#ChevroletCorvette

Chevrolet’s Corvette Z06 will be revealed in full on October 26. In advance of that, the brand has put out the first official image.

This follows a teaser video from July.

Chevrolet’s C8 Corvette has been in demand.

So much so that some dealers are commanding markups up to $100K over MSRP.

A gray, two-tone shape crossed the screen of my phone. What followed was one of those moments where one has no idea how to identify the thing upon which they are gazing. The Facebook ad was titled “1986 Other Other,” but what was it?

Presenting the Lands Precedent Sportswagon, from 1986.

We’ve featured a Corvette before in this series, as well as two different Indianapolis 500 pace cars, but we’ve never had a single car that combined Corvette and Indy pace car flavors together.

Turns out when that special combination occurred in 1998, it was purp drank and banana colored.

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

Now the lines are rolling again.

Today’s Rare Ride was formerly unknown to your author. A brief boutique brand in the Fifties, Woodill went away long before most of you were even born. Let’s see if we can learn a bit more about this American take on the classic British roadster formula.

Automakers are notoriously tight-lipped about future product, much to the endless frustration of scoop-hungry automotive journalists.

They respond “we don’t comment on future product” to our e-mailed queries so often that I suspect it’s an automated response. It’s a running joke when hacks and flacks are drinking together in the hospitality suite on a junket and one of us tries to get a buzzed P.R. professional to spill some tea. They go to great lengths to disguise prototypes from the prying eyes of both professional spy photogs and random jamokes with a cell-phone camera. Speaking of cell-phone cameras, journalists invited on to automaker property for certain events will have their phone’s camera lens covered with a sticker for the duration.

There’s nothing green about the 2020 (or near identical 2021) Corvette Stingray’s powertrain, but those who developed General Motors’ new mid-engine sports car will apparently have a say in the development of virtuous vehicles to come.

A new report, backed up by GM, claims the Corvette’s engineering team will set up shop in the General’s exhaust-free autonomous and electric vehicles program come September.

Owners of the newly mid-engined Chevrolet Corvette might notice a new message greeting them this week, now that a solution to a recent recall concerning the 2020 C8 ‘Vette’s “frunk” appears to be underway.

C8 owners have complained of their front-end trunk’s (frunk’s) lid opening while on the road, leading to a dangerous situation as they attempt to pull over to close it. Just like a hood flying up on the highway, no one wants their frunk doing the same. TTAC’s Chris Tonn, currently ensconced in a bright yellow example, received the prescribed remedy last night.

The seemingly cursed mid-engined Chevrolet Corvette, aka the C8, probably spends its nights dreaming of clear skies and a vaccine. Early development problems, a lengthy strike, a deferred production start, then a pandemic-prompted production shutdown all conspired to make for a hellish entry into the world for the new-generation 2020 ‘Vette.

For 2021, the entry-level Stingray model doesn’t try anything wild, maintaining its entry price while adding a few things buyers might like… and one thing no one asked for.

Thanks to last year’s prolonged UAW strike and this year’s global pandemic, production of Chevrolet’s new Corvette is way behind schedule. As reported previously, GM had already dialed back the expected number of 2020 C8s headed to dealers by roughly 20 percent before the coronavirus touched down in North America.

Unfortunately, reopening factories hasn’t magically transported the manufacturer into a scenario where C8 ‘Vettes are abundant and customers can rest assured they’ll see their new toy by the end of this year.

Plenty of orders have already been rolled over for 2021 model-year vehicles, especially if they’re convertibles. Now, supply chain troubles all but guarantee 2020 will be an unfortunately weak year for the mid-engined Corvette, and GM knows it. The company’s doing everything it can to get as much product out the door as possible. However, the obstacles placed in GM’s path have proven too large — and timed too perfectly — for it to ever had much of a chance at a normal product launch.

Few models can boast of a debut year as dysfunctional as that of the C8 Corvette’s. Chevrolet’s newly mid-engined sports car saw production delayed by a lengthy strike, then kiboshed by a strange virus, leading to no shortage of frustration for those seeking to get their hands on a 2020 model.

Production is again underway, but the automaker already has 2021 on its mind. It seems the minds at the Renaissance Center felt it necessary to maintain as much of the status quo as possible.

Things change, and things fall apart. Both of these truths can be applied to best-laid plans, but they ring especially true for those of General Motors.

GM might have wanted 2020 Chevrolet Corvette production to run uninterrupted from late last fall through this summer, but a series of ever-larger crises managed to keep its production numbers down to a trickle. The result is a first-model-year run so small, it’s almost guaranteed to make every 2020 ‘Vette sold a de facto Launch Edition model.

Some of you have been reading this site for a long time, and for that, I’m thankful. You might remember that I used to fly around the country to drive and review readers’ cars. It seems impossible that I wrote this post almost six years ago, but it’s true. On that day, I had taken a flight to Baltimore to do a pilot workshop for Autotrader, and was picked up at the airport by a loyal reader and soon-to-become new friend, Gene.

We had a marvelous time hooning around in his brand new Chevrolet SS. I think it was one of the first, if not the first “ Reader Ride Reviews” that we did on this site, a feature that I sorely miss. Seeing the pride that readers had in their own cars and watching their eyes light up as they saw what their cars were capable of doing in the hands of a (slightly) trained driver was always a delight.

Well, imagine my delight and surprise when our formerly SS-owning friend Gene emailed me out of the blue last year. He had read my commentary on the C8 Corvette and invited me to try out his new C8 when it arrived sometime in February. I gleefully accepted.

Well, we all know what happened next. First, there was a strike. Then, there was a virus. Gene began to suspect that his C8 would not be built in time for his delivery date — and then, perhaps not at all.

That’s when I had an idea.

With the mid-engined C8 Corvette just weeks away from production, hype surrounding the model has died down. The same cannot be said for the Z06 variant, which is the next ‘Vette on Chevrolet’s performance docket. While current details remain scant, news arose this week of the car receiving a humongous rear spoiler.

Sources familiar with the project tell GM Authority that the wing will be exclusive to the Z06 (for now) and larger than the unit found on the C7 ZR1 (pictured below the break), though similar in its overall shape. It’s said to be reminiscent of the spoiler found on the Koenigsegg Agera RS, which is adaptive.