When you live in Bowling Green, Kentucky and are known for being a car freak of sorts, sooner or later the non-car enthusiast locals will ask you about the Corvette in some way, shape, or form. I’ve got nothing against them, I’m not turned on by them, and in regards to at least the C7 Corvette, I barely fit inside of them. Funny, didn’t have that problem with a C5, but whatever. The Corvette is GM’s god-child, the ultimate in protected status, an icon to the world if you are completely unable to say the words “Mustang” or “Viper”. And right now, the Corvette is a white-hot trend topic because of one phrase: mid-engined.
I personally have said before that a mid-engined Corvette, outside of the factory concept cars, was like Sasquatch: except for some extremely grainy footage, it just didn’t exist. Well, the dawn of the C8 generation Corvette just might shut me up, because all signs are pointing to a mid-engined piece, the first publicly sold version of General Motors’ guidon bearer to have it’s engine anywhere but in the front. First it was a very rough, very chopped up Holden ute tooling around a test track. Then it was a very rough and very chopped up C7 mule flanked by a couple of standard Corvettes and a Cadillac. Nobody can even pick a name: is it ZR-1? Zora? Or how about it’s working title, “Emperor”? Chief engineer Tadge Juechter isn’t saying one word. GM’s product chief, Mark Reuss, is rumored as being the driving force, and former GM head honcho Bob Lutz has come out saying that if it weren’t for GM’s swirling around the great toilet bowl in the later part of the 2000s, there would already be a mid-engined ‘Vette on sale.
But here’s our question, readers: Do you care? We can’t deny that the Corvette has, through good and bad years, been a performance icon. We know the crossed flags means GM is trying. We know that from drag strips to LeMans, Corvette holds a special place in the hearts of millions of people. What does it matter changing from a front-engined, rear-driven sports coupe to a mid-engined sports coupe that takes an even sharper aim at the bigger and more pompous names in the world of racing? It’s been a pseudo-European roadster, a muscle car, a disco cruiser, a techno marvel, and more…what’s another change, really?
The questions we should be asking is…
Will it be…a V8…all wheel drive…a normal sized person be able to fit in it…affordable?
Why? Because the mid-engine is going to happen! It should have happen 10-15 years ago.
Sounds like their engineers that plan ergonomics are a bunch of salad eaters. They should have a “big boy” option on the order sheet : thiner seat, longer seat track etc. Mid engine…who cares. Everything since my ’62 …meh!
Will it be a V8? the gen 6 v8 will be a four valve per cylinder, four cam twin turbo 6.2L motor. How nasty? 850+hp. will it be available in the midengined Corvette? Now what do you think????
I’ve never been a Corvette fan, but all that aside I’ll tell you what the problem is.
Purists will abandon the following. Like when they re-released Indian Motorcycles or filmed the new Karate Kid movies without Daniel Laruso. People will look at these and say “that’s not a REAL Corvette”. No matter what you do that will be the mentality. I’ve seen it happen a hundred times.
They’ve been mid engined since 84 . The engine is just behind the front tires . If they move the engine behind the driver , it will then be just in front of the back wheels. Is that 3 feet worth it ? The transmission is already there . I’d say that putting the engine back there will make it a pain to work on it but pulling the heads on my 87, I’d tell you they already are a pain . And my 92 has a bunch more crap on it to make working on it harder. Probably if it goes in the back, every time you touch it for even the most minor of things , youll just drop the rear sub frame. I think maybe what they’ll do is have a corvette ( front mid engine ) and a Zora Which would be a Ford GT contender .
Chevy gets accused of “ruining it” with every generation Corvette. However, I am a bit concerned that putting the engine behind the front seat might cut into two of the Corvette’s big selling points – affordability and (for a two seater) practicality. You can use a Corvette to run all sorts of errands; my C4 had more room in the trunk than my Buick Regal. I don’t see a mid engined version being able to do that.
Having owned a few, and still do, I find it hard to warm up to this change. Let’s face it in the early days and up to the C5’s Corvettes were junk. Bad panel fit, bad paint, water leaks at the door and roof gaskets area’s but we loved them because they were Corvettes. I’ll be long gone before this happens so I won’t have to see it but you can’t stop progress. The price is what will limit the sale’s because it will have to be close to $200,000. Enjoy the ones you have guys . And life goes on.
I say its finally time the Corvette goes rear mid-engine. Just be sure the body doesn’t look like a fat cow.
The engine of the Corvette has been behind the centerline of the front axle since ’63 really. I don’t see any reason to move the engine behind the cabin, they already have good aero and weight distribution.
The GM engineer who said “we’ve gone as far as we can with the front-engine design” speaks volumes. The Corvette has always been about spanking way-too-expensive cars with dirt-simply American engineering. A mid-engine Corvette, presuming they can do the same to the price as it does now compared to the 911, would bring race cars to the masses.
It really would end the tyranny that the world forces upon us with mult-million ‘hyper-cars’ by spanking them with an $80,000 car. We’ve always been about squashing pretense and a mid-engine ‘vette simply continues that tradition.
My personal opinion: Corvettes are known for their front v8 engines. Why try turning this true American sports car into a euro, rear buzzing engine… IMO it’s like asking Clint Eastwood to dress like Coco Chanel.
The bottom line is how fast will it be, the Corvettes of the last decade have shown the rest of the world that America can build a car that will go around corners, and they don’t care how expensive your supercar is, we can run with it, but the limits have been reached with the mid-front motor placement, it’s time to go mid-rear so we can beat the remaining few Million-plus $ supercars, too, that’s what’s going to sell the mid-rear engine Vette, and there’s going to be the “Oh, that’s not tradition” old farts out there, but originally Vette tradition didn’t include being 2nd place, either.
So, now we get what the Fiero should\’ve been if g.m. didn\’t play favorites..
So, it\’ll be a space frame mid engine car.. oh ,so a fiero with a vette badge..