Hear The Sound Of The Next Corvette's Mid-Mounted V8

The C7 Corvette's mid-engined successor has been filmed testing at the Nurburgring, giving us a chance to listen to its exhaust note

Matt Robinson

07 Sep 2018

We’ve known for some time that the successor to the current ‘C7’ Chevrolet Corvette is going to be mid-engined. Few car industry ‘secrets’ are quite so badly kept, so it was no surprise this week when a big batch of Nurburgring testing photos did the rounds on the Internet, confirming what didn’t really need to be confirmed.

But as to what will sit in the middle of the ‘C8’? That’s more of a mystery. Now we have this Nordschleife testing footage to examine, the powerplant question is becoming a little easier to answer.

Judging by the exhaust note, we’d put money on it being a V8, but the configuration is a little harder to nail down. To our ears, it’s a little too muted to be a big, naturally-aspirated eight-banger. A twin-turbo unit is our guess. Most of Chevrolet’s competitors have been ditching N/A engines in their performance cars for smaller turbo lumps, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the US firm do the same.

Hear The Sound Of The Next Corvette's Mid-Mounted V8

That being said, previous reports have suggested that - while a twin-turbo version is indeed on the cards - there will also be an entry-level N/A C8. Here’s hoping Chevrolet goes for this why not both approach.

The car should be fully revealed at some point in 2019, going on sale the following year.

Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.

Comments

Wow, that sounds beautiful!

BOOM! thats dope!

Not a fan of the vette as it costs the same as a gtr which IMO is way better. But if its mid-engined + just as powerful as before, and also keeps a similar price then it would be one of the best cars ever.

What is the price?

A Vette costs a lot less than a GTR, what are you talking about? A GTR starts over $100k CAD (I think $125k CAD, and $150k CAD for the Nismo), while a Vette starts for $65k CAD and you can probably get a Z06 for $100k CAD or under, and a ZR1 for between $130k CAD and $150k CAD.

The GT-R isn’t “way better”, maybe back in 2009 it was better with its price (and even then there was a 620 hp C6 ZR1), but now it’s as expensive as other comparable cars. It’s not really better than anything else, it’s a 10 year-old car.

2 things

the corvette is a COMPLETE POLAR opposite of the GTR. So you have 2 options at that price point. one is a Technical Japanese Spec sheet eater. The other is a V8 rumbling crusier.
No way will it stay the same price. The cost of engineering the mid engine power train and The cost of new design band aero would push it to 911 GT3 or probably even AMG GTR money

It looks as if a Mazda 6 had a baby with a 458 (mazda 6 tails)

To me it looks like a C7 had a baby with the Ferrari 458

I’m still not sold on the idea of a Corvette with the motor in the middle. There’s something delightfully old-school about a front engined V8 sports car.

Going mid-engined seems too… European for the good ol’ American Vette.

They made a mid-engine Corvette concept back in the 1990. It’s called CERV III (Chevrolet Engineering Research Vehicle).

Chevy has said that they basically can’t make the corvette any faster while keeping it front engined. The Zo6 and ZR1 are already pushing the limits.

Still mid-engined, and supposedly a turbo V8 that others have said will ditch pushrods for a DOHC design. Corvette fans aren’t often a fan of change, I remember how mad people got when they got square taillights…