The Corvette is widely regarded as America's sports car.
The Chevrolet Corvette has been in production since 1953, making it one of
the longest running production vehicles in history.
Of course, it's also one that has occasionally risked the axe, especially
in times of stress for Chevrolet parent General Motors.
In spite of that, the car has endured and it is about to undergo its
biggest change in history.
The Corvette is becoming a mid-engine sports car and it is one of a small
number of mid-engine sports cars that can be bought for less than six
figures.
GM President Mark Reuss told the crowd at the Corvettes unveiling that the
car would start at less than 60 thousand dollars and gasps could be heard
from the audience to understand what this means.
It is important to take a look at Corvette's history.
The first Corvette was designed by legendary General Motors designer
Harley Earl.
Earl saw that American soldiers returning from Europe after World War 2
had gone crazy for European sports cars, and he wanted to create an
American competitor.
GM built 300 of the first Corvettes in 1953, while the initial Corvette
was a virtual masterpiece of automotive design.
The car's performance was mediocre.
GM engineers had put the car together from materials the company had on
hand. Its six-cylinder engine lacked the horsepower needed to match the
car's sleek looks.
The first Corvette sold poorly and was being outsold several times over by
competitors such as the Ford Thunderbird.
Just a few years after its creation, the Corvette was already in danger of
being discontinued.
But the car had caught the attention of a Russian born Belgian immigrant
engineer and race car driver named Zora Arkus-Duntov, who soon got a job
with GM and became the Corvettes first chief engineer.
Arkus-Duntov is credited with pushing for a sportier, higher performing
Corvette. Over time, the car grew a reputation as a working man's answer
to high end Italian and German supercars and developed a proud and devoted
following apart from its lower price.
It also, over time, became known for keeping its engine in the front of
the car. Like many conventional cars.
But the performance and handling of a mirror engine layout is often
favored among makers of super cars and high end sports cars.
Arkus-Duntov
had pressed his bosses to make a mid-engine Corvette, and for years the
company experimented with designs.
You know, creating a car with the drive train centralized in the middle of
the vehicle helps centralize the mass.
When you do that, you end up with more equal weight between the front and
rear axles and on the front tires.
Essentially, that makes the car more stable, even at higher speeds and
even around sharper corners, braking and acceleration.
Everything you're doing in the car especially is a performance car is more
stable, more balanced when you have mass centralised engine design over
time.
Chevrolet developed several different iterations of what was called the
Chevrolet Experimental Research Vehicle or CERV.
These cars were outfitted with mid-engine configurations too, some of
which Arkus-Duntov himself held patents, but none of the designs ever made
it to production, even as high end performance vehicles from other
manufacturers routinely demonstrated the advantages of the mid-engine
layout.
That Corvette was able to compete with many far more expensive cars was
impressive that it did so while keeping its engine in the front of the
car. For many of its fans added to its charm, in some ways, the car
appeared to succeed in spite of itself.
I think that when we talk about Corvette and the idea that it stayed true
for so long to its heritage front engine, rear drive and over time, as we
saw more mid-engine cars coming out, performance levels getting higher and
higher.
Part of the mystique and the aura around mid-engine was literally that was
the engines like right behind your head.
Changes like ride and drive dynamics, too.
But it kind of gave this idea that, to compete at this level, you have to
have a mid-engine.
At the same time, Corvette soldiered on and it was great Nuremberg lap
records.
It was crazy amounts of power grid, all despite the fact that didn't have
this latest and greatest exotic car engine.
Part of its success has come from the credibility Corvette has established
in racing.
Corvettes have been a popular choice for racing enthusiasts for decades,
even when General Motors has not been formally involved in racing.
In 1960, a private race team entered a Corvette in the 24 hours of Le
Monde endurance race in Le Mans, France.
In 1999, GM began sponsoring a Corvette racing team, which has since won
107 races around the world.
That is more than any other car in the history of the International Motor
Sports Association, one of the major sanctioning bodies for racing in
North America.
In addition, the current Corvette racing team has had eight victories in
the car's class and the 24 hours of Le Monde race since 2001.
The Corvette also benefited from some clever publicity, courtesy of early
NASA astronauts in the early 1960s.
