Month: February 2013

If you’re like most Corvette enthusiasts and can’t wait to see the C7 in person, we’ve got some good news if you happen to live on the West Coast.

The Petersen Automotive Museum is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Corvette with a special weekend of events on Friday and Saturday (March 1 and 2).

The highlight for many folks will be the 60th Anniversary Gala where Kirk Bennion, the Exterior Design Manager of the 2014 Corvette Stingray, will be guest speaker Friday night as the C7 makes its West Coast debut during the gala dinner.

Bennion plans to talk about the new Stingray’s break from tradition and he’ll offer insight into the design process and answer questions about a car that has stirred significant interest around the world.

The public will have an opportunity to see the C7 on Saturday at the museum, which is located at 6060 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.

The 60th Anniversary Corvette Celebration also will include the Corvette Car Day Show, an exhibit inside the museum that will include the rarest examples of each generation, including the very first Corvette EX-122 that debuted at the GM Motorama in 1953, as well as a series of educational panels featuring Corvette legends and industry experts.

If you can’t make it on March 1 and 2, the Petersen Museum will continue to host a special exhibit of Corvettes from every generation, along with significant vehicles from history, through March 31. The exhibit will include the 1953 EX-122, 1956 SR2, 1959 Corvette Italia, 1960 CERV I, 1964 “World’s Fair” Corvette, 1963 Grand Sport, and a 1968 “Sundowner” Bonneville Racecar.

CorvetteBlogger.com spoke with Corvette Product Manager Harlan Charles at the 2013 North American International Auto Show. In this wide-ranging interview, Harlan filled us in on some of the exciting features and options that will be on the 2014 Corvette Stingray.

One of the new features that Harlan was excited to talk about was the Drive Mode selector which allows drivers to customize the driving experience of the car based on the conditions. The 2014 Corvette allows five choices: Weather, ECO, Tour, Sport and Track and Harlan details each of the modes and compares the functions to a graphic equalizer which allows the driver to set the car to whatever driver style you want to have.

There are 12 different options that the Driver Mode Selector controls and some of those attributes include the steering and suspension feel, transmission shift points, throttle progressions, cluster view and the exhaust note.

When it comes to the new Corvette’s interior, Harlan says that one of the goals when making the new car was taking the excitement that people feel when they see the exterior and bring that to the interior. Helping that excitement comes from the two 8-inch high-definition displays as well as the magnesium-frame seats that come in two different styles. And like his counterparts that worked on the interior, Harlan says that “in the car, if you see carbon fiber, it’s real. If you see aluminum, it’s real. Everything in the car is the real materials.”

Harlan’s says that one of lessons learned on the C6 generation was giving customers the ability to customize the Corvettes to their own personality and that trend will continue with the C7 Corvette. He talked about how the two Corvettes at NAIAS were so different from each other just based on how they were optioned with colors, interior and even the color of the brake calipers. He says that customers will be able to “create your own Corvette stingray statement that you want your car to have.”

And what about the Corvette Stingray’s new rear-end design?

“We really wanted to change everything about the Corvette but still invoke Corvette. So we really wanted a different look. One of the things we’ve heard from some people who may have rejected Corvette is that we’ve had that same look from the rear view – C3, 4, 5, 6 – it’s still kind of in that family. So we wanted to keep the basic look – you know the four digit – the two basic rounds on each side but do it in a new way. And doing these tail lamps its very three dimensional. Which I think in some of these sketches that people have seen didn’t really capture the three dimensionality of it. It’s really taking advantage of the new LED technology. The other thing it does is it helps us integrate the rear with the cooling vents we have in the rear as well and fits the more angular shape of the rear of the car. It’s a new statement and I think that its one that people will say Corvette moving forward.”

Check out the full 14 minute interview from the 2013 NAIAS:

A big thanks to Harlan Charles for talking with us at the North American International Auto Show and we look forward to see more about the 2014 Corvette Stingray in the coming months.

