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One of our toys is an Aston Martin Vantage roadster with those very unique doors. Just for a dose of reality..... they are God awful HEAVY and the mechanism that allows 'em to work are hydraulic struts (like you have on the hood or trunk of a car or the tailgate of a SUV). The real world problem is that because of the doors weight, the struts wear out.... ie: will no longer hold that HEAVY door open..... about every 2 years. While that may not seem like a big deal, we really don't drive the car more than a couple thousand miles a year. I'm not sure the C8 buyers will want to spend about $500 every other year to maintain 'em. The alternative is that the door will catch unsuspecting body parts (yours, not your cars) and that will leave a mark (OUCH!)
PS: It doesn't take the 'do-it-yourselfers' long to give up on the idea of changing the strut out in the garage.... first remove the wheel/tire, second remove the inner fender well, next get a helper to hold up the door while you blindly try to separate and replace the strut..... All in all, $500 for the two doors is a bargain. Who said exotics are cheap to maintain and operate!
I'm sure good old yankee ingenuity will figure a way to create detent positioners without struts.
One of our toys is an Aston Martin Vantage roadster with those very unique doors. Just for a dose of reality..... they are God awful HEAVY and the mechanism that allows 'em to work are hydraulic struts (like you have on the hood or trunk of a car or the tailgate of a SUV). The real world problem is that because of the doors weight, the struts wear out.... ie: will no longer hold that HEAVY door open..... about every 2 years. While that may not seem like a big deal, we really don't drive the car more than a couple thousand miles a year. I'm not sure the C8 buyers will want to spend about $500 every other year to maintain 'em. The alternative is that the door will catch unsuspecting body parts (yours, not your cars) and that will leave a mark (OUCH!)
PS: It doesn't take the 'do-it-yourselfers' long to give up on the idea of changing the strut out in the garage.... first remove the wheel/tire, second remove the inner fender well, next get a helper to hold up the door while you blindly try to separate and replace the strut..... All in all, $500 for the two doors is a bargain. Who said exotics are cheap to maintain and operate!
I'm pretty sure no one ever said exotics were "cheap to maintain and operate"
That has to be a fake quarter panel over the real one.
I don't think so. At this point in the process, they use the vinyl wrap to fool the eye a bit, but by now they are testing airflow, cooling and "practicality" of the real thing. Fake body panels would defeat the purpose.
It's funny because I really like the looks of this car, but whoever first brought up PacMan put one of those "you can't unsee it" images in my head. Crazy but I wonder if that will wind up being a problem for the car's acceptance if this happens to enough people. Of course, in the end most of us really like the C7 rear despite a lot of early concern and resistance.
Last edited by Rapid Fred; 08-19-2018 at 10:30 AM.
The article does a poor job with the Y2XX assessment. They get it completely wrong and makes me question the whole article.
Y1XX is the current FRONT ENGINE. Even in their own article they say the Y1XX was used for the C7, (which has a front engine). Y2XX is the NEW MID ENGINE.
ZERV is the alternate name of the Y2XX.
Plenty of linked profiles use Y2XX, ZERV and 2020 as the same, and the 2020 is the Mid Engine model.
I hate how being an exotic is a an excuse for poor engineering and bad suppliers.
That IS one way of putting it. Or, based on today's cars and their complexity in every item (plus, the push to get them "out the door" and into the customer's hands), maybe it's just not possible. The real issue isn't IMO what comes out wrong, or falls apart, but how fast it's redesigned, or fixed. In that respect, the record is "spotty," and it shouldn't be.
The article does a poor job with the Y2XX assessment. They get it completely wrong and makes me question the whole article.
Y1XX is the current FRONT ENGINE. Even in their own article they say the Y1XX was used for the C7, (which has a front engine). Y2XX is the NEW MID ENGINE.
ZERV is the alternate name of the Y2XX.
Plenty of linked profiles use Y2XX, ZERV and 2020 as the same, and the 2020 is the Mid Engine model.
Well hot dog... maybe I will get my $60K base ME Corvette.
That has to be a fake quarter panel over the real one.
Negative.
That is the design of the car 100%. In fact, this overlay by far and away represents the stance of the car better than anything I have seen yet. There are no fake panels here. Love it or hate, notice that side intake shape is pretty similar to a reverse of the C7 front fender vents. It's very much "Corvette" in the design language.
When you guys see a glossy metallic paint that shows off all the detail of the car that have yet to be properly captured by photos yet, you guys will drool even more. One of the sexier parts of this car is where and how aggressive the rear of the roof line and the top inner parts of the rear fenders meet. There is some seriously sexy curvatures going on there that give the rear hips a very aggressive look. Quite reminiscent of C3 vettes, not quite so sharply peaked as this pic though.
That is the design of the car 100%. In fact, this overlay by far and away represents the stance of the car better than anything I have seen yet. There are no fake panels here. Love it or hate, notice that side intake shape is pretty similar to a reverse of the C7 front fender vents. It's very much "Corvette" in the design language.
When you guys see a glossy metallic paint that shows off all the detail of the car that have yet to be properly captured by photos yet, you guys will drool even more. One of the sexier parts of this car is where and how aggressive the rear of the roof line and the top inner parts of the rear fenders meet. There is some seriously sexy curvatures going on there that give the rear hips a very aggressive look. Quite reminiscent of C3 vettes, not quite so sharply peaked as this pic though.
Yup. There is a good chance this car was styled at the same time as the C7 by Wellburn, Bennion and by the same crew, with some refinements in the intervening years. I would expect we will see a curvy envelope with sharp creases and a complex of "ribbons" or what the Japanese call "stream surfaces" to define the outer mold line. IMHO, the C7 is the second best looking Corvette of all time right behind the C2 "Sting Ray". The C8 may be even better.
What if the Jalopnik article is correct about the possibility of excitingly new doors?
And what if Tadge, when he answered the question about no unusual doors on a Corvette at the BASH this year, his saying that solely based on what is current Corvette product (can not blame him one bit for wanting to keep his job), his not instead answering that question based on what he knows is coming next about the ME’s unusually opening doors?
And what if, assuming the two above conjectures are correct, GM made a clear decision that while we will send 30+ IVERS to roam the country and test this and that, all with C7 door hinges, yet all of the 10 IVERs that have never left Milford Proving Grounds and the 10 that stay 100% within the Yuma GM test facility, all have scissor or some other “hybrid” doors as was conjectured within Jalopnik’s article.
Just asking? I sure have no inside info on this one.
When you guys see a glossy metallic paint that shows off all the detail of the car that have yet to be properly captured by photos yet, you guys will drool even more. [/img]
I sure hope so. Because with the camo the rear of the car looks 12" wider than the front and it looks the rear quarter is from a different car. It is hard to image that could ever look even half way decent.
PS. Not even close to drooling right now. It is actually painful to look at.
08-18-2018, 11:00 PM
