Yep, that’s the 2019 Corvette. Although, you’d think that a new version of America’s most celebrated sports car would be announced like Elvis Presley popping down from the clouds to do a one-man show in Vegas. You’d expect the ticker-tape parade of excitement and freedom fries with extra cheese and patriotism.
Boy, you’d be wrong.
For a very long time, the worst-kept secret in all of motoring has been that the new ‘C8’ Chevy Corvette will go mid-engine. For the first time in its history, the production-spec ‘Vette will push its mighty V8 behind the seats, not ahead of them. In doing so, it will become a true Ferrari and Lamborghini rival supercar. A car for people who like McLarens, not Big Macs, and for obvious reasons too.
And yet, official confirmation of the new car’s arrival has been given with a whisper. No lasers, no confetti canons, no national anthem sung by a reality TV starlet. Just a new Corvette, wearing plenty of monochrome camouflage, driving down 7th Avenue in New York City. The car did a lap of Times Square, showcasing the date stickered to its flanks, then disappeared somewhere into Manhattan.
But hey, at least now we know which date to mark in our calendars…
July 18 2019 is the day the world will see America’s new mid-engine supercar. How do we know it’s mid-engine? Well, look at it. Those giant side intakes have to be there to cool something big in the back. Unless this Corvette is a supercar with the world’s biggest on-board fridge.
Redesigning the ‘Vette as a properly low-slung supercar might enrage the old guard, but Chevy wants to shrug off the car’s slightly, ahem, retirement-present image, and go hunting the likes of the Acura NSX, Ferrari F8, and whatever combination of nutty numbers McLaren’s dreamt up this week.
Do you think it can succeed?
