7 Ways the 2020 C8 Is Unlike Any Corvette in History—and 3 Ways It’s the Same

Corvette boss Tadge Juechter outlines a drastically different, still familiar American sports car.

There’s a discrepancy in what your cochlear and optic nerves tell your brain when someone fires up a 2020 Chevrolet Corvette. It’s disorienting. Your ears tell you the deep, smooth rumble can only belong to a Corvette. Your eyes—presented with non-Corvette proportions and a bunch of air channels in the wrong places—tell you that you cannot be looking at a Corvette.

Even when you start soaking it in, the dichotomy in the eighth-generation Corvette lingers. Or maybe it’s a duality. A good drive should go a long way toward resolving it, but that lies ahead. For now, in the afterglow of Chevy’s official unveiling, the evidence suggests that duality defines the C8 Corvette. It’s bold and maybe even radical, but in fundamental ways it’s also the same as Corvettes have been since the dawn of Corvette time.

Here, then, are seven ways the 2020 C8 is unlike any Corvette before and three ways it’s the same.

Steven Pham

It’s Rear-Midengine

Duh, really? It’s only been 62 years—and at least five midengine Corvette concept cars—since Zora Arkus-Duntov first proposed a midengine Corvette. More immediately, the midengine cat has been out of the C8 bag at least since the first spy photos surfaced three years ago. If it feels anticlimactic to say the C8’s engine sits behind its driver and in front of the rear axle, it’s huge nonetheless. It’s the most obvious first-in-history element of this new Corvette. It’s what drives that ears/eyes disconnect, and it raises the most obvious question. Why now?

“It was only when we could prove to ourselves that this architecture would make the car better in every way that we could really go forward and do it,” says Corvette chief engineer Tadge Juechter, who is only the third person since Arkus-Duntov to hold the title. “That was the key. A lot of people said, ‘Well, of course we can make it perform, but is it better overall?’ It had to be, and still deliver what people expect and demand in a Corvette, in terms of usability.”

Apparently the Corvette team concluded that midengine could be better overall awhile ago, because Juechter says it decided the C8 would make the switch when the current C7 had just started development (it launched in 2013 as a 2014 model).The C7 laid the groundwork for the C8. With it, Juechter’s crew began developing design and assembly techniques—including pultruding, extruding and particularly glue-and-screw aluminum bonding—that reach full bloom in the C8.

“We did the C7 knowing that we were going to do that car, and then we were going to do the midengine car,” he says. “We learned how to design and build (the C8) and were able to take that part off the table. The analytical models to validate a structure like this, we developed that technology on the C7. We could apply it with (the C8) even though the architecture is different. The computer models work much the same.”

So like the C7, the C8 has composite skins—now installed near the very end of the assembly process, race-car style—over an aluminum spine and structure, reinforced or lightened further with sporadic bits of carbon fiber. Only with the C8, there came a new challenge.

“When you put the engine in back, your whole mindset shifts from ‘I don't want too much weight on the front’ to ‘I don't want too much weight on the back,’ says Juechter. “So you'll find most of our premium materials toward the back of the car—the rear bumpers, for example. They’re actually pultruded and extruded carbon fiber to lighten the back and get us to 40/60” front/rear weight distribution.

If you guessed the C8 is smaller than a C7, you’re wrong. Probably the proportions again. The C8 is 4.4 inches longer down its centerline on a wheelbase stretched 0.5 inch. It’s also 2 inches wider, and we’d expect its curb weight to increase roughly 200 pounds—to a bit more than 3,500. The Corvette is now 2 to 4 inches longer than a Porsche 911, a McLaren 570S or a Ferrari 488GTB (as opposed to shorter than all of them, as is the C7). It’s still 5 inches shorter than a Ford GT.

Steven Pham

The Dual-Clutch Transmission

That’s only a dual-clutch transmission. No conventional clutch-pedal or torque-converter automatic. The C8 Corvette’s DCT has eight forward gears and wet clutches. Juechter calls it “the crux of the car” and notes that his team wasn’t too impressed with dual-clutches that were already out there.

“Finding a transmission that would do all of the things we want it to do—fit in this package, handle our torque—was a challenge,” he says. “We ended up designing our own, from scratch. Custom for our engine. There's a whole bunch of requirements that we put around the transmission.”

