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Why is the rear widebody but the front isn't. Are they trying to gas light people with that black plastic lip? That's pretty stupid. The C6 Z06 is a true Widebody. It sucks they didn't do it with the C7 also..
Just had to get that off my chest.
it is 2024 and you are posting this? lol.. The front fenders are wider vs a stingray even without the spat. I have painted front spats/rock guards and added the rear from ACS and love the look.
it is 2024 and you are posting this? lol.. The front fenders are wider vs a stingray even without the spat. I have painted front spats/rock guards and added the rear from ACS and love the look.
You are a bit late to the party bro unless you are meaning the C8?
I know I'm way late to the party.. I didn't even notice it until recently when I saw a youtube video and someone pointed it out. Also, saw a video on how the Demon didn't have front fenders flared out either.
YouTubers tend to be fairly inaccurate, and are financially incentivized to make inaccurate or incendiary statements. Slight inaccuracies and incendiary statements are great way drive engagement (comments and shares to others), which the YouTube algorithm rewards by suggesting the video and that channel to more frequently to more viewers. This, in turn, drives additional views, generating additional Ad Revenue Sharing for the YouTuber.
Long story short - make people upset, get more views, get a bigger check.
The GS/Z06 front fenders are wider than Stingray fenders, even without the spats. However, they are most noticeably wider at the rear of the wheel arch, where the spat ends.
This is a C7 Z06 Fender with OEM wheels and spats removed.
This is a C7 Stingray fender with OEM C6 Z06 (same offset) wheels.
GM completely redesigned the front fenders for the widebody cars, and the fenders are in fact wider. According to Chief Engineer Tadge Juechter, there is an actual aero purpose to the shape of the spats.
Tadge answered: All Corvette exterior features and surface shapes are designed for maximum performance and great aesthetics. Around the front wheel openings, both the C6 (Z06, GS and ZR1) and C7 (GS and Z06) feature what you are calling spats arcing down the forward edge. These features create high pressure on the front/top and low pressure on the back/underside resulting in down force and evacuation of hot air from the wheel opening. The aerodynamic studies for both C6 and C7 independently proved their value. To work, they need to be a very specific shape - specifically a sharp break in the surface where the spat meets the fender. I have been asked many times why we couldn't just form that shape from the front fender so it would be all one painted piece instead of looking "tacked on". We looked at that and decided it looked pretty bad when painted bright colors. Your eye is immediately drawn to that feature and it does not look integrated or graceful. Naturally the question is, "If it is so important, why don't we see it on the C7.R race car?" The reason is that the race car sits so low to the ground it can take advantage of even more efficient aerodynamic features such as an "underwing" that sits beneath the front splitter. "Ok, then why don't we see it on other street cars?". Well, actually you do. There are several, typically very serious performance cars that have similar features such as the Porsche GT3RS.
On the question of why we don't pull the fender behind the tire outboard to completely cover the front tire, there are several reasons for that. The main reason is aerodynamic drag. The air flowing by the side of the car wants to re-attach to the smooth part of the body rearward of the wheel opening. The lowest drag cars in the world actually have a very large radius on the body surface making up the transition from the wheel opening to the body side. Bringing the corner of the bottom of the fender out flush with the outside of the tire creates a stagnation point for the air which generates high pressure on a forward facing surface - drag. That same forward facing surface also makes a perfect target for stones coming off the tire... It gets hammered. So most companies choose to bring that fender corner inward a bit and put some radius on it. Others add what looks like a small mud flap.
Stone throw mitigation is actually an interesting science. With slow motion video we know that many stones don't take the obvious path straight off the tire and into the body side. Some bounce between the underside of the car and the roadway more than once before contacting a part of the car where you might notice the damage. I mention this because the premise of this question is that we can solve the stone throw problem with fender shape. It is true we can help it at the cost of drag, but can't solve it completely.
The last point I would make is that the Corvette is a relatively compact car with massively over-sized tires. Like many sports cars around the world, the architecture and aesthetic choices give the car a very aggressive look. For decades the "coke bottle" shape has been a Corvette hallmark. We could help stone throw by making a slab-sided car with the body skin pushed out to the outside face of the tires, but it would look like a refrigerator on wheels. Instead we typically pull the body skin in as tautly as we can over the mechanicals giving it the lean, muscular shape most people really like.
C7 Zr1 has a wider fender, no spat. So Tad may have just been pulling everyone's chain... again. Or, they didn't care as much with the front bumper being so large.
I agree with you. I don’t understand why they didn’t just integrate the spat into the front fender and paint it….but #GM. Keep in mind, it could be much worse, they could’ve made zero effort to actually widen the body, stuck on the truck fender flares and called it a widebody like Dodge did with the challenger/charger.
05-25-2024, 06:01 PM
Z06 Widebody
