More of a safety feature rather than an Easter egg, the 82-mph speed limit of the C8 Corvette with the front hood unlatched is an interesting piece of information that’s not featured in the owner’s manual. Coming courtesy of two members of a Facebook group, the following pictures should be familiar to owners of the mid-engined sports car.

David Savage highlights that the “Hood Open” and “82 MPH Top Speed” messages pop up even when the car is idling while another owner by the name of Bill Clements reveals that the message shows up even with the small-block V8 blunderbuss turned off. 82 miles per hour is 132 km/h in Europe and Australia, a speed at which an opened hood would either fly off the C8 Corvette or greatly limit the driver’s forward visibility.

As noted in the opening paragraph, the owner’s manual doesn’t mention a thing about the speed limit. On page 22, Chevrolet is much obliged to offer a solution to opening the frunk when there’s no electric power. A release cable loop to the left of the brake pedal needs to be pulled twice to release the hood, then you lift the frunk slightly until the gas strut system automatically raises and holds the panel in the fully open position.

While on the subject of the owner’s manual, turning to page 244 reveals yet another Easter egg, a proper one of those. Fuse box number 12 is the one that captured our attention, labeled “lithium-ion battery module.” Given that the Stingray features a good ol’ battery and a 12-volt electrical system, fuse #12 is our best confirmation yet that Chevrolet has a hybrid powertrain in the works. Or are there two hybrids incoming?

It’s rumored the Grand Sport will hybridize the LT2 to 600 horsepower (608 PS) and 500 pound-feet of torque (678 Nm) for the 2023 model year, but the best is yet to come. For the 2025 model year, the Zora with the LT7HP1 twin-turbo V8 that packs a flat-plane crankshaft and probably an e-motor at the front axle is expected with around 1,000 horsepower (1,014 PS) and 975 pound-feet of torque (1,322 Nm).

The fact that 84 percent of the coupe orders are at the higher trims is a good reminder that the $59,995 price isn’t much more than a talking point for Chevy, since very few people (if anyone) actually buys it at that price.

All the money is poured into chassis and motor and new platform...

The mid-engine Chevy Corvette has had it rough. Like 60 years of rough. Now that you can finally buy a mid-engine Corvette, it seems the covid-19 virus outbreak has caused a supply shortage of its most popular options.

Chevy has had to remove the option of the very-popular high wing spoiler for the rest of year starting in the third quarter, according to dealer guidance reported on by Corvette Blogger.If you didn’t make it in the door, you’re going to have to source a better wing than that stock strip some other way. Or wait until supplier production of the parts can resume, possibly for the 2021 model year.

Keep in mind coming into this year, the mid-engine Corvette had already suffered reported delays in development by switching out its electrical architecture, and then suffered even more when United Auto Worker strikes delayed production start.

On top that, this year has now thrown the Corvette an economic crisis, a global virus pandemic that lead to a production shutdown, and now nationwide protesting of police brutality by the Black Lives Matter movement.

Chevy provided a statement to Roadshow claiming it’s “actively working with the supplier to resume production and increase capacity of the high wing spoiler as a result of their operations being down due to COVID-19.”

And that’s not the only option Chevy’s had to remove.

The optional Visible Carbon Flash Ground Effects Kit is also getting cut in the third quarter of this year because the automaker didn’t anticipate demand and make up for it from the supplier due to the whole global pandemic thing.
On the other hand, here’s a slide showing what’s expected to be available:

If the car has to shed some option weight to get more mid-mounted LS engines on the roads, I guess we’ll just call the 2019 option-tickers lucky until supplies are back in stock.

The 2021 Chevrolet Corvette will not get a price hike, GM said early Wednesday, confirming previous reports that the 2020 model's MSRP of $59,995 ($67,495 for the convertible) will carry on unchanged in the wake of production and supply issues that cut the C8 model's first model year short.

"Our mission was to develop a new sports car, combining the successful attributes of Corvette with the performance and driving experience of mid-engine supercars," said Corvette chief engineer Tadge Juechter, in GM's official announcement. “We are thrilled with the enthusiasm the mid-engine Corvette brought following its launch and are keeping it fresh with new content for the 2021 model."

Fear not, however. The 2021 model year will not merely be an extension of existing 2020 production. In fact, GM has added a few features to the C8's option list that weren't there for the debut year, adding a little extra incentive for buyers who were on the fence about plunking down cash for the new Corvette in its first model year.

Chief among these is the availability of the Corvette's phenomenal Magnetic Selective Ride Control as a standalone option. For 2020 models, this was available only with the Performance (Z51) package.