Juechter’s team wanted a wide latitude of adjustment in shift control strategy, lightning quick shifts when they’re necessary and torque-converter smoothness when that’s preferred. This C8 DCT accommodates some complex algorithms to change auto-shift patterns over a broad envelope. Perhaps best of all, a double-paddle de-clutch feature allows the driver to disconnect the clutch by holding both paddles. That should allow more manual control and maybe something more like a clutch pedal.

The DCT will be built by Tremec in a shop near GM’s Performance Build Center in Wixom, Michigan. For some, it might be the coolest first in the C8. For others—probably old-timers—the thought of Corvette without a clutch pedal might be the hardest thing to swallow. Adjustment takes time.

No Transverse Composite Leaf Springs

The Corvette’s familiar CRP leaf springs are effective devices for a lot of reasons, but they’re actually more cost-intensive than coil springs, and with the midengine layout the packaging space for transverse leafs has nearly disappeared. You’re probably more likely to be bothered by the missing conventional manual than the missing leaf springs.

In their place, the C8’s short/long arm wishbone suspension uses steel coils around the shocks. With some suspension packages, the variable rate springs will be manually adjustable. GM’s magnetorheological adaptive shocks remain an option. The steering ratio speeds up from 16.25:1 to 15.7:1.

“The whole vehicle handling story is big and complicated, but we've been able to do a ton of stuff that we couldn’t do before,” says Juechter. “Most people get in this car and say, ‘Oh, it rides better. I didn't expect it to ride better than the car we're selling today.’ And it has stiffer springs, an average of about 20 percent. It’s like, ‘How can that be?’

“The architecture helps. We’re able to better separate the ride and handling bushings—stiffer where you want them and softer where you don’t. The MR gets more ride quality back without diminishing track capability. It’s the fourth gen, so now we have accelerometers on the knuckles, and the feed rate for the data is four times faster. The fluid still changes (viscosity) in one-thousandth of a second, but the quality of the data is much better.”

Steven Pham

E-Boost for the Brakes

The C8 replaces a conventional vacuum brake booster with an electric motor that works on the master cylinder plunger to add force when a driver presses the pedal. It remains to be seen if we’ll call this progress, but the chief engineer says E-boost brings a lot of advantages.

“Direct-injection engines don’t make a lot of vacuum to begin with, so E-boost is nice in that respect,” says Juechter. “And now we can control the pedal rate and adjust application (pressure). We can tailor the braking response by mode, which we'd never been able to do before. In sport mode you get a better bite, a firmer onset. It’s one more tool to tailor the experience.”

Dual Rear Brake Calipers on Each Wheel

Perhaps hawk-eyed Corvette freaks noticed these in spy and camouflage photos, but probably not. For the first time, the Corvette uses a second set of calipers on its rear wheels. There’s a four-piston Monobloc Brembo caliper on all cars, including those with the Z51 handling package, and a second smaller caliper that’s used exclusively for the hand/parking brake.

A Nose Lifter

The C8 is the lowest Corvette ever. The bottom of the dry-sump engine block sits so low that Juechter’s team actually shrunk the size of the flywheel to maintain adequate ground clearance. It also added a hydraulic lift that raises the front end 1.6 inches to get it over speed bumps or up driveways. When you use the lift, it offers the option of memorizing the location and links it to the GPS, so it will always work in the same spots.

Steven Pham

And a Frunk

In Juechter’s language, “better overall” means faster, better handling and still track-strong, at a Corvette price. “What people expect” means a potential daily driver. The C8 will come standard with all-season Michelins—and still generate close to a full g on a skid pad, according to the chief engineer. It has a lot of room for stuff, and that’s where the frunk comes in.

The trunk under the C8’s front lift panel (is it still a hood?) has room for a good-size suitcase. The larger rear trunk, behind the engine, can accommodate a golf bag. In total there’s 12.6 cubic feet of cargo volume, or about 1.5 cubic feet less than the C7.

“We want to sell 40,000 Corvettes a year, so it has to be more than a weekend toy,” Juechter says. “It has to fit some lifestyles as a daily driver, a long-distance tourer, so it has to have reasonable luggage space. But it still has to be a track piece.”

