primary influence of his 59 Stingray design was the 57 Alfa Disco Volante. But generally, American car designs were breathtaking up until the 70s and occasionally, some late model American cars were also. Cadillacs, Lincoln, Corvettes. Actually, the Europeans copied American designs since the beginning including the Italians.
We lost our way in the 80s but we are coming back strong. I sure hope the ME will be uniquely American like the 63,68 and C7 Vettes are. The trick is to have low drag numbers and beauty. Flavio Manzoni of Ferrari and Filippo Perini of lamborghini are cut from the same cloth as Kirk Bennion. Manzoni's LaFerrari and Perini's Veneno are out of this world. I would like to see the C8 appeal to people who love these futuristic cars. The C7 is a taste of what is to come. Tom Peters is done as are the designers of western Europe outside of Italy. Everybody is focused on aero, that is why Pininfarina is out at Ferrari as is Art Center School for GM. It's all inside now. Thanks again.

MitchAlsup

small chance to pull thisone off--but close.

This means having the underside as smooth as the upper side. This is the only way to make underbody aerodynamics (downforce) work as well as possible.

-vet

Well yes aero is important but it hasn't put designers out of a job. More likely retirement age will take care of that.
As for Pininfarina it was LdM who decided that it was more safe for Ferrari to create an in house design studio by poaching some talent like Flavio Manzoni from another brand. Ferrari having become the total control freaks regarding every aspect of the business wanted designers who didn't work for anyone else. On a more fundamental level it was simply the distance in miles between Ferrari and Pininfarina that made the change efficient.
One detail that seems to be lost in the constant C8 details debate is that there are actually two C8 body designs, not just one.

sunsalem

You're right...I wasn't aware.

Shaka

The high HP versions will be wider, I would imagine. No spy shots of this one yet.

elegant

You are right. We don’t even see the expected carbon-ceramic brakes, nor the wider tires, nor a full rear diffuser yet. Year two, hopefully, we shall see ZORA!