GM confirmed to Autoblog that FE2 will be available on all three Corvette trims, but pricing will not be available until later in July when the full order guide is released. Adding Magnetic Ride Control to the 2020 model with the Z51 package is a $1,895 upgrade.

The 2021 model also gets wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay standard, which are welcome additions to the already-robust and intuitive infotainment system. The 2021 Corvette also gets GM's new Buckle To Drive feature, which temporarily immobilizes the transmission if the driver's seatbelt is not buckled.

Also new for 2021 are a couple of exterior and interior color options, including Silver Flare Metallic

After Chrysler made a massive bang with its Dodge Viper R/T 10 concept at the 1989 Detroit Motor Show, General Motors decided to look for a suitable answer to their 8-liter truck V10, just in case the C4's chassis could handle such forces. For production, Chrysler chose an all-aluminum evolution of its massive engine while GM started its experiments with a V12 based on the Chevrolet small-block, designed and built by racing engine ace Ryan Falconer.By using an aluminum block over the standard cast iron of the V8, the fuel-injected 90-degree Falconer V12 weighs roughly 500 pounds, some 100 more than Chevy's L98 V8. In return for the added mass, it also produces 686 horsepower and 600 pound-feet of torque. For 1992, the Dodge Viper hit the roads packing 400 horsepower and 465 pound-feet, while an upgraded 1993 Corvette ZR-1's LT5 produced 405 horsepower and 385 pound-feet.

Designed mostly with marine racing in mind and available in both super- and turbocharged form, Falconer's alloy V12 is pretty much the opposite of a low-displacement European V12 in concept. According to the video below, it measures 8.0 liters—identical to the Viper and more than two liters larger than the Lamborghini Diablo's V12. When used in the C4, Chevrolet even added side pipes to test out that Viper look, only to ultimately cancel the ZR-12 project, perhaps in light of the Lotus-tweaked DOHC-engined 1991 ZR-1's track performance. According to a period test by Motor Trend, the ZR-12 prototype did the quarter-mile in 11.6 seconds at 133 mph. Road & Track clocked the 1991 ZR-1 at 13.4 seconds.

One of the 1989 ZR-12 prototypes resides at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky, where it's parked next to an equally red first-gen Viper. When occasionally moved around, the C4 ZR-12's power plant screams of torque, compromised fuel economy and a brief idea that overall made less sense than selling Callaway's twin-turbo Sledgehammer Corvettes through Chevy dealerships.

Still, a red V12 sports car made in America? The C4 platform is just full of pleasant surprises.

It’s a perplexing question with no easy answer. Unlike the period of automotive stagnation during World War II (and the ensuing catch-up demand), the COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted serious financial harm on industry, governments, and individuals. A loss of revenue, for families and companies alike, means that any new spending will come with tough choices.

This will certainly be true in the global automotive industry, the numbers generator of economic prosperity. The car business is unique in that it combines high levels of technology with staggering amounts of money, incoming and outgoing. The number of employees, and the billions invested in factories, engineering centers, warehouses, and testing areas, make for astronomical fixed costs, which must be offset by healthy sales of profitable vehicles. When sales drop sharply, as in ’08 and now with COVID-19, the incoming money flow quickly drops too low to cover the expenditures. As sales fall, company leadership tries to drive down costs, but many can’t be cut in the short term. The crisis-driven response usually takes the time-honored form of mandatory tightening of every department’s budget. (Advertising takes the biggest hit—even a marketing veteran will admit that half of advertising spend is wasted, and as the saying goes, nobody can figure out which half.)

But draconian budgeting can’t change the fact that the reduced revenue streams won’t support the ongoing fixed-cost levels. The company quickly slips into the red. Now major expenditures are scrutinized, and hard choices are made. The cuts that hurt the most relate to future models. Hundreds of millions are spent in the three-to-four-year gestation process of a new vehicle. Canceling or deferring future product becomes the logical place to save large amounts of capital, with consequences that won’t manifest for a few years. In view of the reduced cash flow, many “nice to have” products are simply dropped. What was to be an all-new version of a decent-selling vehicle (at an investment of more than a billion dollars) is replaced by a “minor freshening,” with the replacement pushed out by a few years. Since cash flow and profitability are the principal drivers, it’s only logical that the best-selling, most profitable programs stay in place.

As we speak, highly paid executives around the world pore over the future vehicle portfolio and try to meet reduced capital-outlay targets while protecting the family jewels. In such an environment, it’s hard for coupes, roadsters, or even sport sedans to survive. They get whacked.

