2012 Chevrolet Corvette: What GM's planning for the C7

If you were a car-crazed kid in America any time between Eisenhower and LBJ, chances are you learned about one sports car before any other: Corvette. It might've been a two-tone C1 roadster, a split-window coupe parked among svelte Corvairs and boxy Impalas on your neighborhood dealership's showroom floor, or Tod and Buzz's dull gray convertible on television; but the long hood, the short deck, the two buckets, and the brawny, yet sophisticated American swagger caught your eye. It was the stuff dreams were made of.

Now one of America's longest-lasting nameplates, the Corvette has had its toe-curling Elvis-in-Vegas years (the awful, asthmatic C3s of 1975-1977 were the absolute nadir). But the opening decade of the 21st century finds America's own sports car in the best shape it's ever been. The 2008 C6 is the sharpest, fastest, and best-finished Corvette yet, while the 197-mph Z06 is, quite simply, the best-value supercar you can buy anywhere in the world.

So what's next?

That's a good question, because right now GM execs are planning the next-generation Corvette, the C7. What they decide over the next few months will be hugely important. For the first time in history, GM wants to take Corvette-one of the few American GM brands that doesn't play in the discount department of the mass market-global, accompanying Cadillacs in showrooms in Europe, Asia, and Australia. Complicating the picture are proposals to take the U.S. Corporate Average Fuel Economy mandate to 35 mpg by 2020. Depending on the fine print, the doomsayers hint there's a real chance that could mean there's no C7 at all.
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DaHarder - 10/9/2007 3:02:08 PM

+3 Boost

I caught this info in my Zinio delivery of Motor trend.

I personally find the B.S. sensationalistic (so-called) journalism that would allow the following the even leave their word-processor, "there's a real chance that could mean there's no C7 at all", to barely merit notice.

If any of this were a concern, let's start now by killing the M3/M5/M8/RS4/RS6/CTS-V/XLR-V/STS-V/All AMG Variants et al.

GET A CLUE!

lewishamiltonpimp - 10/9/2007 5:19:54 PM

+5 Boost

The Vette does use wishbones. Jeesh! Clueless! Old fashioned rear suspension? Do you even pretend to know how the Vette's suspension works?

The Vette uses a single leafspring but it is transverse across the car. It simply replaces the coils/torsion bars/whatever while allowing the car to sit a lot closer to the ground. The suspension on the C6 is unequal double wishbones, like many other cars. It saves unsprung and sprung weight by not using big coils.

Clarkson doesn't understand it either so you are in good company.

no1listensanyway - 10/9/2007 10:03:22 PM

+2 Boost

Thats right Lewis, drop some knowledge on the young ones!

germeezy2 - 10/9/2007 8:44:44 PM

+1 Boost

I have a 620 hp Nitrous Vette and I will tell you that without the transverse leaf there would not be anyway this car would be able to handle this kind of power. I have driven many IRS cars that have wheel hop issues with half the power. And my Vette does not ever wheel hop.

S4cabriofoxone - 10/9/2007 10:04:14 PM

0 Boost

The day there's a mid-engined Corvette, there will be a front-engined 911. It's not happening.

moto - 10/9/2007 11:50:20 PM

+1 Boost

Is this why GM built a Corvette Indy prototype in the mid-1980s? That was the future of the Corvette except for one reason: the beancounters at GM calculated (correctly, at least for the short term) that more money could be made by prettying up their trucks rather than investing in a small-production car like the Corvette. Thanks only to intervention by the remaining top brass at that time who were still "car guys", the Corvette was saved ... but with limited budget for redesign. So the Corvette continued on into the early 1990's on the C4 chassis, with most engineering effort going toward engine development that could later be applied to other vehicles. Today, we have one of the most finely tuned pushrod engines that, by the way, gives up nothing to dohc engines except one more plastic badge to stick on the back of the car. The Corvette is and should always remain GM's premier sportscar, but no experienced driver i have ever met would complain if it took on the attributes of the F430 at half the price. Want to see what the Corvette can do if the engine were placed in the proper location? Go and look for a local Factory Five builder and check out their Mulsanne. That's what a true sports car looks like -- of course, on the road, you'd only see the rear of it for a limited time.