BWF07

I read an interesting article a few weeks back on the pros and cons of the new Corvette mid-engine C8. The most glaring point was that while the mid-engine brings with it a better balanced car even though GM did a great job with the C7 on the 50-50 weight distribution, the C8 would be even better. What came next was that while a mid-engine car is a great handling performance car and is excellent on the track, they can be a handful on the street. That stated that because of the engine location the car does rotate around corners exceptionally well, but to untrained drivers it will have a real tendency to over rotate and spin out of control.
I see the C8 will be bought by a lot of first time Corvette buyers as was the C7 and I see a lot showing up on Facebook in not the best of conditions.

84 4+3

Engine location doesn't matter. Stupid is as stupid does... I don't think it'll be better or worse, most people just can't drive to save their life. I've seen it a lot.

MikeG37

Exact same number.. they'll just be hitting stuff with their rear ends instead of their front ends.

Quinten33

The rear camera mirror, blind spot monitors, and parking sensors/cameras should help reduce accidents.

ajgoyt

Cold Tires - Weak Brain

Millerrock

Everyone is retarded on the roads, the government should come up with something that disables cell phones when the car is moving!! Too many young idiots doing everything but driving

4thC4at60

I have a mid-engine Ferrari as well as a C7.... I find the Ferrari to handle marvelously, including, yes, in the rain.... been a Corvette guy since 1953, buying my first one at 19, in 1960..... really looking forward to the C8 - I'll be 78 when I buy one. (I'm 77 now).

yz250fPilot

It has nothing to do with the car, and EVERYTHING to do with the nut behind the wheel.

I'd say that over 90% of all drivers cannot drive skillfully.

jimmyb

+1. A reporter asked the great Curtis Turner to explain the difference between understeer and oversteer. He said: "That's simple...understeer is when you hit the wall with the front of the car, oversteer is when you hit the wall with the back of the car"

Skid Row Joe

That's ^^^^ funnier than hell !

The new C8 buyer that features himself as the original street and highway racer will always be some of the ones crashing them. The aged are mostly the ones buying them, and a percentage use them as racing cars on public streets and highways. Time will tell here.

68roadster

Might be a good idea not to have summer only tires on the base model. Just saying some of us drive when it is cold.

range96

I predict GM will sell more rear clips to repair wrecked C8's than front bumpers and fenders.

jimmyb

Folks that wreck HiPo cars, regardless of engine location, do so because they:
1. Don't think the laws of physics apply to THEM
2. Have an exaggerated view of their driving skills
3. Ignore the term "summer tires"
4. All of the above

And in 9 out of 10 cases, it's the car's fault.

0bbbvettes.com

most impacts will happen when the driver is trying to brake hard, or steer around something while they are braking hard

Front engine cars, when the brakes are locked up, the light rear end becomes happy, and it wants to come around either side, all one has to do is just steer one way or the other, and the back end swings around. It is easy to change the direction that the rear comes around, midway through the process also as the rear of the car has less momentum/inertia to change

Many drivers expect this, and they let off the brakes a bit once that car has swung around a bit. They can still steer the car, and just did so using all 4 tires once they let off the brake.

A mid-engine is different. The back of the car is more planted and has more momentum/inertia, so it is not happy/agile, trying to jump to 1 side or the other, waiting for your command.

Instead, it maintains its position, and if a person tries to steer around something while hard on the brakes, the front wheels lose grip first, not the rear tires first like on the FE cars.

So, when the front wheels lose grip, the car goes straight and plows into whatever was trying to be avoided.

This behavior is a surprise to most drivers who are used to corvettes in their current form.

I anticipate there will be a lot of c8 that hit things, either head-on, or at an angle.

The second problem will be the people who want to induce rear tire spin, and want to have the back kick out a bit to show off for their friends, or maybe they try to induce a drift.

They will not be used to a car that, when kicked out sideways, is harder to get back to straight. Instead, the car will keep its line of attack, and they will cut the turn tighter than they wanted to, and hit the inside of the curve wall/curb/guardrail/oncoming-car/etc



Overall the c8 will handle better, it just will not give the exact indicating cues which most drivers are anticipating/waiting for, and thus, they will go out of control without realizing they are past the limit.

orclubduck

I grew up in the wheat fields of Central Oregon and learned to drive on canyon roads, both dirt and paved. I had a great deal of enjoyment driving my "GTO Clone" 65 Pontiac Tempest with the rear end sliding around corners chasing my buddies in there Z28's and Trans Am's...the cars to have in the late 70's. I would not trade that experience for anything...it was great fun.