My last GM tenure coincided with the 2008 economic crisis. At the time, we had earmarked close to $1 billion for a mid-engine Corvette, along with a visually different Cadillac variant. At the end of hours of painful meetings, the mid-engine program was canceled. We managed to save about $250 million, which bought us a revised, improved, but still front-engined C7. Absent that crisis, the world would have seen the mid-engine Corvette as a 2015 model.

The same is likely happening now around the automotive world: Performance vehicles are being axed. Car companies, especially those with a sporting or racing heritage, know the future risk but have little choice. It’s like a WWII B-17 limping back to its base, three of its four engines gone. The captain orders the crew to toss everything overboard. Out go the machine guns and all kinds of equipment. It’s expensive getting that B-17 back into service, but the crew makes it home.

It isn’t always like that. I recall one instance vividly. I was president of Chrysler, traveling from bank to bank, fund after fund, trying to renew our crucial revolving credit agreement. Our CFO put on a convincing financial pitch. I followed up with the future product portfolio, complete with dramatic slides showing realistic clay models of every new car or truck. At that point the program included a production version of the Dodge Viper, designed to be the fastest and most expensive American car ever made. We had the investment earmarked at $50 million in the presentation. The money people were all duly impressed, and we were getting commitments.

During the Q&A a gentleman asked me, “What if things don’t go as planned? If you find you have to cut or defer something, what would it be?” I put on my finest bean-counter demeanor and replied that we’d cut the Viper first, to safeguard the essential programs. The man shouted, “Wrong answer!” The Viper, he said, was the car that would show the world what Chrysler could accomplish, what others couldn’t or wouldn’t dare, a new spirit of competence and daring. “Without that Viper,” he said, “it’s just the same old ‘wait until next year’ stuff.”

He’d given the speech I myself had made dozens of times inside Chrysler. My one attempt at projecting an aura of capital discipline and fiscal responsibility had ended in an embarrassing failure. Canceling everything that’s fun in order to bring the next minivan out on time isn’t always the right answer.

But that’s only the supply side. What about potential customers, many of whom have lost jobs or even whole businesses? What about the retirees, invested as they are in a stock market that took an extraordinary hit? Will they demand something sporty, distinctive, expressive of their personalities? Or will they opt for the safety and security of a reliable mass-market mid-size car or SUV? Will the frightened public buy nothing but comforting blandness?

My guess is that many will behave exactly that way—but not all. Having recently been reminded of their mortality, these people may emerge like a butterfly from the cocoon, indulging in a car that gives them style, fun, performance, and a degree of uniqueness. If they can’t afford a new one, they’ll turn to the pre-owned lots. And as the supply of late-model enthusiast cars dwindles, the market must and will be replenished.

We are alive at an interesting time. A time of reduced financial resources, of staying at home more, a time for choices by individuals, corporations, and governments. But there will be an economic resurgence. And there will be great cars to buy, be they conventional or futuristic. Personally, I can’t wait for my C8 Corvette to be delivered. That will make the world seem normal again.

Bob Lutz has been The Man at several different car companies.

Five years ago, General Motors filed Manta Ray with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The nameplate has been recently abandoned, though, because the biggest of the Big Three in Detroit is going forward with a different handle for the first hybrid-powered Corvette ever.
17 photos

Sources told GM Authority that E-Ray is how the replacement of the Grand Sport will be called, a trademark filed in December 2015 and renewed in August 2020 with the USPTO. Stylized in capital letters, this nameplate is a tribute to the C2 Sting Ray and a reference to the Stingray on sale today.

You see, word has it the Corvette E-Ray will borrow the LT2 small-block V8 of the Stingray and launch in 2022 as a 2023 model. In combination with an electric drive unit for the front axle, the newcomer appears to be a worthy successor to the seventh-generation Corvette in Grand Sport specification.

“The estimated total system output should land around 600 horsepower” according to GM Authority, which is more than plausible. For reference, the Chevrolet Bolt EV features a permanent magnetic drive motor with 200 horsepower and 266 pound-feet of torque. The Corvette E-Ray would need only 105 horsepower to hit the estimated output, and because of the electric motor’s location, the hybrid model isn’t expected to feature a front trunk.

In a similar fashion to the 2022 model year Z06, the E-Ray will feature wider hips that should make the difference over the Stingray with the Z51 Performance Package. As far as the seventh-generation Corvette is concerned, 3.5 inches separate the Stingray from the Grand Sport in terms of width and rear tire sizes range from 285/30 by 20" to 335/25 by 20".

Later on, a second hybrid option will be launched as the range-topping version of the C8. Instead of the LT2, the LT7 twin-turbo V8 with a flat-plane setup like the LT6 in the Z06 is expected in the 2025 model year Zora.