#stingray

Last week, we told you a parts shortage had halted production of the Chevrolet Corvette C8.

Now the lines are rolling again.

Some of the best driving roads on the continent, the Hocking Hills of southeastern Ohio, lie roughly one hour from my front door. Not coincidentally, those roads are also merely four hours from every Detroit-based ride-and-handling engineer, not to mention the buff books. These twisties, shaped by the glaciers, have been worn smooth by generations of gearheads.

The hour of driving to get to the hills, however, is via a mind-numbing highway slog, often well patrolled by the local constabulary and the notorious Ohio Highway Patrol. There’s no shortcut.

This is where the 2020 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray shines. Making a sportscar manage sportscar things, while certainly no easy feat, is right in the wheelhouse of the speed-addled engineers. Making that same car not just livable on the highway, but genuinely excellent, takes some serious doing. Chevrolet has done exactly that here with the C8.

Delayed by a prolonged UAW strike late last year, General Motors announced Monday that that series production of the 2020 Chevrolet Corvette C8 has begun. The very first mid-engine Stingray intended for the passenger market has left the retooled assembly line in Bowling Green, Kentucky, with many more to follow.

Everything you’ve seen up to this point was technically a pre-production model, though there shouldn’t be any big changes forcing you to cancel your order. It’s still powered by a naturally aspirated 6.2-liter V8 (495 hp, 470 lb-ft) and should run to 60 mph in under 3 seconds if you launch it carefully. Even if you aren’t enamored with the styling and prefer the front-engined C7, the C8 represents both a performance bargain and a major technological leap for the model. GM has teased mid-engined Corvettes for decades; now they’re real.

On Monday, General Motors confirmed the 2020 Chevrolet Convertible will debut early next month. The official date will be October 2nd, giving Chevy a few weeks to build excitement. We wish them a lot of luck.

Beyond removing the materials typically located above your noggin at the press of a button, we aren’t absolutely positive what the automaker has planned — but we’re confident. Leaked details have suggested a hardtop foldaway design that axes everyone’s view of the engine compartment for added rollover protection. A handful of renderings even made it into the automaker’s C8 Corvette presentation this summer, briefly showcasing the safety humps and indicating there would a sufficient gap between them for the rearview mirror to do its job.

Back when the Dodge Demon originally launched, Fiat Chrysler indicated it would do everything it could to prevent dealer markup. As one of the car’s best features was its comparatively low MSRP, at least for the amount of power Dodge was offering, FCA didn’t want price gouging sullying the monster’s good name. Besides, the factory isn’t seeing any of that extra cash so there’s no incentive for it to support markups.

Unfortunately, gouging still took place. Some dealerships found a workaround by having intermediaries on eBay auction off the right to buy one of their Demon allocations — resulting in customers paying tens of thousands in bidding wars to have the opportunity to purchase the car at its “fair price.”

While grimy, it’s not much different than dealerships automatically tacking on premiums to the likes of the Honda Civic Type R or Toyota Supra. Pretty much every manufacturer building a rare or coveted automobile takes some precautions these days, but there’s always someone waiting to screw you. For example, Porsche is pretty good at selling its rather expensive vehicles at MSRP, yet rarer models are frequently flipped online for a small fortune.

Hoping to cut markups off at the ankles, a subset of buyers interested in Chevrolet’s new Corvette have been busy strategizing — resulting in an effective-sounding plan.

When General Motors debuted the 2020 Chevrolet Corvette, the automaker promised it would start below $60,000. It’s just barely been able to keep that promise at $59,995, which incorporates the obligatory $1,095 destination charge, but it’s still an impressively low target for a mid-engined performance vehicle. You can, of course, option out Chevy’s C8 Stingray to a much higher price tag.

Fortunately, even if you go absolutely mental on the options, you’ll still be saving yourself some cash vs any of the Corvette’s chief rivals. For example, a bare-bones Porsche 911 starts at $98,750 while the Corvette has to move up two trim levels and take on loads of extras before it surpasses $80,000.

Chevrolet is finally going to show us the all-new, mid-engined Corvette later this week at a live event in California. Yes, the car actually exists. In anticipation of this reveal, and to build more hype for one of the most hyped-about cars in existence, Chevy is releasing C8 teasers throughout the week.

Today’s teaser was the name of the car. It’ll be the Stingray.

This post is not to insinuate the base trim Corvette is the best of its range. It isn’t. In a family that includes a 650 hp supercharged sibling and an even more bonkers 755 hp bewinged brother, a naturally-aspirated coupe making 455 horses suddenly starts to look like the litter’s runt. What a time to be a gearhead.

No, this post is meant to ascertain just how good the $55,495 entry-level Stingray stands on its own merits. It’s often said the Corvette is one of the best American performance bargains on the market. Can a no-frills example nudge the Ace of Base meter? Let’s find out.

Automotive crossbreeds don’t always turn out for the better. GM’s past is littered with parts-bin-assembled cars that should never have existed. Pontiac Aztek and Hummer H3 are just two examples of good ideas gone horribly wrong.

The 2016 Camaro is not another example; this is parts bin raiding gone right, oh-so right.

In a nutshell, the new Camaro SS is what happens when you take a Cadillac ATS Coupe and a Corvette Stingray engine and wrap them in the latest Chevy stormtrooper styling. The result is something of an automotive unicorn. Under the hood lies a 6.2-liter small-block V8, yet the Camaro tips the scales at a svelte 3,685 pounds and boasts BMW-like weight balance.

Bob writes:

Hi Sajeev. I’m annoyed by styling that makes the trim height look wrong. Most cars today look like the front is sagging or the rear is too high. The stylists even slant side creases and trim strips down toward the front (Man, I hate that. – SM) to create this look even though a close look at the rocker panel shows that the car is level.

Why are they doing it? Does the public really like it?

Sajeev answers:

The delicate balance of physical + visual trim height adjustment is standard practice, proving itself over decades for both aerodynamic and stylistic enhancement. The problem? Jumping the shark.

The first source of performance numbers for the new C7 Corvette is, not surprisingly in this day and age, GM itself. Some of the numbers are extremely useful, others less so.

I’d be a day late and a dollar short if I cared about being professional automotive journalist. To wit, we recently discussed how the digitally rendered C7 Stingray droptop Vette’s 5-spoke wheels look like a last-minute “virtual” hackjob for a looming deadline. The nice folks at Corvetteblogger show otherwise during their visit to the New York Auto Show: these hoops made production spinning the wrong way.

Here’s the funny thing about being a failed designer-turned-blogger in today’s world of information overload: designers make mistakes and we get to discuss them. The autoblogosphere is buzzing about the upcoming C7 Stingray softtop, but as my mangled merging of GM’s PR photos show, someone forgot to sweat the details before hitting the news wires.