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| © Motor Trend Staff 2015-Chevrolet-Corvette-Stingray-Z51-front-three-quarters-051.jpg |
From Motor Trend
Chevrolet
is finally building the Corvette it's always wanted to build: one with a
rear engine. Although all the hard engineering work is surely done by
now considering the 2020 Corvette makes its debut on July 18, Chevy
hopefully learned some lessons from the previous-generation C7 Corvette
Stingray. I spent 15 months and 25,000 miles with our old long-termChevy Corvette Z51, and here are some things I think the new mid-engine Corvette must do as well as the final front-engine Corvette—and some areas where it can do better.
What the C8 needs to do as well as (or better than) the C7:
Performance
This is an obvious one, but the C7 Corvette was arguably the pinnacle of
Corvette performance. Ignoring the overpowered and under-chassised
650-hp Corvette Z06 and 755-hp Corvette ZR1, Chevrolet needs its new car
to capture the performance balance it struck in the Corvette Grand
Sport. The Grand Sport, essentially a Stingray Z51 with a 6.2-liter
naturally aspirated V-8 and the Z06's handling package, was the sweet
spot in the C7 lineup. Sure, it "only" had 460 hp, but each and every
one of those horses was usable. And thanks to the new handling hardware,
the Grand Sport was the type of car that easily became one with its
driver, rotating around your hips as you dance from corner to corner. If
the C8's jumping-off point was the C7 Grand Sport, we should be in for a treat, thanks to the better balance provided by a mid-mounted engine.
The "everyday" sports car
The only car to ever truly challenge the Porsche 911's claim as the everyday sports car has been the Corvette.
An everyday sports car should have a comfortable ride, a practical
cabin, decent fuel economy to get you through the week, and performance
that sets your hair on fire on the weekend. The C7 Corvette came pretty
close. It rode wonderfully (even without the optional magnetic-ride
suspension), achieved a 19-mpg combined EPA rating (our long-termer
netted an observed 17.7 mpg after 25,000 miles of hard driving), and,
thanks to its massive hatchback was super practical, too. It'll be
harder to be quite as practical with the engine behind the cabin, but as
the new McLaren GT has proven, there are clever ways to maximize cargo capacity in a mid-engine sports car.
Room for Improvement:
The Experience
Our two biggest issues with our long-term C7 Corvette went hand in
hand: quality and dealer experience. On the former front, our Corvette,
although mechanically reliable, had quite a few quality issues. The
MyLink display failed, the targa top creaked and rattled, the door
creaked when opening and closing, and the steering wheel squeaked when
you turned. If those quality issues are unacceptable on a $65,000 car,
they'll certainly be unacceptable on a car that likely starts at around
$70,000.
Furthermore, the quality issues we experienced highlighted how Chevrolet
the dealerships we visited were (generally) unprepared to deal with
Corvette customers. Although our experience with four dealerships in
2015 might not represent the reality today, what we encountered was
typically a single overworked Corvette technician and long waits until
our Corvette was back in action. Adding insult to injury, although we
were given dealer loaners when our Corvette was in the shop, they were
all low-end Chevrolets: Sparks, Sonics, and Cruzes. Corvette customers
are among GM's most valuable, and the experience of putting them in
economy models while their very expensive cars are being fixed conveys
the opposite. Given the C8 Corvette's expected price increase, a dealer
experience similar to ours could quickly convince Corvette owners to
jump ship for the likes of Porsche, Mercedes-AMG, or BMW. In words that GM will understand, the Corvette is the Cadillac of the Chevrolet lineup—treat it like one.