Related:
[VIDEO] Interview with Craig Sass – Interior Design Manager of the C7 Corvette
[VIDEO] Interview with Corvette Chief Engineer Tadge Juechter at the 2013 NAIAS
[VIDEO] 2014 Corvette – How to Affix a Front License Plate

 

Remember back in the 1990s when Chevrolet had thoughts of coming out with a low-budget stripped-down C5 Corvette?

For whatever reason, Chevy never really followed through on those plans, although it did offer the slightly less expensive hardtop model in 1999 and 2000 before it morphed into the higher performance (and more expensive) Z06.

Now, the C7 hasn’t even hit the asphalt (driven by the public, anyway), and the rumor mill is abuzz this week that Chevrolet is working on a low-budget version of its seventh-generation car.

The rumor goes that the budget car would be called the Corvette Coupe and would have a modified version of the 327 CI 5.3-liter V8 that will be in GM’s new pickup trucks. Rumor has it that the car would offer less than 400-hp and have a different front fascia, front fender, and rear diffuser than the 450-hp Stingray.

Hmm, that got us thinking about this news item we posted back in November that Indiana-based CSP was awarded a contract from Chevy to produce body panels for the 2015 Corvette. Could these panels be destined for a new low-cost C7 variant?

Everyone’s looking for a bargain these days, so not surprisingly sentiment on the Internet has been largely in favor of such a move by Chevy. This writer, who has owned nine Corvettes over the past 30 years, would support anything that would make it easier to afford to put a C7 in my garage. While I like the mental feeling of knowing I’ve got a 450-hp car in my driveway, I’d probably be perfectly content with a less-powerful but still beautiful version of the C7 that wouldn’t bankrupt me.

One problem is the image, though. If you were around in the ’70s, you remember that the base Camaro didn’t look nearly as appealing as the Z28, did it? With the C7, Chevy would need to differentiate the Coupe from the Stingray enough to make Stingray owners not feel like they were being cheated (the way ZR1 owners did in the 1990s when the base model’s rear bumper changed so that it looked just like a ZR1 on a diet). But if they do that, would the budget car then be like the base Camaro in the 1970s and thus it wouldn’t be as appealing to Corvette fans like this writer?

That’s the challenge for Chevy.

One poster on the Web thinks the less expensive version of the Corvette is “a genius idea.” He says: “If a Corvette Stingray is going to cost somewhere around $50,000 like the old C6 Corvette, if they brought in an entry level model I would price it in either the high 30′s or low 40′s. Take away a lot of the visual cues (air vents, quad exhaust tips, wheels) and some of the interior features (leather, heated seats, power seats) and you are right on the money with that car. I would buy one without a doubt considering what 40K can buy you now. You can have a loaded BMW 328i for around the same money or a loaded Ford Mustang or Camaro for the same. Price it at least 3000 bucks above a Camaro SS and you got a hit seller.”

Another poster says: “A lower cost Corvette is a great idea. It puts the car within closer reach for the younger generation which is important because it builds brand loyalty. Go for it GM.”

However, there are nay-sayers out there, too.

Writes one: “Chevy should not make a low cost Corvette. This will only take away sales of the Camaro. Corvettes are already affordable, when compared to other sports cars. GM please leave this territory for the Camaro and not the Corvette.”

Another negative responder writes: “I think their efforts would be better spent making the Camaro an even more refined sports car to fill in this spot. The Corvette Stingray should remain the brand’s halo car until a higher end model shows up. Watering it down even further than it already is makes no sense to me. Really hope they don’t follow through on this idea.”

Guess we’ll find out in a few months what Chevy has up its sleeve.

Source:
MotorTrend and LeftLaneNews.com

Related:
Nashville Ledger: Can This Car Save GM?
SPIED: 2014 Corvette Stingray with Full Body Racing Stripes
Motor Trend: C7 Corvette ZR1 Could Have More than 700 HP