(upbeat band music) - Guys and gals,
you frickin' car nerds, it is here at last,
a real, honest to dog, production ready,
fast AF, mid-engine American sports car.
We have been dreaming and speculating and gossiping
for literally decades about this thing.
And I can't think of another car that's been hyped
more than this besides the Supra.
But the difference is, this one didn't disappoint everybody.
It blew everyone's frickin' minds.
Let's find out why this thing,
this beautiful thing, is so special.
We're goin front to trunk, bumper to bumper,
on the new mid-engine
C8 Corvette.
(lively rock music)
Big ol' big boy thanks to this week's sponsor,
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Now back to the show. (dramatic jazz music)
Now I'm as excited as you guys to dive into this car.
But before we do that, we need to understand
how this car happened.
(tones squeal)
Mid-engine Corvette rumors and concept cars
have been swirlin' around GM since the 1960s,
thanks to engineer and avid racer Zora Arkus-Duntov.
The first gen Vette started out as a total flop.
But when Zora was promoted to Head Engineer
of the Corvette program, everything changed.
(upbeat electronic music)
He started puttin' buffer and buffer
small-block V8s under the hood.
But he always knew that the mid-engine layout
offered better performance.
It would push the Corvette into the ranks
of exotic European sports cars.
(engines rev)
And even though Zora Arkus-Duntov isn't here to see it,
his hard work has paid off.
And I think that if Zora were here today,
he would be the proudest dad that you ever did see.
I've never seen a proud dad.
(mellow jazz music) So the new Corvette
is a slightly different shape
than the Corvette has sort of always been.
And a lotta people on the internet
are boohooin' about how the new look
might ruin the character of the Vette.
But those people have only seen pictures of it.
And in person, it looks very Corvette,
the angular body lines, the sharky nose,
the quad tail lights, all unmistakably Corvette.
Only now, it's unmistakably very well-vented Corvette.
There are vents in the front. (bell chimes)
There's vents on the sides. (tones squeaks)
There's vents above the engine.
There's vents across the back,
all for the sake of coolin' this beast's heart.
Don't worry.
I'm gonna get to that after you ring that little
notification bell. (bell chimes)
And you guys clicking that
is how we get to do stuff like this.
And I don't wanna stop doin' stuff like this.
(exhales deeply)
Puttin' the engine in the back means that you have
all this other room up front for activities
like a lower hood line and a bigger windshield
for better forward visibility.
And yeah, now you get a front that can carry a suitcase
or a couple of duffle bags full of money.
The critical part of this is that if you buy one,
you get to say frunk all the time.
Oh, you wanna go work out?
Yeah, let me go grab my gym bag
from the frunk. (tones squirt)
Sir, do you have anything illegal in your frunk?
Nah, frunk the police.
The door handles are very
cleverly hidden (tones chime)
under the black side trim which keeps the design
lookin' nice and clean, just like your boy.
It feels like Chevy kept the black vent trim element
from the C7's front quarter panel
to retain some of that old character.
The Corvette's hallmark removable roof panel is
(drumbeats rattle)
still removable.
And it fits in the trunk, locks in nice.
And the trunk can still hold two golf bags.
Now this is a very, very important selling point
for Corvette buyers.
Golf bags and Corvettes go together
like Goober grape peanut butter and jelly and bread.
(lively jazz music)
Apparently, the C8's body is 10% stiffer than the C7's
for two big reasons.
One is the huge, and I mean huge, center tunnel
that acts like a super strong backbone.
The other is six (tones zing)
extra large, extra beefy, extra strong aluminum castings
that make up the frame.
That's gonna make the new Vette handle even better
than the last one.
And the last one handled very, very well.
And now, it's time to go back
to the back of the car.
(electronic tones reverberate)
(mellow jazz music)
The back of the car is probably the most identifiable
Corvette part of the entire thing.
The high set tail lights, (tones zing)
the black low trim, they're all a natural evolution
of all the previous designs.
But there are a lot of changes too,
like the vents that pass hot air
out of the engine compartment.
The quad tail pipes used to be in the center.
I really liked that.
Now they've been squared up and split up.
Don't worry, you guys.
There's still four tail pipes.
They're just separated.
Also, you can't see it, but the rear bumper beam
is made out of carbon fiber.
Now that's to help offset the weight of the engine
being in the back now.
I know; I know.
But I'm gonna say that one more time.
The engine is in the back now.
Well, it's in the front of the back.
Okay, so like I got a tramp stamp
when I was 12 years old.
And then, I hit a growth spurt.
So now, my tramp stamp is at the middle of my back.
Max, can we see a picture of that?
(screams)
Which brings us to the exciting part, the engine.
It's still a pushrod engine,
but its shape allowed GM to mount it
lower in chassis for a better center of gravity.
And it's no slouch.
The Stingray's new 6.2 liter LT2 V8
makes 495 horsepower and 470 pound feet of torque
with the Z51 package which is what this car has.
That includes performance exhausts
along with improved engine cooling vents,
better brakes, cooler aerodynamics,
an electronic LSD and stickier tires.
