ShagVette

Chevy wanted the seventh-generation Corvette to set a Nürburgring lap time. Five years of bad luck got in the way.

Jim Mero wants you to know how quick the C7 Corvette was at the Nürburgring. He wants you to know how hard he and his team tried to get the car to turn a sub-seven-minute lap at the famous 12.9-mile German track, and how the universe had other plans.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cul...ero-interview/

IronV

That's the third time this month I've fallen for it...

LIStingray

The only significant flaw in your thinking (not a criticism), is that all of those competitors are collectively getting a very small group in total of younger buyers. I am not sure there exists anywhere enough you buyers to significantly change the Corvette average age if GM still wants to sell 30,000/yr. In Acura's case, if 50% of your buyers are under age 45 (which it is not), you only need to find 300 buyers with $145,000. Likewise, to get 50% of Ferrari 488 buyers to be under age 45, you only need 1,200 to be under age 45. To get 50% of ZR1 buyers to be under age 45, you need 1,800 of them just for 2019. It might be pretty tough to find 15,000 buyers under age 45 to buy any two passenger vehicle; and maybe any vehicle costing over $70,000 that is not an SUV/CUV (I say that because as best as I can tell there are no 4 door sedans with a price starting at over $70,000 that sells anywhere near 30,000 units per year (2017-2019) in the USA in total - Mercedes S class at 15,000/yr seems to be the biggest luxury sedan seller in US outside of Tesla Model S at 26,000/yr).

ArmchairArchitect

Why the F were they not using a professional driver? Asinine- they could've obtained better lap times, plus avoided those crashes (which amounted to more than the cost of hiring a professional driver, I'm sure).

RapidC84B

They are.... Jim Mero was a pro driver before becoming GM's test driver. And seat time at the ring is far more important that absolute skill. Mero has way more laps at the ring than many of the "hot shoes" today i.e. Corvette Racing team drivers.

vetteLT193

Not only did he race but he is also the suspension engineer. Who better to tune the car at the track than the guy who is running it who is also the expert on the suspension in the car.

Foosh

Agree, while with GM, no one was faster in a Corvette than Jim Mero.

Walter Raulerson

SSN is going to be dipping into its kitty next year .It needs to be funded again so we can still buy these Corvettes

GOC

A few of us here actually had a spirited discussion about the same concerns as Jim Mero's in one of the "When will you buy a C8" threads a while back. I listed examples of exotic mid engine sports cars that the C7 GS beat in the Car & Driver's Lightning Lap events such as the 570S, NSX just to name a few and coming within .1 sec of the famed track monster GT3 RS. The C7 GS has less power than all of these cars. The C7 Z06 was faster than the 488 GTB etc.

The discussion was mainly, for example, if exotic ME sports car companies such as McLaren (with 100 hp more) couldn't beat the C7 GS with it's 570S, how could GM with a roughly 500HP C8 do it? That is a legitimate question.

Also, just because someone has this concern doesn't mean that they hate the C8. Maybe it's just a little difficult to believe that GM is going to put out a ME sports car that does it better than what the exotics can for a fraction of the money.

Of course, history tells us that every new Corvette is better than the previous gen and I believe it will be true this time also. We are all hoping that the C8 is in fact a world beater.

Bwright

This so very much. As a relatively limited use 2-seat sports car it is remarkable that the Corvette sells in the numbers that it does which remains the envy of the industry. The vehicle is actually not cheap which makes the numbers even more surprising.

Your Mercedes S-Class example is particularly apt in that in 2017 and 2018 Mercedes sold 15,888 and 14,978 units respectively in country. In contrast, Corvette sold 25,079 and 18,791. No competitor comes remotely close.

When you look at the cost of a Z06 or ZR1 in particular, the thought that a lot of young people are going to have that much disposable income for what is essentially a second car is simply not grounded in reality. It is exceptional that Corvette sells as many units of those two models as it does.

The demographics of virtually all high dollar cars is in the 50s. Not old but not new drivers either. But all too often folks talk about the Corvette as if drivers of competing marques are averaging 16 years old.

