Mid-Engine Corvette to be delayed (3rd Update)

Like we said, what does GM know about designing a mid-engine high performance car. Anyone buying the first ones off the line might be in for many recalls.

UPDATE Last Friday, Hagerty reported that it has dug up three reasons why the hotly anticipated mid-engine Corvette hasn't surfaced yet.

Reason number one is a rumor we've heard before. According to sources, the mid-engine Corvette has issues with the new electrical architecture. The report said every GM vehicle is moving to the new architecture to support 100 or more computer modules communicating with a CAN bus, or computer area network. Apparently, engineers have had many issues sorting out the bugs in the mid-engine Corvette and other unnamed models.

Secondly, sources shared with Hagery that the aluminum spaceframe was prone to distortion under extreme duress. Apparently, one of the mid-engine C8 Corvette's engines was powerful enough to twist the rear of the car so much that it broke the glass hatch that covers the engine planted in the middle. The incident reportedly happened with a twin-turbocharged V-8 that made 900 to 1,000 horsepower. Engineers are likely working to beef up the spaceframe to ensure it's strong enough to withstand the forces exerted by all of the engines planned for the car.

The final reason, per the website, is somewhat vague. Sources shared that there's some sort of internal argument between designers and engineers, but it's unclear what it's about.

Hagerty pegs the National Corvette Museum's 25th birthday celebration, which takes place in August, as a good guess. That falls in line with previous reports that the car would debut this summer.

03/03/19 If a report from the Mid Engine Corvette Forum turns out to be true, the Chevrolet C8 Corvette may not be as close to landing in dealerships as hoped.

An image detailing the vehicles General Motors will produce for the 2020 model year was posted on the forum and indicates the existing Corvette Stingray and Z06 will remain in production potentially for another year.

A forum user in the same thread then stated that Chevrolet has pushed production of the new C8 Corvette back to December, allowing it to keep building the C7 for a little while longer.

It’s difficult to verify this since Chevrolet itself is remaining tight-lipped about the mid-engined Corvette, largely refusing to acknowledge its existence. The poster claims to have been informed about the planned production date as they’re a supplier of some kind.

If production of the new Corvette has indeed been pushed back to December, we wouldn’t be entirely surprised. In fact, this would confirm speculation that Chevrolet recently decided to delay the C8 Corvette by six months due to an electrical problem. It is claimed that the supercar’s electrical system can’t handle the load necessary to support all of the car’s components and that they had to re-engineer the entire system.

Ralph Nader and the Corvair

12/16/18 A reader disagrees with our dig against the Chevy Corvair in the photo caption below. He writes, Which Corvair were you referring to? The cars the Nader lambasted were generally produced from 1960 to 1964. Those models and the subsequent 1965-1969 models all had the engine mounted in the rear, ala VW Beetle or Porsche 356/911.

Regarding Nader’s book, the points raised in “Unsafe at Any Speed" regarding the Corvair were generally limited to the rear suspension, the swing-axle suspension design. Additionally, the Corvair was the subject of only one chapter in the book. To be fair, Nader’s conclusions regarding the safety were subsequently criticized by the NHTSA, Thomas Sowell and Timothy Noah as being inaccurate.

This review panel (NHTSA three-person advisory panel of independent professional engineers) then issued its own 24-page report (PB 211-014, available from NTIS), which concluded that "the 1960-63 Corvair compares favorably with contemporary vehicles used in the tests…the handling and stability performance of the 1960-63 Corvair does not result in an abnormal potential for loss of control or rollover, and it is at least as good as the performance of some contemporary vehicles both foreign and domestic."

Economist Thomas Sowell said in The Vision of the Anointed (1995) that Nader was dismissive of the trade-off between safety and affordability. According to Sowell, Nader also did not note that motor vehicle death rates per 100 million passenger miles fell over the years from 17.9 in 1925 to 5.5 in 1965.

Journalist Timothy Noah said the (Corvair) was not significantly more dangerous than a number of American cars of its time, citing government and independent reports: "… the car was not, in fact, appreciably less safe than a number of other cars on the market."

(All from Wikipedia – “Unsafe at Any Speed") Jim Pappin

Chevy has zero experience designing mid-engine cars, and the one they did design, the Corvair back in the 1960s, was deemed unsafe at any speed by Ralph Nader

12/13/18 The upcoming mid-engined Corvette won't be coming to January's Detroit Auto Show. A new report is revealing exactly why that is.

According to anonymous sources speaking to GM Authority, Chevrolet is delaying the C8 'Vette by six months after engineers discovered a "major electrical issue" with the future sports car. From the report: "The vehicle’s electrical system can't carry the load necessary to support the necessary components."

The vehicle's electrical system will reportedly have to be re-configured completely.

As a result of the delay, we're not expecting to see the C8 until after the first half of 2019 has passed. GM Authority seems to agree, with the publication tentatively predicting the car to come out for the 2020 model year.

A considerable amount of leaked info on the mid-engined GM has hit the internet recently. Last week, somebody on Corvette Forum alleged that the car—among many other things—would get a 520-horsepower LT1 V-8 to start and eventually, in ZR1 guise, receive a 5.5-liter, twin-turbo V-8 good for "frightening" acceleration. The same person also says that no C8s will be available with a manual transmission.