CNBC: 2020 Corvette C8 targets Ferrari and McLaren...
 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/12/gm-h...ar-market.html


GM teases 2020 Chevy Corvette C8 in bid for Ferrari, McLaren luxury sports car market

The auto industry is always rife with rumors, but one particular topic has kept the rumor mill working overtime for decades. And it’s finally come true.

On Thursday, General Motors finally ended what has been one of the biggest mysteries in the auto industry, posting a link on its website and on social media announcing the “next generation Corvette reveal event” on July 18, along with photos of a barely camouflaged car that would be the first-ever mid-engine version of the Chevrolet sports car.

“The Next Generation Corvette is the most anticipated Corvette ever. It’s the sum of each generation before it, but will stand alone as the new standard of performance,” the company said.

It might seem like a dry topic, the sort of thing gear heads would debate over a case of beer while changing their own oil, but the news has set the automotive Twitterati ablaze.

While the Corvette may not generate the sort of sales you’d expect of a Chevy SUV like the new Blazer, it has long been billed as “America’s sports car,” giving a halo not just to GM but the American auto industry, as a whole. The latest version, known to fans as the C7 – for the Corvette seventh-generation model – is an impressive and well-respected piece of machinery, but not quite a world-beater.

The C8, it is widely expected, will be the first version to give a serious challenge to the likes of Ferrari, McLaren and Lamborghini. :cheers:

Corvettes, up until now, have put their engines upfront, pretty much like anything else that you’d find in your typical showroom. With rare exception, all of those European brands traditionally mount their engines amidship, or even in the rear, layouts that translate into markedly better vehicle dynamics. With its big V-8, the Corvette is plenty quick. It just can’t keep up with the likes of a Ferrari sweeping through the corners.

It’s not that GM hasn’t thought about building a true world-beater. Coming up with a mid-engine model was the one unfulfilled dream of Zora Arkus-Duntov, the Belgian-born engineer widely known as “the father of the Corvette.” Since the first ’Vette was produced 66 years ago, in fact, there have been any number of prototypes, none making it into production.

The Corvette itself nearly went away during the automaker’s economic collapse a decade ago. The current model, the C7, was officially put on hold as GM went through bankruptcy, though a secret “skunkworks” team kept plugging away until the automaker could loosen up the purse strings again. The current model has widely been hailed as the best Corvette ever — but ever so slightly short of being that true Ferrari challenger.

Over the last several years, the rumor mill began to heat up, suggesting that this time GM was serious. At first, there were a few odd sightings, skeptics taking them little more seriously than balls of Sasquatch fur.

In February, by sheer happenstance, a convoy of C8 Corvettes — out testing in the hill country east of San Diego — got caught up in the same, freak snowstorm as a convoy of automotive journalists who were running the same road in the new Kia Soul.

Still, GM officials repeatedly look baffled when asked at various press events what their plans were. The new model failed to appear at any of the big 2019 auto shows. Not Detroit, not Chicago, not Geneva and, no, it won’t be in New York this month.

But just a week before the annual auto show season wraps up, GM has released the first official images of the C8 Corvette which is likely to debut as a 2020 model. One of those shots shows a beaming Mary Barra, the CEO clearly knowing she has pulled off the engineering miracle that predecessors going back more than six decades couldn’t accomplish.

For now, the automaker isn’t saying much more beyond it’s reveal date, but the rumor mill has gotten things down to a fine art and plenty of specifics have begun to leak out.

Like the current model, Chevrolet will steadily role out a series of fast, faster, fastest models, starting with a new Stingray rated at somewhere between 500 and 600 horsepower, according to senior GM executives who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t yet public.

At the top end will be an all-new edition, an homage dubbed the Zora, that will take dead aim at Ferrari, like the Italian supercar maker borrowing a few tricks from Formula One racing, executives said.

The Corvette Zora is expected to pair a twin-turbo V-8 pumping torque to the back wheels with an electric motor up front, the package making more than 1,000 horsepower, they said. :eek:

One thing isn’t expected to change. Where the Europeans routinely command six figures for their machines, the C8 Corvette is expected to start at around $62,000 — or about $5,000 more than the current C7 Stingray. The Zora could double that base price, but would still be a bargain compared with what Ferrari, Lamborghini and McLaren command for similar levels of performance, executives said.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the C8 is anything more than “the stuff that dreams are made of,” as Humphrey Bogart’s detective Sam Spade said in “The Maltese Falcon.”

But after decades of promising to one day build a truly world-class supercar, Chevrolet may finally be ready to deliver.