Interestingly for a car supposedly the target of old buyers, most of the Corvette's would-be competitors appear to be on life support. You mentioned Acura. That company's NSX sold 170 cars (not a typo) last year. Nissan's GT-R, the darling of the PlayStation set, sold 538 units of that $100,000 car. Audi appears to have finally thrown in the towel on the R8 which sold 927 units last year. All of these marques would cheerfully kill you for a quarter of the Vette's sales numbers.

SouthernSon

You cannot imagine how assumptive that is of you. Also, incorrect.

traind

Do you expect the base C8 to have significantly more than 500 hp? Or have 500 hp but weigh significantly less than the C7?

Without any concrete data, similar weight with about 500hp seems like a reasonable estimate at this point.

Jim Mero

We had Oliver Gavin, Jan Magnussen, and Johnny O'Connell at the Nurburgring. Each with the thought of them performing the fast lap.

As far as the avoiding the crashes comment, I respectfully decline to comment.

Having said that, when I retired, the tide might turn, stay tuned.

traind

The 570S was not designed for lap times. Relatively narrow tires for its power level is one example. Also, look at the tires. The Cup 2s on the GS are probably worth 2-3 seconds at VIR. The 570S did not have such aggresive rubber. The 570S was hugely fast in a straight line, much faster than a GS and faster than a Z06 for that matter, but cant grip like the GS with Cup 2s.

This doesn't take away from how fast a C7 Corvette GS is. Its awesome bang for the buck! But if you want a track focused comparison, look at the 600lt. Willow Springs, the 600lt did 1.24.7, the newest GT3RS did 1.23.67, the Corvette ZR1 did 1.23.7, the Z06 did 1.25.00., the GS 1.26.28 All set by Pobst with Motor Trend.

sunsalem

FWIW, I think Mero brings up a very important and valid point: the C7 hits WAY above its price range.
Over and over again we have seen how well it does when pitted against high-end cars.
IMO, the C7 is the finest Corvette ever produced.
Whether or not the C8 can exceed the C7's mega-benchmark remains to be seen.
I wouldn't bet against it...Corvette has made a habit of exceeding expectations for decades.

orclubduck

I for one would love to have Jim share more of his stories regarding his time at the Ring. He seems to be very accommodating with this forum. Let's hope he can look past unqualified opinions that have no merit.

I just wish he would have had another shot with the 2019 ZR1 to get it under 7:00.

Maybe I should ship my ZR1 to Germany and talk him into taking another shot at it...hmmm

Jeff

23/C8Z

great article. it's gonna be interesting to see what the C8 does compared to it's relative counterpart of the C7... idc what Jim is telling us on here lol i think he likes the FE C7 design better than what's coming out.. still feel like the C9 will be the car.. Chevy will need a solid gen to get this car back to the pinnacle. look at the head start everyone else has had..

VetteDrmr

I've always had a concern about the no-holds-barred run towards a rear mid-engine C8; that the performance gain is going to be minimal to non-existent compared to the C7, just because that's how good the C7 is. And that the C8 will be declared a "mid-engined failure that GM just missed on, because everyone knows mid-engine cars are inherently superior." When the truth is the difference between a good rear mid-engine car and a good front mid-engine car isn't that great.

Have a good one,
Mike

rmorin1249

The C8 program is a very, very high stakes gamble for GM and Corvette.

GOC

It's partially true, but you can really argue it many ways such as that the GS was at a huge power disadvantage. The fact though, is that the C7 was beating multiple ME cars in different variations. Though very capable, the GS was not meant to be the ultimate track car in the line up either. Yet it basically matches the GT3 RS in 2017's Lightning Lap. They ran the 2019's updated version of the GT3 RS and it got the exact same time again.

We can say the 570S or even the 488GTB isn't really a track toy and go down the list of options but the fact is they are very expensive, highly capable mid engine exotics that the C7s were beating.

Different tracks will favor different set ups but overall, it's undeniable that the C7s punch well above their weight class. Though we all use track times as examples, the overall point is just that the C7s match up very favorably against mid engine cars that are build by the "experts" in the industry, even beating them many times.

Mero's point, is that the C8 (especially the base), will have to be engineered better than the McLarens and the Ferraris in order to beat the C7s which is not easy. Not to say it's not doable, but it's a big task.