The C8 Corvette Is An Opportunity Turned Ugly

The new 2020 Corvette isn’t simply ugly, it represents an incredible missed opportunity. Let’s look beyond the rear-end that looks like a generic automobile chimera from your local carwash’s business card and dig into why Chevrolet missed the mark on their plan for the Corvette. 

After a multi-decade gestation, the car that has been finally born struggles to understand its purpose. Is it continuing the Corvette story or is it a departure from the Corvette brand we know today. When the answer is both, often times the real answer is neither.

Once you see the face of Sid from Ice Age, You cannot unsee.

Corvette Canon Or New Chapter?

There may not be a less desirable job in the world than owning the development for the 2020 C8 Corvette. Transforming the Vette from a front-engined star-spangled icon to one of them new-fangled mid-engined supercars is destined to be trouble. On paper, it sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime: design the Corvette the world always wanted. In reality, you are faced with the real world limitation of designing a car by committee at a company that knows less about how to manage a brand than Acura. While it is true that the C7 has reached the limits of its platform in terms of performance, the decision to fully replace the Corvette instead of expanding the lineup is a regrettable mistake.

The problem originates at inability to decide on whether to design carte blanche or to evolve the product. Attempting to do both means that you are going to neither very well. Lucky for the interested audience, Chevrolet decided to do both. Moving the engine to the middle of the car while trying to draw connections to irrelevant concept cars of the past should make people ask the question: Why now? There was every chance to do this in the past. There were more successful models than the C7. There were less successful models than the C7. At any point in time the switch to mid-engine would have given the Corvette a significant performance advantage compared to the front-engine layout.

If you follow the smell of cigar smoke on a golf course, you are likely to find one of these bags by the source.

The C8 has a design requirements plagued by the word AND. It must carry two big-gulp sized passengers and have a 0-60 time under 3.0 seconds and carry golf-clubs and start at under $60,000 USD and the list goes on. Anointing the spirit of the Corvette with a mid-engine may have seemed like the solution to save the Corvette from eventual performance death, but this unholy act performed by has not been performed by many other manufacturers successfully.

It will be a joy to see how well the interior lasts when the 3rd and 4th owner are finished with it.

The list of of legendary cars that have successfully undergone this type of surgery is incredibly short. Ferrari took the name of a historic front-engined race car and turned the front-engined Testa Rossa into their flagship midship Testarossa after a 23 year absence. Effectively an entirely clean slate without the need to pander to existing customer expectations. Not a single person cared about how many golf bags fit in the Testarossa. Corvette customers are an entirely different beast.

Overheard in design meeting, “Do you think we could put the Chiron’s headlights in the exhaust?”

Attract New Buyers Or Stick With The Oldies

The question of whether to attract new customers or retain old loyalists is an unanswered question for the new Corvette. It seems impossible that they will be able to do both things with one vehicle. Unfortunately, the side intakes that are jarringly split across the door opening can’t be excused as a design requirement. However, there are other requirements around design and practicality that prevent the Corvette from being the beautiful supercar it has the potential to be. Creating a clean break is a very difficult decision, but is one that could help proliferate the Corvette brand that we know today. 

Floating air inlet and integrated door handle? Luckily Corvettes are known for their minimal body panel flex.

The C8 Corvette should have been granted a higher base price and forged a new path for the mid-engined supercar. Chevrolet could continue with the existing front-drive platform for the Corvette owners who value tradition over change. May this require some additional work to explain it to buyers, yes. Is there room for a car that significantly separates itself by competing on performance and not price from the Corvette of the past with the intention of providing world-beating performance without the shackles of an interior that smells like the glue aisle in a craft store, yes. But that just isn’t what Chevrolet is going to do.

The red engine cover? It is almost like Chevrolet knew what to do.

Missing the opportunity to take a page out of Ferrari’s book again, Chevrolet will try to accomplish everything with a single car. Ferrari sells front-engined V12s because of tradition. They sell mid-engined cars for performance. Expanding the Corvette lineup to target different customers with different models could be a move that wasn’t expected, but it could have been just what they needed to invigorate one of the most famous brands in automotive history.