Corvette Will Be Revealed 2020 Convertible Teaser

The 2020 Chevrolet Convertible will debut early next month. The 66-year history of Corvette includes a long-running difference of opinion between GM’s sports-minded engineers, particularly Zora Arkus-Duntov, and cost-conscious financial staff. Duntov proposed better underpinnings to make early Corvettes drive as well as they looked. Fast-forward half a century and the C8 – Corvette, generation 8 – finally has one of the hallmarks of the highest-end sports cars, the mid-engine layout. Some say GM had only bad experiences with its few early mid-engine production cars, particularly the 1960s Corvair which was a) rear- not mid-engine, b) troubled not by the engine location as much as the low-cost rear suspension that came to the attention of a young Ralph (Unsafe at Any Speed”) Nader even though c) the VW Beetle had the same swing-axle” design and that didn’t pique Nader’s curiosity.

The LT2 Engine

Powering the Corvette is a 6.2 liter V8 LT2 making and SAE certified 495 horsepower and 470 lb-ft of torque when equipped with an optional exhaust system. In Z51 form, the car is expected to hit 60 mph in less than 3 seconds. The base output of the engine has not been revealed yet. The LT2 engine is based on the LT1 with a new aluminum block. This new engine features a dry-sump oiling system and three scavenger pumps to fight oil starvation in high-G maneuvers on a track.

Power in the Chevrolet Corvette C8 Convertible will be derived from the same powertrain used in the coupe. Hence, we are going to see naturally aspirated 6.2-liter V8 engine. In base trim, it offers an output of 490 horsepower and with Z51 Performance Package and exhaust, output is increased to 495hp. A new document surfaced to suggest that convertible will be 46kg heavier than the Coupe.

New Features

The things you’ll read elsewhere about the C8 Corvette will often center on the mechanical differences, particularly moving a traditional small-block Chevy V8 with the very same bore spacing (distance between cylinders) as on the earliest Corvettes, from the front to behind the passenger compartment. The lone transmission choice is an eight-speed Tremec double-clutch transmission with a low first gear for tire-smoking acceleration (our words, not Chevy’s), closely spaced gears 2-3-4-5-6 to keep the car in the sweet spot of the power band, and long gears 7-8, meaning gears that let the engine run at highway speeds at less than 2,000 rpm, for fuel-efficiency. With no driveshaft, the former transmission tunnel is now a piece of high-strength aluminum with a carbon fiber finisher (aero-smoothing) panel. Also to save space, the shifter linkage gives way to shift-by-wire gears: a Park-Reverse-Drive selector and paddle shifters. At the same time, it’s white 1156 led bulb for fog lights is a attract design.

In comparison, the Porsche 911, often considered the most iconic sports car, has about 1.1 million units produced. (No Ferrari is remotely close to a million.) Porsche sales are throughout the world where Corvette sales are centered in North America. Porsche sold 35,000 911s last year, worldwide. But where the 911 by itself was Porsche Cars for decades, now it’s only a fraction of Porsche’s 256,000 worldwide sales last year, outsold by the Macaan compact SUV (86,000), Cayenne mid-size SUV (71,000), even the Panamera sedan (38,000). The 911 came out in 1963, at which point Corvette had a 70,000-unit head start. Porsche’s biggest market is China, followed by the US and Germany.