It’s hard to believe it’s been five whole years since the C8 Corvette entered production. The mid-engined shot heard ’round the world as a thorough reimagining of America’s sports car in the vision of Corvette godfather Zora Arkus Duntov is still putting down big numbers, but GM’s already working on a replacement. This isn’t it. Instead, this Corvette Concept from GM’s new UK-based styling studio is a show car in the purest sense of the term, no concessions to production, no change-a-few-things-and-that’s-basically-it. However, some of its influence might be felt in the next-generation Corvette.
On first glance, there’s a dramatic split between the more traditionally styled upper surfaces and the heavy aero channeling of the lower body, a bit like an Aston Martin Valkyrie or Ferrari F80, only more extreme. We’ll get back to the top side of this Corvette concept in a bit, but the philosophy of extensive Venturi tunnels and a heavily sculpted floor should offer a blend between huge downforce and clean upper surfaces at the expense of cabin space.
That being said, the upper surfaces of this show car have an appeal all their own. Without a fixed rear wing, the resulting curves drape over the chassis like a tablecloth, all while conveying some classic Corvette styling tropes. The split rear window from the 1963 model makes a reappearance here, along with a split windscreen necessitated by a fanciful floating canopy with wraparound windows. Like I said, show car, not an exact preview of what’s to come. The bulging fenders also have a whiff of C2 to them, rising above the bottom of the greenhouse.
Taking a closer look at this show car, you can’t help but notice relatively few heat exchangers and absent exhaust tips. Were they just omitted for show car purposes? Not quite. GM claims this concept features “EV battery technology embedded into the structure,” and while the prospect of an electric Corvette sounds sacrilegious, the electrification of the Corvette E-Ray hybrid might just be a glimpse of things to come.
I worry about the concept of an electric Corvette, because ever since 1955, the Corvette has almost always been a very engine-focused experience. Contrast the roar of a high-compression small-block in an early C3 against the flat-six thrum of a late-’60s Porsche 911, the sheer headroom of the LS1 in the C5 Corvette against the difficulty of making an early Boxster quick in a straight line, and the banshee wail of a brand new Corvette Z06 against the supercharged Camry soundtrack of a Lotus Emira. Short of the 1985 to 1988 C4 with the Z51 package, a driver’s car so thoroughly dominant it was banned from SCCA showroom stock racing and corralled into its own one-make series, the Corvette has largely been a car you buy for V8 power in a sports car, rather than one that’s simply the best at any sub-Ferrari budget.
Taking away the V8 would plunge the Corvette into a brave new world, one where sedans like the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT and Lucid Air Sapphire are some of the quickest cars on the planet regardless of body style. With many tracks having restrictions on electrified vehicles and 5-to-60 mph being the metric most consumers gauge everyday performance by, would an electric Corvette have much of a market? Answers on a postcard, please.
On the plus side, if this Corvette show car doesn’t tickle your fancy, don’t worry, more are on the way. As Michael Simcoe, GM’s VP of global design, stated in a media release, “As part of the Corvette creative study, we asked multiple studios to develop hypercar concepts, which we’ll see more of later this year.” Honing in more, Autocar reports that this is the first of three individual studio prototypes, and all are expected to “influence a single, final show car that will be unveiled in the second half of this year.” If that final show car is anything like the 2009 Stingray concept, expect it to influence the next-generation Corvette. With such a tight timeline to the expected reveal, it wouldn’t be surprising if that car’s already completed, so we’ll be watching for it very closely.
Top graphic credit: GM
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Wow. The side profile is so extreme! How are you going to see outside and around you? Maybe there are 360-degree cameras and screens. That is not a car and a world I want to live in. (I once found myself in a rental Camaro that was maybe 50% this extreme with sight lines and windows. And that was so uncomfortable.)
Maybe it’s time for me to move to Africa and find a beat-up Peugeot 504 or Land Rover in which to roll around.
Honestly. I really like it. The part that scares me the most about this type of design is it feels too exotic.
Like Corvettes are the every man supercar. Can you get a car that looks like this out for sub 100k? I’d love for that to be true.
The streamlined logo is the best part
I’m still expecting an about face from how GM doesn’t “take design seriously” from Adrian Clarke…
I was talking more about production as opposed to concepts (which are relatively easier to do) but seeing as you’ve dangled the bait, I’ll bite.
You think this looks like a Corvette? I think this looks like a watered down version of an already watery Jaguar concept we’ve seen many times before. Which is not surprising seeing as a lot of the staff in Leamington are ex-Jaguar designers.
And yes, I recently applied for a job at this studio. Didn’t even get an interview. So I am attempting to put my money where my big fat mouth is.
Hairy Mary and her merry band of idiots shit-canned lead Corvette engineers for this? The only Corvette attributes are the coke-bottle shape and the split window.
If there’s one thing they take away from this concept, please let it be this: you don’t need to slap 13 shapes and fake vents onto every god damn panel of the Corvette.
TBF, there are no fake vents on the past 4 generations of Corvette…
Good call; I was under the impression that the 2 vents between the taillight were fake, but they’re not! But the shape slappage? That’s a real problem.
fair
If those are T-tops, this gets a BYEAH from me!!