GM President Ed Cole and a Florida Chevrolet dealer named Jim Rathmann, a
former Indy 500 winner, offered astronauts from some of the Apollo
missions a special deal that let them drive any Chevrolet vehicle they
wanted for a year for one dollar.
Many, of course, chose the Corvette.
That doesn't mean things have always been easy for the Corvette.
General Motors has been close to canceling the.
Car a few times, but it's always seemed to save it at the last minute.
One famous incident was in the 1990s when GM wanted to shut down the
Corvette program in favor of more popular models.
At that time, the company was reportedly losing 1000 dollars on every
Corvette it made.
But Corvette program manager Russ McClain and his team secretly went to
work on a new Corvette.
McClain told no one except his wife that he had been ordered to cancel the
car.
The car they created was released in 1997 and became Motor Trend's Car of
the Year in 1998.
Corvette sales have seen a decline in recent years, falling from 33,329
units in 2015 to 18,791 units in 2018.
GM, along with rivals Ford and Fiat Chrysler, have rapidly been abandoning
traditional passenger cars.
However, industry watchers say the Corvette name has now lived long enough
to attain a kind of iconic status, not unlike the Ford Mustang, which Ford
has decided to hold on to even as it slowly drains its portfolio of
traditional sedans and coupes.
But General Motors has decided it is time for a big change to Corvette,
and many industry observers say the mid-engine gives GM a shot at
attracting a new audience to the car.
I think for General Motors and virtually every automaker whose main stream
or even the luxury brands that have these halo cars.
The rationale is literally that is that we have to have something that
brings you into the showroom or gets our own employees excited because it
does have that trickle down effect from said vehicle.
And it's one of those things where you're never going to justify on paper,
you work in product planning, your corporate bean counting, whatever you
want to call it.
On paper, it doesn't make a lot of sense.
Can you truly measure its effect overall?
Not really.
I mean, if you really want extrapolated down to word of mouth kind of
thing, which again, is pie 1, the highest, you know, most reputable things
is , I heard it from X, Y, Z, and you really can measure stuff like that.
You can say, you know, on the internet we saw this much activity.
We saw as many clicks.
But at the end of the day, it's one of those things that you really can't
measure people's feelings.
And we know the cars of this nature, they stir the soul and they get
people excited.
The new Corvette boasts some impressive specs.
It will have 495 horsepower.
And when paired with a performance package, we'll be able to go from zero
to 60 in under three seconds according to GM.
That is approaching supercar performance levels.
For example, it is within just fractions of a second of the times boasted
by the 350 thousand dollar Ferrari 488 Pista and the 573 thousand
dollar Lamborghini Aventador SVJ Roadster.
Chevrolet said redesigning the new Corvette from the ground up provided a
historic opportunity Chevrolet designers have wanted for 60 years.
The company said the Corvette can stand tall with the best the world has
to offer.
GM President Mark Reuss also said Corvette has pushed the potential of its
front engine design as far as it can go.
But not everyone is happy about the switch to a mid-engine layout.
Some longtime Corvette fans have cried foul over the change, some
considered a betrayal of Corvettes legacy.
Some complain the car is just aping European designs and some don't like
how the mid-engine layout changes the car's proportions.
Others are more optimistic; if a bit guarded.
General Motors has been trying to cut costs and improve profitability, and
its push has resulted in some bold, if controversial moves such as cutting
production of several of its passenger cars in late 2018.
As of September 2019, shares of GM had risen about 12 percent over the
past five years.
With sales being so small, many think Corvettes status as a kind of 'halo'
car becomes ever more important to its survival.
It gives GM a chance to make an inspiring, attention grabbing vehicle and
showcase the company's engineering talent.
By switching over to a mid-engine design.
Corvette is showing it can make a world class vehicle and undercut
higher-end makers of super cars in price.
It's always fascinating to watch the supercar evolution.
This is a this is a segment that doesn't stop.
It's never standing still.
It's never static. Every not even a year.
It's really more like almost every three to four months.
There's another super car coming around the corner.
I think General Motors has stepped into this competitive segment with a
very capable entry in this new C 8 Corvette.
And it will be fascinating to watch how how effectively they compete at
their price point with much higher priced vehicle.
When they've got a vehicle that already looks like it's going to be
offering performance based models that are just being produced, despite
all the data that shows sport utility is taking over the U.S.
auto market.
The next few years could be some good ones for sports cars.