Zora_Vette

Looking at the interior pictures, the center console looks unusually tall and wide for a ME car. So, I had the thought: what if that interior belongs to a FE car, possibly the potential C7 successor. Maybe that car is the actual C8, and the Zora is the ME car. I've seen many members talk about the ME being called Zora. Plus, Zerv02's interior description has some parts that are similar to this interior, but he was wrong on a lot of the other stuff. Also he said the steering wheel has four letters. What if we saw the interior of a FE C7 successor, and the ME car is going to have some similarities but be more upscale? The FE people can have a new FE car, and then there will be the ME, priced higher but with a nicer interior more features and of course higher performance. They could both use the same engines too, as well as some other parts. I doubt BG had that massive expansion to build one car...

CitznFish

There will not be a FE in production when the ME is in full production. I do not know why people cling to this

Zora_Vette

What is the production limit of BG now that is has had a big expansion? This is GM, they are not going to spend any extra pennies that they do not have to. They are going to make sure they can use the production limit.

JoesC5

I'm one that still believes that Chevrolet will have two versions of the Corvette.

The plant expansion is huge. Much larger than is needed for the new paint booth. Plus, when the new paint booth went operational, the old paint booth, in the original building, was removed, freeing up that space.

Then the state of Kentucky gave GM a tax break if GM agreed to increase the workforce at Bowling Green by 270 employees. You don't add nearly 30% to your workforce if you plan on making the same amount of cars annually and just a token increase in price.. All that additional space is not needed if you still plan on using JIT inventory control. JIT doesn't work very well if you buy parts months ahead of when they will be used, and then store them all that time..

Then there is this newspaper(Bowling Green Daily News) article from April 30, 2017...…"KEDFA gave preliminary approval for a 50 to 75 percent reduction in state and local property taxes on a 300,000-square-foot warehouse distribution center that NorthPoint Development of Kansas City will build at the Kentucky Transpark entrance.

NorthPoint would lease the warehouse and distribution center to GM, according to KEDFA documents. GM would use the facility to house various suppliers"

Now why would GM lease a 300,000 square foot space if they had tons of space available in the new Bowling Green plant expansion?

CitznFish

Need the space for increased production for export versions

Zora_Vette

Exactly. And as I said, GM does not spend any more money than they absolutely have to. They are going to make sure they have enough product to sell that will max out their production limit. And a ME car that is DCT only, that costs over $100K is not going to fare too well with a fanbase that is used to a FE car, manual or auto, that costs $55K.

Skid Row Joe

Anything is possible in "C8 Fantasyland." There's definitely 2 or more vehicle types that are going to be built in the expansion square footage of the BG Plant. What they are, who knows.....




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dmaxx3500

GM will build 2-4 different cars at BG,,

they didn't/wouldn't add on to a plant by 2/3rds+[then new part has 2-4 floors and basements],just to build a ME car,they have all the tooling to build FE cars ,and its probably paid for [raises profits] on the FE car

GM is looking ''long-term''

Zora_Vette

And one sure as hell is not a Cadillac. Cadillac has way too much to worry about now. No way they are focusing on a $150K+ mid engine supercar.

Zora_Vette

True, they are not expecting to max production right away I am sure, but regardless having a $100K+ mid engine supercar that is more than half the price of their most sold product definitely does not warrant a massive plant expansion. I hope those clinging to the one car theory will stop when the 2020 Corvette Zora is released soon.

NoOne

I'll go crazy.

The Camaro will either go away, or become the entry level car based off a FE C8 chassis. If GM went modular that most of the FE/ME share the green house they can cut the cost huge.

Remember the ATS is going away which leaves Camaro as the only one on that platform.

So it'll remain the Camaro but be built in BG as a next gen entry level car, or it'll be renamed/branded and those will be the first 2 cars in a new brand or sub brand of Chevy also SRT.

Zora_Vette

Killing the Camaro would be a terrible idea. But there is so many ways this could go so all we can do is speculate and hope for leaks.

elegant

rmorin1249

So much speculation with so few facts. Is this fun or what?

JoesC5

What if they split that 33,000 unit's/year into, say, 18,000 FE cars priced between $57,000-$87,000and 15,000 ME cars priced between $87,000-$160,000.

Wouldn't that match Spande's statement about the plant's CURRENT capacity, with plenty of space to expand to, say, a total of 40,000 annually in the future?

Zora_Vette

I doubt that. There were over 40K 2016 Corvettes produced.

Shaka

That center piece is a carbon fiber backbone, K and P, which is the major anti bending component. A ME car has high bending and torsional loads aggravated by a long wheel base and such a structure is usually made of composite materials like the McLaren F1.
The section modulus of this CF structure higher than steel. The side or perimeter hydroformed aluminum box sections, J, also assist in bending but the major function is for torsional loads which is higher than steel.. Those 3 components are capped by the two magnesium castings at either end, B. The rear one is also the engine cradle.. There are front and rear bulkheads that complete the structure. The rear casting can be removed from the structure for engine/ gearbox servicing @ B and D.
D protrudes into the 3 bending components fore of the CG. The lower mount points and the engine mounts is where the highest bending moment is on the chassis.. Light strong and cheap. That's traditional GM engineering. They answer to the stockholder. Brilliant.





As a side, this oil rad faces the wrong way.

. Should be like this.

Zora_Vette

That central tunnel is hardly a few inches taller than the rest of the floor pan. I don't see how that equates to the very high console we see in the pictures. Good info by the way, very in depth!

Zymurgy

Take a closer look. That central tunnel extends much further down that just the pink color area. The gray color with the slanted bulges (sort of like diamond plate) is also part of the central tunnel extending down to the floor board.

Shaka

The 800HP+ car will surely have a fixed top. Imagine how strong that structure would be.