Chevrolet has just officially announced the 8th Generation Corvette. Taking it to social media, the American automaker tweeted about it with a picture. It doesn’t really give us the whole look of the new car, however, we do get some basic idea on what it’ll be like.
Here’s the 411 on the Next Generation #Corvette. There's only one way to keep up with it: https://t.co/d5nlLQjYgU pic.twitter.com/Jf5l0ixiof
— Chevrolet (@chevrolet) April 11, 2019
For those of you who don’t know, Chevrolet Corvette is an American sports car that made its debut in 1953. Back then it wasn’t the sportiest out there, in fact, earlier Corvettes weren’t even fast by any standard. However, over the years, it has evolved to the point where some people even categorize it as a supercar, which does lead to some controversy.
The main reason Corvette was never considered a supercar had something to do with its design. To this day, all Corvette generation had a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout. Chevrolet, however, still managed to make the Corvette handle well with this platform. The 7th Generation Corvette ZR1 with its 755 bhp engine and optional ZTK package managed to set a production car lap record at Virginia International Raceway, beating many mid-engined exotics that cost way more.
Now that we’ve all caught up, back to the 8th Generation, or the C8 as fans like to call it. The prime feature that everyone’s been anticipation is the new rear-mid-engine layout. It has been confirmed. The official image Chevrolet posted is self-explanatory despite the camouflage wrap.
As you can see, the body style is completely different from all the previous generations. The hood is significantly shorter and the rear elongated, which is the perfect recipe for a mid-engine layout. If there was still any doubt, you can also see an air intake on the door that all mid-engine cars have.
While a mid-engine layout is perfect for handling in every way compared to a front-engine one, there has been some disagreements from Corvette fans. They believe that the old layout is what defined the car and the new one isn’t worthy of being called the Corvette. While they may have a point, the end decision was Chevrolet’s (or General Motor’s) to make.
To know whether the platform will have any significant benefit, we’ll have to wait till the car is launched. As shown in the picture, the car will be launched on 18th July 2019 at a special event by Chevrolet. While we may just get to see the Singray variant first, I can’t wait to see what the Z06 and the ZR1 variants are capable of when they come out during the next couple of years.
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