The 2020 Corvette will go on sale by the end of this year. Chevy may not suggest retail prices before the first cars are headed toward dealerships. Juechter insists that “if you can afford one now you’ll be able to afford the C8.” We’ll guess an increase of 5-10 percent in the price of a base Corvette, and that more or less gets us to:

Three Ways the C8 Corvette Stays the Same

Steven Pham

The 6.2-liter Small Block V8, Longitudinally Mounted

That would be the familiar cam-in-block small block, with the familiar (trademarked?) rumble and almost certainly a familiar feel to its pull or the way it builds revs. Contrary to a wide swath of popular opinion, cam-in-block still has notable strengths compared to overhead cams. It’s lighter and more compact, and almost certainly less expensive to build, even when it's hand-assembled.

Now designated LT2, the C8's 6.2-liter V8 is basically an evolution of the current base LT1. And it will rev. Horsepower increases 9 percent to 495 at 6,450 rpm, with 470 lb-ft at 5,150. Its dry sump lubrication system uses three pumps.

“It breathes better,” says Juechter. “We’re getting a lot of air in there, and there’s very good breathing on the exhaust side, too. We did a cam to take advantage of that, so it's a flat horsepower curve. With the close ratios and the DCT it stays on the boil. It shifts almost exactly at the power peak and lands right on the torque peak. In terms of oil management, it's far more robust than anything we've done.”

Juechter says configuring air and coolant flow for proper track toughness was one of the bigger challenges in developing the midengine Corvette, and the cooling circuit is fairly complicated. There are two radiators in the front corners, on either side of the frunk, a third “step-down” radiator near the engine compartment and a liquid-to-liquid cooler on top of the transmission. Two electric fans in the engine compartment expel hot air.

An Interesting Driver Space

Corvette interiors have always been unique—and not necessarily one of the car’s strengths. The C7 made great strides and the C8 carries on, particularly in the richness of materials and the quality of the build. The C8 interior also takes a conceptual C7 theme to new heights. Literally.

Let’s call it a true cockpit. Where the C7 hints at separating the driver from the passenger with a slight partition sort of thing flowing from the center stack, the 2020 Corvette gets what can only be called a genuine divider—a low wall that sweeps around the driver, separating him or her from the passenger space and edged with a line of 20 climate-control buttons.

Like it says: interesting, maybe even bold. This interior generates even more anticipation for a drive. There will be three seat options for the C8, with a choice of either aluminum or carbon-fiber interior trim. The roof panel is still removable, and it fits in the rear trunk.

Steven Pham

The Value Proposition

There’s still a long way to go with the C8, beyond that first drive: a convertible, a C8R race car (bet the farm), various upgrade models and performance-enhancing RPOs. It looks like there might be enough space under the rear glass for a supercharger on top of the engine. Either way, we’re likely to see some serious bumps in horsepower as Chevy rolls out C8 variants over the next few years, and maybe even some new angles, like electric assist or a power-dense V6. Yet the C8 coupe is enough to tell us that one key piece of Corvette heritage remains.

Bang for the buck will remain its stock in trade. Lap times are more than power-to-weight, of course, but other things more or less equal, the best power-to-weight ratio is going to deliver the best lap times. As the Corvette takes a serious swerve with the midengine and a bunch of new technology and design features, it will remain one of the least expensive ways to get race-car type lap times from a certified, reasonably comfortable road car. It’s still going to take a lot more cash to beat the ’Vette’s power-to-weight ratio, and initial numbers suggest the base C8 Stingray will beat the base C7’s power-to-weight ratio, even though it’s a bit heavier. The 2019 Corvettes nonetheless amplify the point.

The base ’19 Corvette Stingray delivers 455 hp, with power-to-weight about 5 percent better than Porsche’s upgraded 911 S. The Stingray’s $56,000 base price is just 53 percent of the 911 S. At the other end of the Corvette spectrum, the 755-hp 2019 ZR1 tops the Ferrari 488GTB’s power-to-weight ratio by about 5 percent, at just 43 percent of the Ferrari’s base price.

No one is suggesting a Chevy is a Ferrari—only that the Chevy has a slightly better power-to-weight ratio at a fraction of the price. Wherever its engine is installed, this fundamental Corvette thing isn’t going to change. That’s refreshing, maybe even comforting.

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