I really like how clean the look here is compared to current Corvettes. I’d imagine a production version would have the top half grow lower (like, 80% clean painted upper section) and have less aggressive ducting and tunneling to make room for the engine(s). Imagine a C8 but with the cleaner surfacing & styling of this!
While Renault’s new 5 Turbo 3E shows OEMs can make EVs that are driver-focused, I agree this will really deserve a V8 in production form since it’s such a big part of the Corvette experience. Nothing to stop GM from doing a Cadillac version that’s fully electric though — that’d fit nicely with their motorsport/tech branding and F1 debut.
“Honing in more, Autocar reports…”
I think the word you’re looking for is “homing”. As in pigeon or guided missile.
Something to contemplate when you’re honing your phrases…
“The mid-engined shot heard around the world…” must’ve come from a BB gun or only the bats heard it.
Ew. It’s like someone took the Batmobile from the Animated Series and mixed it with some C2 and C8. not my cup of tea.
This is NOT how you do retro modernism. This is an abomination in the eyes of god.
I kind wonder if trying to move the ‘vette upmarket at all is a bit of a mistake, it’s more sports car than super car and a lot of its appeal is in the value proposition. I like EVs quite a bit and, if done well, they would sell a few Evettes but I think I agree on the v8 experience thing. Can’t imagine it being a big seller… Maybe if they made it into a crossover and threw in a couple of styling cues from the coupe?
Please don’t speak a GM Mach E into existence, please and thank you
I like the callback to the 25th anniversary Vette:
https://www.autobarnclassiccars.com/vehicles/1095/1978-chevrolet-corvette-25th-anniversary
That said ,this is clearly a design exercise with elements that will never make production, like the callback to the split rear window Vette on the windshield.
It looks like a Corvette but also looks “futuristic for the sake of futuristic”
Seeing that the Corvette is supposed to be America’s sports car, I feel that the British designing this is payback for all that tea we dumped 250-ish years ago.
They also did the GT40 for us
The original inspiration for the Corvette was European coupes post-war…
does anyone have an article on the C4 Z51’s SCCA career? Id be very interested.
As for this thing, the upper surfacing looks Corvette enough, but the light signature doesn’t do anything for me. I wonder if they’d be able to fit the double circle taillights around those big aero tunnels or something.
Good call on that. I miss the circle taillights. The most recent ones recall NFL players and there eye black. Or a Camaro. I didn’t like the Camero (sic) taillights either.
The market has spoke loud and clear, no one wants electric sports cars!
The split front windshield looks dumb too.
Aside from having boringly quiet motors, no engagement with gear changes, unsatisfying touch-screen interior controls that are even harder to use than normal in a car with a taut suspension, significantly heavier weight, a loftier price, and longer refueling times, what’s wrong with electric sports cars?
Some of that doesn’t necessarily need to be part of an electric car, everyone’s just some how decided it does. Specifically the touch screen controls, there’s literally no reason an electric powertrain dictates that everything inside the car can’t still be analog
THIS.
Tech saturation is what is ruining EVs.
Lack of efficiency in design is what is ruining EV sports cars, forcing massive battery packs to get acceptable range, driving up weight, on a chassis that is already oversized. The larger battery pack drives up costs.
If someone made a Miata-sized or smaller, RWD, mostly-analogue, highly aerodynamically streamlined EV with lots of horsepower, it could easily be kept under 2,500 lbs and if mass produced, offer great value for the money.
It would not cost much to make due to needing less of everything, and perhaps the platform could be shared with an entry-level hatchback, sedan, or mini-truck to split the NRE costs among more units.
Yet the mainstream manufacturers don’t want to do anything of the sort, or they would have already. It’s the easiest route to affordable mass market EVs with (barely)acceptable range. It would eat away sales from much more expensive and higher-margined vehicles if they did this.
I definitely agree. And, as an enthusiast, I’m hoping that we just need to wait it out. Seems like in this period, high margins are needed to make any EV’s business case make sense, so that means high-end/luxury. And unfortunately there’s a perception that lots of software-defined stuff and extra screens are “luxurious.”
But I hope in another 5-10 years you can just buy a simpler EV that’s got a basic feature set and some actual buttons/dials. Seems like the interiors are already trending back this way…slowly.
I don’t mean to be derogatory in the comparison, because they’re as closely related to electric cars as gas powered go-carts are to ICE cars, but electric golf carts are extremely simple and analog, they manage to be functioning electric vehicles without computers, without screens, with completely analogue gauges and simple mechanical controls, so clearly the simple fact of having electrical propulsion doesn’t mandate any of that. A lot of the electric converted Volkswagens people are doing now further emphasize that
And you also had those electric converted compliance EVs in the ’90s that were just regular compact cars with the engines yanked out in favor of batteries and motors, some of them even retained the original 5 speed manual transmissions, which was actually a functional requirement and not just the equivalent of a plastic steering wheel on a toddler’s booster seat, like the manual EV ideas the industry I’d working on now
An EV with 3 pedals and a tach might actually intrigue me enough to buy one. Bonus points for being able to leave it in high gear (direct drive) for when you don’t care about rowing gears.
Simple gauges, simple electronics, and physical buttons would be a winner.
It looks like a catamaran.
I feel confident that a Hot Wheels designer was involved in this.
I was about to say, I might add the Hot Wheels version of this to my Corvette collection.
As a potential inspiration for the C9? No thanks.