(mellow jazz music)
Every single C8 is gonna have a dry sump oil system,
this car that costs less than 60 grand. (chuckles)
And that'll keep the engine from starving for lubrication,
even when it's pullin'
a G or more. (engine revs)
I cannot wait to see what the aftermarket
does with these things, man.
People all over the world are gonna be
soupin' these bad boys up.
Seein' 'em this year is gonna be sick,
Corvette, Corvette, Corvette, Corvette, Corvette.
(chuckles) Cool dude. (car door slams)
Whoa, this is sick.
It feels like a cockpit.
This is the nicest cockpit of any Corvette ever, 1,000%.
Goose, take me home or lose me forever!
Chevy had a few goals when designing
the cockpit of the new C8.
Goal number one, perfecting driver focus,
optimizing the F out of visibility.
I think they did a good job.
The steering wheel is a new square design
'cause it's square.
And it's shaped so the driver can see
the entire gauge cluster.
And let me tell you guys, this gauge cluster is sick.
The dash also sits as low as possible,
so you can see the road better over the really small hood.
This is like no American car dash I've ever seen.
Like the amount of texture and elevation,
landscapey changes, I can't believe that this
is a $55,000 Chevy. (funky electronic music)
Chevy's second goal was to do somethin' new.
And they did that for sure.
The vertical climate control cluster,
a.k.a. the climate control strip,
is like a partition separating the driver and the passenger,
the designers obviously going for a fighter jet vibe.
And this unconventional design,
the layout really reminds me of a MKIV Supra,
a lot more than the new Supra does.
Some people like it.
Some people don't like it.
Personally, I love it.
I feel like I get into a lotta cars,
and I don't know how to do the basic car stuff,
how to turn on the AC,
how to turn on the seat heaters or whatever.
And in this car, everything is right here, very clear.
So I can focus on lookin' cool and my golf game.
(lively electronic music)
That being said, the C8 does also have a touch screen
which is pretty commonplace in new cars today.
But what makes this one a little bit cooler
and a little bit different
is the performance data recorder or PDR which is cool.
It records your lap times, breaking points,
bunch of data when you're at the track.
It's race car stuff.
Race car stuff is cool. (engine revs)
So let's talk about something
that we don't see in the cockpit, a gear shifter.
For the first time in the history of the Corvette,
it will not be available
with a manual transmission at launch.
Let's just take a moment and mourn it and move on.
There is a lot of speculation
that Chevy will add one in the future.
But I'm not necessarily holding my breath
because apparently, 15% of C7 Vettes were sold with a stick.
And Chevy isn't gonna spend the money
to develop a manual if no one's gonna buy 'em.
So it sucks, but it's our fault. (chuckles)
Welcome to Business Lesson 101.
Don't make a product if no one's gonna buy it.
But that is not to say that the new eight-speed
dual-clutch transmission isn't great.
It clicks off shifts in less than 100 milliseconds
and provides continuous torque.
So it is absolutely faster than a manual,
hard facts from big bro. (mellow electronic music)
The final goal is make the Corvette a true super car killer.
And that takes more than just speed.
Because who buys super cars?
Rich guys.
It's gotta have a nice interior.
And this one is a very nice interior.
GM has been hammered by people on the internet
about the Vette interior for a long time.
So the team went out of their way
to give the C8 the feeling of true interior quality.
The seats are real leather.
The metal accents are real aluminum.
Some trim levels will have real carbon fiber accents.
They could've just made this interior
as a plastic, cozy coupe
'cause that would have really helped their bottom line.
After all, GM is in the business of making money.
But they're playing with the mid-engine kids now, all right?
The piece that looks like a material is that material.
This is a really big deal.
This car is a very, very big deal.
I just wanna thank everyone who watches all of our videos
because three years ago, I would never think that
other than my mentor and best friend Jay Leno,
I would be the second person starting this car on YouTube.
So thank you.
(Vette engine rumbles)
(engine revs) (laughs)
This thing is very, very cool, dude.
It's very weird because I know I'm sitting in a Corvette.
But I hear so much intake noise right behind my head
which is the coolest part about driving a mid-engine car.
Not the coolest part, it's a very cool part though.
(engine revs)
(lively band music)
I can't figure out how GM has made a car
this advanced, this fast, this nice
for under $60,000.
In a couple of months, we're gonna see
like a thousand horsepower versions of these
when people start boltin' on superchargers and turbos
and stuff like that.
And those cars will still be less than $100,000.
This is a game changer, y'all.
I'm probably the furthest thing
from a Chevy guy that you will find.
But I respect Chevy so much.
And I wanna thank them for respecting us.
They listened, and they gave the people
exactly what they wanted and more for less.
Respect.
The builders of this Cressida are the Moonlight Runners,
also known as John and Astrid.
They grew up in the American punk scene.
And they felt a special connection
with the boasters of the culture
of young motor heads who challenges boring.
When they discovered they didn't quite fit in
with typical car enthusiasts around here,
they were inspired to build something different.