http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4278611.html

Automatic cars have and effective skip shift (they reach for the sky under light throttle), but it’s all controller trickery and not a mechanical lockout.

It’s funny because this comment pretty much epitomizes the manual-nazi crowd and how mis-informed/uninformed they are about contemporary transmissions in general.

MANUAL tranny Vettes have the skip shift. You would have to pay the 20 bucks to remove it no matter what transmission you have. It locks out the 2nd and 3rd gears forcing you to go straight to 4th. And btw it’s the year 2008 guys, transmissions (both manual and automatic) have changed a lot; move out of the 1980’s and give em a try.

Edit* Looks like Berkowitz beat me to it. But I thought automatic Vettes have skip shift too? Am I wrong?

But skip shift is on the manual transmission car. It’s not a slushbox thing. The computer just locks you out of shifting into second or third around town.

As thetopdog says, you can just buy an easily installed part that cancels the skip shift mechanism.

Or you could have just bought a proper manual in the first place instead of getting a sports car with a slushbox.

Thankfully you can eliminate the skip-shift for less than $20

CAGS, or the 1-4 skip-shift, is the big one. If you’re driving per EPA spec, the car skips three gears, turning a 1-2 upshift into a 1-4. This is done precisely to keep grocery-getter mileage acceptable, at the expense of bogging the engine every damn time.

Drive the Corvette hard, or disable CAGS as most owners are wont to do, and it’s mileage plummets. Which is ok, because it’s a four-hundred-horsepower car.

http://www.vintagevettesoftheozarks.com/an_autoextremist_exclusive.htm

Peter M. De Lorenzo already mentioned the fate of the next Vette being a mid engined vehicle.. as being a failure — MONTHS AGO.

But.. it was at the absolute point that they knew it would take too much to develop it.

To take a front engined car.. and make it rear, is extremely expensive. To put together a VVTI system in an engine is one thing, but to pair it with a rear drive car and make it run efficiently is pretty much impossible.

At this point, and at every point like this one since the car’s inception from 54, it was always an option.. about doing mid engined.

It simply costs too much money to re engineer this car. Besides knowing GM and Ford, theyd charge ya more for TRYING TO BE efficient.

If it was slightly possible before.. even when it was near impossible THEN.. its even beyond absolutely impossible now.

The money isnt there.
The interest isnt there.
And it actually takes.. some real engineering to rework a frame / hydroformed frame to build this car.

On top of..
The XLR / Eldorado.. what role would this POS play?

Ya already have everything a Vette should be.
The luxury that it represents.. is foolish. The Vette should be a sports car.. not a ride for a yahoo.

This is not the same as weight distribution. A car can have perfect 50/50 weight distribution and an undesirably high polar moment of inertia. (If you want a really fine example of how that can be bad for handling, drive a ‘56 Thunderbird — with the heavy engine hung out ahead of the front wheels and the bulky Continental kit on the end of the rear bumper, it has close to 50/50 weight distribution, but it handles like a drunken shopping cart.)

Low polar moment of inertia is good for handling and maneuverability for skilled drivers, which is why mid-engine race cars have been very common since the early 1960s. It’s not necessarily desirable for street cars, since it can also mean a lack of directional stability and an alarming propensity to get sideways, not always on purpose.

Rear-mid-engine configurations are lousy for just about everything besides polar moment of inertia and weight distribution. They’re disastrous for packaging efficiency, finding a place for the radiator is a hassle (not to mention the frequent necessity of running coolant lines through the cabin), sufficient sound and heat insulation is problematic, and, if the engine is relatively large, it can present problems for rear visibility.

Avanti.

“Why does a V8 have to be 5.7 or 6 litres? Why can’t they be 4.5 or 4 litres?”

Because it’s a half-strangled pushrod? The ill-fated Buick aluminum V8 that debuted in the “senior compacts” for 1961 was a 3.5L engine, and the Chevy small-block started out at 4.3L and didn’t get over 5 liters until the mid-1960s.

Skip shift. ‘Nuff said.

Also, the Corvette Museum has a very nice looking mid-engined Corvette concept that was in the running to be the C5 IIRC. I believe it had the DOHC V8 used in the 90s ZR-1.

Would you mind sharing the basis for your assertion that GM tuned the Vette to the EPA cycle to any greater extent than any other manufacturer does any of their vehicles?

Would you mind sharing the basis for your assertion that GM tuned the Vette to the EPA cycle to any greater extent than any other manufacturer does any of their vehicles?

All this, if they survive and if they get to retool their factories with that $25B bailout.

Why does a V8 have to be 5.7 or 6 litres? Why can’t they be 4.5 or 4 litres?

I like that line…”mouth, which is independently operated”. Kinda like my brain sometimes.

It would be in line (get it?) with the original Harley Earl car powered by the “Blue Flame” 235ci I6.

The Corvette doesn’t really get better mileage than a V6 Camry unless you drive it like a grannyhypermiler. It’s a four-hundred-horsepower car, it’s going to use a lot of gas any time you dip into the throttle. The reason it gets the EPA numbers it does is that GM has been incredibly adroit in tuning the Vette to the peculiarities of the EPA cycle.

I don’t know if a hybrid Corvette is a good idea. It might be, but the Corvette’s huge advantages over it’s competition are low weight and low complexity, both which would be somewhat compromised by hybrid power.

I think cylinder deactivation and idle-stop might be good additions, at least in the base model. Heck, GM’s BAS hybrid system might work here as it’s fairly simple and nonintrusive.

Oh God, no. You’re kidding me, right?

Anyway, as the commentators have well put their finger on it: rumors of rear-engine ‘Vettes go back almost forever; its a perpetual PR ploy by GM.

@John Horner, it goes back further, to the CERV-1, which was mid-engined back in ‘63(?).

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2098/2203710734_95fc547ca5.jpg?v=0