In 1986 after moving to the city, I purchased a 1976 Porsche Turbo Carrera which was a dream come true for a country boy like me. When I bought the Porsche, I kind of babied it around, although I loved to run through the gears (only 4 of them) getting on the highway from an overpass. The Turbo lag was significant in these cars, but once the Turbo hit boost...magical. After a few months, I started be drive the Turbo more aggressively. On a date one night heading out for the evening, I decided to impress the lovely young lady that I was taking out with how special this Turbo was, and took an exit on a cloverleaf intersection where the right hand turning leaf was slightly reversed banked at about 30-35 mph over the posted speed of the corner. When I realized that I was going to fast for the corner, I cut power and let off the throttle. My beautiful little rear-engine Porsche did not tuck itself nicely into the corner as I was expecting, but instead the rear of the car swung out and now we were traveling sideways around this corner and I was looking at the little white lines come and go out the drivers door window. It seems like I slid for minutes (it was seconds) while I was thinking to myself "it was a fun car while it lasted...it was bound to happen" when out of instinct and not skill , I removed my right foot from the brake and hit the gas pedal, which resulted in my date now looking at the little white lines through her window, albeit now at a much slower rate of speed. I was able to then correct the balance of the Turbo without any damage to the vehicle. My Porsche taught me the difference between understeer and oversteer, let's just say my date was not impressed with my Porsche or my driving skills in the least bit.

My story was very common, so common that Porsche stopped importing the 911 Turbo by 1979 as there were a great deal of lawsuits, with a return to the US in the mid 80's.

Of course, with the C7 front/mid-engine Corvette and the C8 rear/mid-engine Corvette, the weight balance will be much closer to 50/50, with electronic "nanny" intervention to insure only those stupid enough to turn off the systems, or ones in the hands of professionals will leave the road/track at all. At Spring Mountain during the ZR1 Owners School, you could feel the involvement of these system when you tired to induce a slide out of a corner on our ZR1's, which has so much torque, sliding/wheelspin would occur at any speed without the "nanny" systems.

I can't wait to drive a C8 to experience the improvement in traction/handling from the placement of the engine, even with the first models, which will most likely be Z51 based Stingray equivalents.

Jeff

B747VET

Accident investigators follow the accident chain. It is almost always a sequence of factors/events, not one single event or skill or design feature that results in an accident or incident or more luckily a loss of control that results in no injury or damage.

For inexperienced drivers, an understeer car is generally more forgiving and generally gives more more advanced warning which can be acted upon. For many C5-C7 Corvettes, stepping on the brakes when fear first strikes will often save the day. That is a very human instinct. For old 911 Porsche’s from the 70’s in particular, stepping on the brakes, again, a most human response, was often a recipe for complete loss of control and sometimes a bad outcome.

But again, this is a discussion of what happens to inexperienced and untrained drivers when certain events begin to transpire. Inexperienced and untrained C8 drivers with no track time will likely have potentially instantaneous bad problems with the C8 when they start to play above their known skill level, particularly if they turn off the magic nannys. The C5, C6, and C7 are generally somewhat more forgiving under such scenarios. Bottom line, C8s will likely have more street play “incidents” than the last few generations and those resulting chains will probably have a higher repair cost experience for insurers. The C8 will probably only have an incident rate slightly higher than the C7 when the nanny’s are optimized for safety.

Not in any way addressing the types of scenarios that more high powered cars like the Z06 have as that is an entirely different subject.

sly1

As a many decade owner of 911s, what you described was typical of all early model 911s. They all oversteered which is a nice characteristic in the hands of a good driver. For the average driver an understeering car is far safer, because drivers will instinctively do the right thing. If you are going too fast in a corner, you simply take your foot off the gas pedal and the car will again drive in the direction you steer. Not so with an oversteering car. In your case when you cut back on the power, you lost downforce on the rear wheels and you experienced the rotation. After a little bit of practice, I was easily able to execute a 180 which impressed many of my passengers, especially when they weren't expecting it. On the 997 and 991 this trait has been all but eliminated with all the driving aids. Lots of early 911 owners learned its oversteering characteristics from the school of hard knocks.


The article was probably written by someone who never drove a mid-engined car. I have tracked both a 997S and a 981S. In track conditions where you are taking corners near the limits, I prefer the 997S over the mid-engined 981S because it felt my predictable at its limits. But unless you have complete disregard for posted speed limits and the safety of others, there's no way that a mid-engined car will over rotate on the street. Now if you disable all the driving aids, not certain it will be possible on the C8, and drive on the street as though it were your personal track, an untrained driver could experience problems. But the overwhelming majority of C8 drivers who go for "spirited drives" will not experience any problems. On the contrary they will be impressed with a mid-engined car's handling. GM didn't incur the considerable expense of designing and tooling up for a mid-engined car just because they handle better on the track. They did so because it handles much better on the street than a FE car.

LIStingray

Assuming the C8 has nannies that are at least as good as those on the C7, the only idiots crashing them are the ones who think the car works best with the nannies off.

MitchAlsup

I find my Ferrari enters power on oversteer with aplomb and returns with aplomb, much better than my Vette which shudders a bit.

B747VET

Well, Randy Pobst thought the C7 GS was tremendous but described the C7 Z06 as constantly scary ... constantly on the edge of loss of control. It will be very interesting to see what he thinks of the C8.