Chevrolet premieres C8 Corvette development documentary with Part 1: Design
Although it’s the direction that Zora Arkus-Duntov had wanted for decades, moving the Corvette to mid-engine for 2020 marked the most revolutionary leap in design since America’s sports car debuted more than 65 years prior. It would require a major, ground-up redesign as well as a total reengineering of everything from the powertrain to driver ergonomics. No small feat. Chevrolet recently introduced part one of a documentary that will chart the C8’s progress, beginning with the overall design, highlighting the major steps in the years-long development of the eighth-generation Corvette.
Current and former Corvette designers including Tom Peters, Vlad Kapitonov, and Kirk Bennion, talk about their first time seeing a Corvette and how it shaped their impression of Chevrolet’s halo car. The video shows some behind the scenes looks at the C8’s development and its evolution from sketch to clay model. Interestingly, the video notes that there were three full-scale clay models during development and each side wore a slightly different styling iteration. The CNC carved and hand-finished models give a rare glimpse at the design process. Look closely and you can see some lines and curves here and there that didn’t make it past the clay stage. Perhaps someday we’ll get to see all six in profile to really see those alternate designs.
Balancing the Corvette’s heritage with the new proportions and some fighter-jet inspiration, the designers created a stunning car brimming with style, but they’re not done yet. As Tom Peters hints at the end of the video, the C8 Stingray is just the first wave in what we assume to be an onslaught of Corvette variants that take Corvette’s performance to the next level. We’ll be awaiting those upcoming expressions of America’s sports car as much as we did the first production mid-engine Corvette.
