#vette

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.

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.

General Motors has officially announced that the Chevrolet Corvette will continue production in Bowling Green, KY after it transitions into a mid-engined car. The automaker will add 400 new jobs and a second shift to support production of the new model, bringing the factory’s workforce to more than 1,300 individuals.

However, the Corvette news — such as it is — doesn’t end there. The vehicle’s factory-sanctioned Facebook page also revealed the car’s new logo on Friday.

As the media obsessively focuses on the upcoming, mid-engined C8 Corvette, the C7 languishes. Vette sales exploded in 2014 following the release of the seventh-generation model, declining ever since. Chevrolet only sold 25,079 Corvettes domestically in 2017 and, even though year-end sales aren’t yet in, General Motors looks ready to fall short of last year’s volume for 2018.

While it is not abnormal to see the popularity of a high-profile sports car wane in the years following a debut, it’s slightly less common to see an automaker increase its price without adding some new hardware — and that’s what General Motors is doing with the Corvette in 2019.

It was long assumed that the 2020 Chevrolet Corvette would premiere at the North American International Auto Show next month. However, General Motors recently confirmed this was not to be. In fact, it doesn’t appear as though the automaker has any big announcements scheduled for the event. Did something go wrong?

Big time, according to GM Authority. The outlet claims the C8 Corvette’s engineering team found a major electrical issue that stymied development. Anonymous sources hinted that the current system isn’t robust enough to carry the load necessary to support all of the car’s components simultaneously.

While the process of renting a car is frequently obnoxious, the actual vehicles are incredible. Assuming you get damage protection, you can basically do whatever you want to them. These vehicles are the prostitutes of the automotive world, willing to engage in activities too explicit for the model that currently lives in your garage. The only limitations are dictated by your own twisted imagination and how much you’re willing to spend.

That bar for vehicular perversion just got a little higher over at Hertz, which is celebrating 100 years in the car rental business. The company is offering a special edition Chevrolet Corvette Z06 to customers in select cities. Fortunately, you probably live near one and will be able to take the custom Vette to an abandoned parking lot in the middle of the night and absolutely destroy its rear tires or drive it over a poorly maintained road a little faster than you should.

Even though we’ve seen it before, Chevrolet brought the 2019 Corvette ZR1 to the L.A. Auto Show to unveil its sizable price tag. Despite the six-figure sticker, the unabashedly American car manages to be a comparatively good deal for those in the market for a “budget” supercar. That doesn’t mean the ZR1 comes up short on specs. With its LT5 6.2-liter supercharged V8 pumping out 755 horsepower and 715 lb-ft of torque, it’s an SAE-certified monster of the highest order.

With a starting price of $119,995, the ZR1 remains more affordable than many exotic offerings with fewer ponies under the hood. If you need the wind in your hair, General Motors is also willing to provide a convertible variant with an MSRP of $123,995.

With the Corvette ZR1 currently off the table, Chevrolet has eased the existing Stingray into a comfortable 450 to 650 horsepower. While that might be enough to trounce just about anything you might encounter on the daily commute, it doesn’t have the necessary might to embarrass a Lamborghini Aventador with total assurance.

That’s unfortunate, as one of the Corvette’s best attributes is being able to bully European exotics sitting at a much higher price point. While America does have a handful of muscle and pony cars that can do the job, the majority would have trouble accomplishing that feat going any direction other than straight. So, with Dodge’s Viper now absent from the automotive landscape, we could really use the ZR1 right about now.

Fortunately, it’s coming soon and it’s bringing 750 horsepower with it.

(From “HW” comes a tale of a Corvette, a hot-blooded Alfa Veloce, and a young Italian wife with romance on her mind.)

Sam, a good friend of mine, had lusted after a particular 1965 Corvette Stingray, and had somehow finally acquired the object of his desires. However, the cost of putting on 23 coats of a gorgeous, dark, lipstick red paint and clear coat, of making mechanical improvements, and paying for necessary auto insurance (Sam was under 25 and single) kept him totally broke for a period of time.

We had a lot of fun running around Louisiana in the ‘Vette, but his automotive mistress was keeping him in the poorhouse. Sam wasn’t some rich kid, so he reluctantly decided to sell his mistress. But he had a plan. He would get another car before he sold the ‘Vette. That way he could hold out for the best money on his beauty.

Neil Armstrong died on August 25th of this year and the nation mourned, doubly so. First for the man, and second for what he stood for: hero, explorer, icon of a time when all that was best in America rose up on a pillar of smoke and flame to dance among the heavens.

The astronauts, of course, all drove Corvettes. GM gave a white ’62 to first-flyer Alan Shepard upon his return to Earth, then a Florida dealership provided subsequent one-year leasing deals to put astronauts behind the wheel of the latest models – clever PR for sure, and yet it seemed a perfect fit. While the very first ‘Vettes were more Piper Cub than Bell X-1, those that would be piloted by the likes of Gus Grissom and Alan Bean had the Right Stuff; the fastest and best machines America could produce.

Sixty years after GM built the first Corvette (and about fifty-six since they got the recipe right), here we are with an explorer on Mars, and it’s a robot with a sarcastic twitter feed. Heroes are scarce; the cult of celebrity now shines a spotlight on the kind of people you’d cross the street to avoid. And as for the Corvette?

Did The High Plains Chevette-O-Rama leave you hungry for more ‘Vette action? Of course it did. TTAC delivers with this YouTube video of Chevettes in mortal combat. Find out more here. And yes, your humble author will be trying to buy a seat in the 2013 winter season!

I walked well past this Corvette before I stopped and gave it a backwards glance, suddenly remembering that it is yellow convertible week. I wavered momentarily, gauging my feelings. Yes, it was fast and pulled impressive numbers on a skid pad. But numbers alone do not make the car. And my feelings meter just wasn’t moving one way or another, so I almost moved on. Call it the Madonna of sports cars? Then it hit me: this is the most soulless sports car ever, the ultimate antithesis to the TR-6. The C4 Corvette sold its soul to the devil of numbers. And in my cartechism, that’s a Deadly Sin.

Seductive, voluptuous, hot, fast, flawed, sexy, modest beginnings, all-American, iconic, hits the big time in 1953, gone forever in the fall of ’62, immortal, unforgettable. My apologies if others have gone down this road before, but when I re-opened these Corvette pictures last night, that’s what came to mind. And I’ve learned to just go with it. Want to come along for the ride? If so, NSFW alert!