JerryU

There certainly is that target market (including old farts who have the money to pay for all their desired options) for those who have expressed some of those thoughts in Forum posts!

That is where I thought my "assembly line siding" idea could be useful (as another "siding" can be for the light weight "racer".) The thought is with the added space in BG they could have all C8's start on the same assembly line, with the same fabricated chassis, front and rear cradles etc. BUT at some point significantly different variants could be put on a "siding" like in a RR and the custom parts added before it joins the line again to be finished. For the Luxury Model (which has been discussed in this C8 section) that might include:

• Added sound insulation so a high end sound system would be logical to add.
• Real leather interior and not just the seating surface in a 3LT. Could even be an upgrade "Gucci designed leather" seats that included their logo!
• Softer suspension with perhaps heavier wheels (that don't bend) and all season tires so folks in FL don't have to add them because they don't like "Chatter!"
• Brake pads that don't cause excess dust or ever squeal.
• Some added electronics, like "blind spot detection."

Just some examples for folks who will pay the money and never Track, see 1 "g" lateral acceleration or get the brake pads very hot to need performance pads!

jefnvk

I mean, I guess I do care about what sort of shoes I wear, considering they are on my feet for fourteen hours a day. Must be nice to be an old Corvette guy though, whose shoe choice is already dictated to be white New Balances perfectly matched with their purchased jean shorts and khaki emblem cap who cares more about how the other old guys think about his car at cars and coffee than actually driving it as a sports car.

Gotta love the old farts who are obviously infatuated with young people, as much as they can't stop talking about us and how they think we live our lives

born2beS12

Its not that Chevy cant offer a stripped down Corvette, because they can. It comes down to being able to produce it. Like said previously, the plant makes approx 35K corvettes a year for the regular consumer to purchase. Increasing this number for specialty cars would be extremely difficult compared to what is done for the mustang and camaro. The mustang and camaro are stamped steel bodies from huge rolls of steel that ford and Chevy purchase. It takes roughly 3 seconds to stamp each body panel and then a robot welds it all together. The problem is the corvette is composite panels and onsite formed frame rails from blocks of aluminum. These parts take a considerable amount of time to produce and then have to be assembled by hand. it just isnt feasible to add the necessary bodies in white to the assembly line like the camaro and mustang can.

Also if Im not mistaken both the mustang (cobrajet/302R/GT4) and camaro (COPO/GT4R) are sent out to have their cages installed as they have to be FIA certified an ford and chevy are certified to install them

RapidC84B

I'm 37, I can afford a C8 in the $70K range, your post doesn't describe me at all.
Hear hear!

jefnvk

The track only stuff from Ford comes from a specialty shop (currently Multimatic, IIRC). That said, they produce the few hundred to low thousand GT350R made a year on the exact same line as all the other. All depends on whether you are talking a turnkey IMSA race car, or a track oriented street car.

z06801

I don't see how this kind of option would hold up the assemble line at all, just using a base N/A motor with no heat issues and steel brakes. I would even check a box for 18" wheels, It would still be a comfortable car, just more inline with a C5 Z putting the money into a track focused suspension and cooling. I see way more Porsche GT cars at track days than Corvettes and it because someone knows they can drive them all day at the track and go home drive it to the office on Monday. I do think a GT3RS would be a good model to follow and would bring in new corvette buyers.

born2beS12

Chevy doesnt built the the IMSA racecars Pratt-Miller does, as far as a track oriented street car from the c8 line, it just doesnt appear feasible that they can add the addition cars to the already near capacity assembly line, due to the time it takes to produce the frame and cure the body panels. At least when the car is brand new and a hot commodity. It may be feasible near the end of the c8 life cycle when the hype has worn off and sales slows down.

Also just more recently has the c5z picked up popularity in track use because they are just now getting into a price range were people are comfortable buying one to use in a way it may get destroyed. Very few people that originally bought them used them on track as they were intended, just as any new performance car.

Go to a open track event and you wont see as many brand new corvettes, zl1s, gt350s as you would expect. Most cars out there are a few years old or track use only.

RapidC84B

Not true with NASA in the mid Atlantic and SE regions.... lots of new hardware. Trackday insurance exists and is reasonable.

jefnvk

Feasible? Absolutely it is. You can convince me that Chevy simply won't see a desire to do so, you can't convince me with already four different performance levels and numerous trim levels and package options within those, that this is something Chevy can't do. Might not happen right at the beginning (doubt much besides 2/3LT Stingrays will be made at that point), but down the road when you've got a choice of a Stingray Z51, a 2LT Z06, a ZR1, etc. you can absolutely feasibly offer such a vehicle.

And just so we're clear, I'm not advocating for a caged turnkey race car, I'm talking about something like the 350R or its predecessor the old Boss 302 Laguna Secas. They made a bit under a thousand or so a year, and they sold decently enough they have continued every year except for the first year of the new body Mustangs. Again, you can easily convince me Chevy simply won't do it, but I'm not buying they can't.

mschuyler

Of course they CAN. I doubt there is anyone who thinks they CAN'T. After all, they can make tanks. The built the Moon Rover. They are quite capable of designing, engineering, and building nearly anything. It's never been the issue that they CAN'T. The issue is: Will they? And the money is on: They WON'T. Since you are easily convinced of that, the issue is moot.

PerKr

I haven't adopted every part of the "old corvette guy" personality yet I'd definitely go for a streetable racecar. And drive it as a sportscar where public safety permits (that's basically the difference between me as a kid and me as an adult, I no longer find it cool putting others at risk).

