mid engine corvette qtr panels leaked photo

I'll be shocked if the base price is over $99,000. This car has got to "start" below $100k...likely a lot below.

I'd guess perhaps even $70-80k range base price.

Then power options (more engine and perhaps hybrids), and maybe even a DCT option, and carbon brakes, and carbon bits and maybe even some tricky aero, and luxury nonsense packages can drive the price upwards to $150k.

I don't think any of us would argue they can't sell "some" bad-ass versions at $150k. Maybe 2000 per year range?

And then get needed volume of 20k+ sold at an average under $100k for more simple models

Otherwise they damn well better be making a C7 front engine $60k replacement IN ADDITION to the mid-engine higher cost version.

No way can they repay the plant ops costs and investment if all 'vette offerings are over $100k imho.

 

^^^^^^^
Spot on.

The fun part of this is that there seems to be 2 distinct options for the Corvette going forward and sadly, we'll all have to wait for the answers.
The one FACT we know is that GM has sunk $800 million into the Bowling Green Assembly plant in the last 2 years, so clearly something is going to happen.

Option 1:
The mid-engine Corvette is NOT the C8, but rather a line addition to the Corvette brand. If this scenario is correct, then the pricing will probably crowd 6 figures. My guess is that this car will be shown at Detroit in January 2019, going on sale Fall 2019. Under this scenario, a new front engine/rear drive configuration car will come out in 2021, as an evolution of the C7.

Option 2:
The mid-engine Corvette IS the C8, and the C7 will be produced along side it until 2020 or 2021, at which point the mid-engine car is the only Corvette offered. This would make sense because of the upcoming ZR1, which will probably be intro'd at Detroit in January 2018, going on sale Fall 2018. GM's economies of scale would allow them to make a mid-engine Corvette with a similar C7 price point. I don't think anyone at GM is crazy enough to think that the Corvette line as a whole can be $100K, in the end, the Corvette has been and always will be a volume produced car. There's no way GM plowed all that money into Bowling Green to make 1/3rd as many cars as they make now.

I like option 1 as it gives us the best of both worlds. The front engine car remains for the folks that want the price point/utility that the C5/C6/C7 are known for and gives us a mid-engine car as the no compromise ultra high performance variant.

 

With tours of the factory being off limits - will thy really wait until 2019 to release?

No tours for over a year? I don't think so. I think a release sooner than later...

I would love to see a better spy pic.

Robb

 

I have read that the C8 will be a Midi. I have also read that the current c7 and a mid engiend car will be co produced for a while.

The way i see it Corvette dropping the front engined format would be like harley dropping an aircooled vtwin. At the same time an aging demographic means younger audience with different tastses must be accomodated too, and the mid engined car is also different enough that the price range can be stretched between 50k base front engined cars to 150+k mid engiend cars with somethign for everyone in between.

My bet is they will produce an upgarded version of the C7 and the mid engiend cars side by side for many years to come. Each will have its adherants and practicalities.

Both cars will also probably have a tremendous amount of parts in common, so what the mid engined car does is expand the bandwidth both genrationaly, price and performance wise, while the more practical and voloume side is kept with the front engined car.
With multiple shared compoanats and even the same production line Its not an either or.

 

Still a decent returning-audience for the original recipe - might be risky to categorically disregard it ...?

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Me too.

 

I agree that there will be a front-engine Vette for as long as I'm living. I love a mid-engine alternative, but as a member of the product line.

 

I agree the corvette will offer a front engine v8car for sometime to come . The mid engine car will also be built in the same plant probably as a corvette optional model sort of like porsche has been doing .. another option is to offer a cadillac version of this car also..which has been done before

 

Not sure if this was posted: http://gmauthority.com/blog/2017/09/new-reports-claims-mid-engine-c8-corvette-to-start-as-low-as-65000/

Misleading as it claims $65K is too low, more realistically $95K.

 

off topic, but the new ZR1 looks like it borrowed some styling cues from Ferrari:

https://www.motor1.com/news/175913/corvette-zr1-spied-production-little-camo/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=RSS-all-

 

Those wheels are sharp.

 

However, look a bit unsymmetrical when not viewed spot on.

 

I depends on whether the mid-engine car IS the C8. If it is, then $65K is about right

 

Wow that actually looks pretty great. I wish they'd incorporate a wing that doesn't look so stuck on. Something with some shape.

 

i am trying to think of a front engined ferrari in the last decade that looks as good as this vette, and I cant.

 

Thank God no big as wing is standard fare. The C7 design does not look good with it regardless of functionality. The ACR was able to look good with it to me but not the vette.

 

Looks like this new front end is really going to date the rest of the design. That little air intake before the back wheels has always looked clumsy. This car has always had some 599 in it.

 

Drive a vette on track and a 599, there is a vast vast difference, and that differnce is in the vettes favor. But then I hear the F12 is much improved.

I can even see the arguement that the c7 is a derivative design having may f car cues, this is quite possibly true, but the vette pulls it off so much better and far more coherantly.

True the vetet lacks the luxurious feel of a ferrari, and the exoitic motor, but realisticaly in many surprising ways its really better.

 

Jim, I very much enjoyed seeing your your work in the heritage museum as the Cien. Just stunning cars. Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Corvette has to come up with something COMPLETELY new and FRESH.
if what I saw comes out its a home run, if its an angled sharp rework of todays car it will sink.
I think and hope its the first.
GTJOEY1314

 

Unfortuanately I wasn’t involved with the Cien. That car was done at GM’s Advanced Design Studio in England.

 

Have these been posted before?

Cruising through the Mcd's drive thru.

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Matt

 

Nope just came out this week !

 

Uhhh...am I the only one to notice the second Corvette in the background? Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

More!

http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/future-cars/news/g6916/mid-engine-c8-corvette-spy-photos/