Well, well. It seems that when I predicted that the trademarking of the Zora name by GM would lead to a mid-engined Corvette, I wasn’t just full of hot air. Since I wrote my first piece and clamored on about the mid-engined future in the TopSpeed Podcast, both Motor Trend and Car and Driver have written pieces claiming this to be the truth. We already covered the piece by Motor Trend, but the details from Car and Driver are fresh.
Currently the only way to read the C&D story is to pick up their newest issue on newsstands, but the crazy kids over at Jalopnik have been kind enough to give us a rough rundown of the major points.
First off, we know for fact that Chevrolet is already actively developing the C8 Corvette. Second, the new car will be a mid-engined machine that wears the badge “Zora ZR1.” It will be positioned as flagship for the brand and will likely be the first C8-generation car to arrive. The car will be a very low-volume model that will carry a price that is estimated around $150,000. As it is today, the car will still continue to be powered by an aluminum, small-block, GM engine.
To make this new machine, the current frame will need some heavy modification, but C&D seems to think that current platform has the ability to be used for the job. On that same note, the robotic manufacturing that was setup to create the current C7 can be altered to create the new frame with what seems like little effort.
Expect more carbon to be used if this new mid-engine car makes it to existence. Currently GM uses the carbon stuff for items like the fenders and hood, but the doors are still fiberglass. This will change for the Zora ZR1 and a carbon composite of some sort will be used to decrease weight and increase strength in the doors. Suspension and braking components are unlikely to change too much from the current kit used on the Z06.
As always, we will keep you up to date on all the news as we can get it.
Note: Standard Chevrolet Corvette Stingray pictured here, but our rendering team is hard at work creating a preview to the Zora ZR1.
Click past the jump to read more about the 2017 Chevrolet Corvette Zora.
Chevrolet Corvette Zora ZR1 originally appeared on topspeed.com on Thursday, 11 September 2014 19:00 EST.
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