We all care about what sort of shoes (and clothes in general) we wear. We all have preferences. But do you remember seeing a picture of a guy with a cool car and instantly notice, and get excited about, the brand of shoes (apparently they were Gucci's, I noted they were white loafers) the guy is wearing, despite the picture not being a shoe commercial designed to make you notice? Do you remember a bunch of your friends also getting excited over it? Maybe I've just come across a really weird selection of the current younger generation though. I sure hope so.

Us "old farts" (not sure how old one has to be to be an old fart but I have indications that anything above 25 might be "old fart" territory) have to worry about the younger generation. After all, they are supposed to carry on our legacy some day. To be fair, I have noticed some very disturbing behavioural patterns from parts of my own generation as well, it has just been slowly accelerating.

mre1974

I would LOVE to see them offer a new interpretation of the C5 Hardtop/FRC with a bare bones minimally optioned version of the new ME car or going back to mostly a la carte options and not making desirable options as package exclusive. But, I don't see them offering such a model as there is far more profit in selling models with all the option packages and do-dads that the masses want. Then again, we could be wrong and something like that may be in the works. Time will tell with what the new ME car will be offered with for options.

rgregory

I had a 2000 FRC that I ordered in 1999. I got it because I like the style and didn’t want the removable top. The price point really wasn’t far off the coupe though, The difference was you couldn’t option it up as much as the coupe but it wasn’t like the base price was much cheaper. Mine the Sticker price was a little over $40k. The nice thing back then is you could order individual options without some expensive package. Mine for example didn’t have the Bose stereo, which I didn’t car I replaced it anyway.

Warp Factor

What I need to know is the brand of shoes the Golden Sneaker Club mall-walkers wear. I wouldn't want to show up the first time and be ridiculed.

The HACK

I have some friends who are active in the Porsche community, and they're track junkies as well. They all own and drive various versions of Porsche's GTx line-up, cars that are track focused as much as street capable. One of them said that the GTx line-up accounts for about 30% of all non-SUVs sold today, which is shocking to me. Nearly a THIRD of their customer base for their bread and butter line-up wants cars that are designed with track use in mind.

Mind blown. Because the VAST majority of those GTx cars never churn a single lap on track, unless they're there to do parade laps.

IF Chevy were to build de-contented, track focused cars in limited production and serialized, they'll likely sell every single one of them. And maybe 1 out of 100 will actually be used on track. If they sell TRACK PREPPED, or track focused cars like Porsche does with the RS packages that are just enough to be street legal, I suspect they won't sell enough of them to make it worth while. It's just a different mentality. My friend and I were discussing another mutual acquaintance that bought a 911 GT3 RS earlier in the year, and his reaction was "oh he only paid $30,000 over MSRP for his. That's an amazing deal at $250K."

Mean time, I'm cringing at the fact that I only manage to negotiate 25% off MSRP for my car, and that had the same mutual acquaintance REGISTERED his GT3 RS w Weissach package here in California, the tax AND registration fees would amount to about $30K...Between the mark-up and the tax and registration he could have bought a LOADED C7 Grand Sport.

I'm scratching my head, as a $300K car (out the door, all said and done, etc) I wouldn't want to take to the track. A $60K car that can lap the same circuit a few tenth of a second off? Yes please. If they sell a de-contented, light-weight, track focused C8 that's barely legal on the street, and sell them at a limited number? It's probably going to command somewhat north of $100K when you factor in demand and mark-up. At that point, I'm probably just better off buying a run of the mill C8 Grand Sport with Z07 package and strip the interior and add the seats and cages MYSELF.

TXshaggy

“One of them said that the GTx line-up accounts for about 30% of all non-SUVs sold today, which is shocking to me. Nearly a THIRD of their customer base for their bread and butter line-up wants cars that are designed with track use in mind.”

This isn’t even close to accurate. The last full Porsche 911 production run was the 997 model. Over 200,000 997 911s were produced...a very small fraction of that were true GT cars (not including GTS). GT3/RS/RS4.0 GT2/RS, etc. all told were in the low single 1000s realm. There is a reason these go for 10s of thousand over MSRP and many/most still trade at/above MSRP...rarity.

ShahulX

the 630 in the GT63 sedan isnt dry sumped which is why it may not automatically have 630hp... I think the GTR Pro will be the actual track rats AMG GTR

JerriVette

The c8 z51 fe4 will probably track within a tenth of a second to a supposed stripped version...

Dropping a/c or radio is a non starter in the showrooms.

lwhat I would suggest is what ford has done with the ford mustang GT350 versus the gt350r...( i think the entire R package on the gt350 raises the msrp by 10 grand) of course some of these lightweight items could be purchased and installed from the aftermarket.

just imagine the weight that could be saved just going to carbon fiber wheels like ford has done on the gt350r. (60lbs savings)

https://www.cjponyparts.com/resources/gt350-vs-gt350r

next up GM could offer the lightweight version you are asking for with non runflat tires...

if I remember the 2001 c5 z06 saved 26 lbs by going with slightly larger tires than the c5 coupe but the tires were non runflats..

slightly thinner carpets and maybe some other interior lightweight deletes?

i believe GM added a titanium material for the exhaust and saved a few pounds...

slightly thinner glass was used too...

its feasible to incorporate a few of these ideas into a slightly more track focused option pack...

when sales eventual begin to need a boost...this isnt a bad idea...

I d recommend the carbon fiber wheels, the non runflat tires...maybe a single exhaust pipe light weight ...maybe ditch the passenger power seat...drop some carpet in the trunk.?

Not a terrible idea but leave a radio and leave the ac...

i dont think Id buy this but picking and choosing a few of these a s a track option would probably do the trick.

PerKr

Good for you 👍

yz250fPilot

I'm in for a track/street C8 like the 911 GT3, and it must include an NA engine.