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...78600b5b00.jpg

Cnbc must have missed the fact the z06 and zr1 already smokes ferraris 488 and mclarens 570 s on road courses...

i think the grand sport equaled the track time of the mclaren 570 in car and drivers lightning lap...

gM s payoff for the corvette is often the positive press the corvette creates for the entire chevy brand...

Hot damn, that's not how one describes a 510 - 520 hp LT2; that's how one describes a 540 - 580 hp monster!

Not that we should be surprised. LT1 development started before GM's bankruptcy. Videos of it's development max out at 480p quality. It's an old timey engine that can still hang with Ford's latest Coyote V8s.

Imagine how incredible the LT2 will be having been developed with ample funds in a fully functional company.

I totally agree with this. The corvette has always been a performance benchmark at the zr1 level. Nothing new here.

No one is, or will be cross-shopping a Ferrari, McLaren, and a Corvette . . . and in no parallel universe is the Corvette going to be a "luxury sports car".

That said, I believe this will live up to the hype, and be a budget (sub $75K) supercar that can hang with the best in the world. If it does come in with 500+ horsepower, I'll be happy with even a base model.

People really need to get over this notion that because it is ME, it has become some exotic luxury car. Its still just a Corvette with the engine moved behind the driver. While I don't doubt that some McLaren and Ferrari owners will also buy a Corvette, and that some people who aspire to own those brands will buy a Vette til they can afford the former, there is exactly zero people cross shopping a brand new Corvette with a brand new Ferrari or Pagani or McLaren or any other high priced exotic.

I'll give you R8 and NSX, though. It'll probably take some sales from them.

I have an NSX. I can tell you that it is going to decimate the already puny sales of the new NSX. Not sure about the R8.

MC

lets hope it doesnt weigh 3800 lbs

But the Corvette is a luxury car. Also, not sure if you know what Pagani is. Nobody looking at Paganis are cross shopping it with a Ferrari or McLaren.

Nah, its not. It might be a luxury car compared to a Mustang, but it is not luxury in any sense of quarter million dollar supercars.

And Pagani just so happened to be the first thing that popped to mind when coming up with a third option for the list, because I hate lists of two. But I would still venture more people cross shop Paganis and high end McLarens than McLarens and high end Corvettes.

Plenty of people cross shopped used 570S's and 458s with C7 ZR1s. Nobody cross shops a 720S with a Huayra. Corvettes are luxury cars.

If they are on level playing fields, why are they comparing new to used? Wouldn't that suggest that people really want the Ferrari, but can only afford the Corvette?

Isn't that why some people buy Corvettes?

I would personally never buy a Mclaren. Too many horror stories going around about dealing with the company if something is wrong.

GM is, once again, about to up the bar in terms of performance, which should be interesting to see what Ferrari/Lamborghini does going forward, HP wise.

One area that they will never be able to compete in is the quality of the interior materials. Corvette has to hold a bottom line set by the execs at GM. The exotics improve and simply raise their prices.

That is kind of my point. Even if the performance difference isn't there (or may even be less than some Vettes), those cars are luxury goods that are just a step above the Corvette in fit an finish and scarcity, no different than a watch or suit that cost more than my Focus. If $200k wasnt even a rounding error to your finances, are you still really taking the Corvette over the McLaren?

That is not to take anything away from the Corvette, it is simply a realization that hand built luxury goods are on a different level than mass produced affordable options, no matter what the actual product is.

I think I would take a C8 corvette over a McClaren. I know it's going to be faster anyway.

What is a McClaren?
I don't think so. A C7 ZR1 hangs with a 570S. Unless the C8 stops the tradition of becoming heavier, which I hope it does, it will take the C8 Z06 to hang with a 720S. The 720S is an absolute monster that beats nearly everything. By the time the C8 Z06 is out, so will the 750LT.

According to Jim Mero, the C7 2014 Z51 did a 7:33 on Nurburgring which is faster than a 650S Spider, The MP4-12c was faster by 5 sec.

Think someone who owned a McLaren would comment "so what". They own a luxury item & you own a fast Chevy. Sure the C8 will be a sales winner & expect to buy one but at our Cars & Coffee the wanders all stand around the McLaren's, Lamborghini's & Ferrari's. There are a good number of StingRays there but they are not the draw the exotics are, its just the way it is.

A luxury item is something you don't need & the StingRay fits in there but like everything else there are different levels of luxury. That's why the euros are also called Exotics the near the top level. Above them a some million dollar specials that are the top end of the luxury car lines.

Not the fault of the Corvette or GM that a lot of people would rather suck up to "exotic" owners who buy cars those suck ups will never own, when they could be hanging with the Vette crowd, and a car they might be able to afford someday.