This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this folio. Terms of use.

TUSTIN, CA — The eighth-generation of America's best and all-time-known performance automobile launched here Thursday dark. The 2020 Corvette is finally a mid-engine two-seater, equally its architects have dreamed of for more than half a century. It has a strong dose of applied science ranging from over-the-air updates to a standard 12-inch digital (LCD) instrument panel, a bigger caput-upward-brandish, and a GPS database that raises the low-slung auto when information technology approaches a bump in the route or a sharply pitched driveway.

The cheapest 2020 Corvette will toll "less than $60,o00" when it ships early in 2020, according to GM president Marker Reuss, one of the speakers at the event.  That'south a vi percent increase over the to the lowest degree expensive 2019 Corvette.

Why This Corvette Is Unlike

The 66-year history of Corvette includes a long-running difference of opinion between GM's sports-minded engineers, particularly Zora Arkus-Duntov, and toll-conscious financial staff. Duntov proposed better underpinnings to make early Corvettes bulldoze as well as they looked. Fast-forward half a century and the C8 – Corvette, generation 8 – finally has one of the hallmarks of the highest-end sports cars, the mid-engine layout. Some say GM had only bad experiences with its few early on mid-engine product cars, particularly the 1960s Corvair which was a) rear- not mid-engine, b) troubled not past the engine location as much as the depression-price rear intermission that came to the attention of a young Ralph ("Unsafe at Any Speed") Nader even though c) the VW Beetle had the aforementioned "swing-axle" design and that didn't pique Nader'southward marvel.

The things you'll read elsewhere about the C8 Corvette will frequently center on the mechanical differences, particularly moving a traditional small-block Chevy V8 with the very same bore spacing (distance between cylinders) as on the primeval Corvettes, from the front end to behind the passenger compartment. The lone manual pick is an eight-speed Tremec double-clutch transmission with a low first gear for tire-smoking acceleration (our words, non Chevy's), closely spaced gears 2-three-4-v-vi to keep the car in the sweet spot of the power ring, and long gears vii-8, meaning gears that allow the engine run at highway speeds at less than 2,000 rpm, for fuel efficiency. With no driveshaft, the former transmission tunnel is now a piece of high-force aluminum with a carbon fiber finisher (aero-smoothing) panel. As well to save space, the shifter linkage gives way to shift-by-wire gears: a Park-Reverse-Drive selector and paddle shifters.

Magnetic ride control shocks are an option. They instantly adapt to irresolute road conditions; the same dampers tin be potent for sporty driving, soft for daily driving especially with a spouse/partner aboard who loves Corvettes with limousine rides.

The wrap-around cockpit resembles a racecar cocoon. Or to some bigger drivers, information technology may seem a niggling confining. The viii-inch middle stack brandish has a volume and a Home button; everything else is done by touch.

More, Better High Tech

For 2020, every Corvette gets a 12-inch LCD brandish. Information technology'due south mated with an eight-inch heart stack LCD. To proceed the dashboard uncluttered, the LCD has only a volume knob and a Home push button; everything else is bear upon or voice. A head-up display is optional. Audio is by Bose: 10 speakers standard on entry trim models, 14 speakers including woofers in the door panels.

A MyMode feature lets the driver cycle amid preferred driving mode configurations. A unmarried "Z mode" (named after the Z06, ZR1, and Z51 functioning packages) is activated by a steering bike push button lets the driver take a My Manner feature, add engine and manual tweaks, and store that in the button for back-roads and track utilise.

The Corvette adopts GM's new "digital vehicle platform" for adjacent-generation technologies. It minimizes wiring, allows faster data transmission, and enables college-res displays. Other features are Chevy's commencement one-touch on Bluetooth pairing via a Near Field Communication patch, Qi wireless charging.

Corvette's Functioning Information Recorder has been upgraded. It'due south an integrated action camera/security, records lap times or point-to-indicate travel times, and even knows where you lot are on a racecourse for auto-calculation of lap info. Don't trust valet parking? You can set up it to tape when the ignition is prepare to valet mode.

First-generation Corvette C1 greets attendees to the 2020 Corvette C8 launch at the Tustin (CA) Blimp Hanger. The C1 toll $three,490 in 1953, equal to $33,500 in today'due south dollars.

Corvette History

Corvette launched in 1953, a decade before Porsche came out with the Porsche 911. Its best era was the 1970s, ironically at the fourth dimension of the first oil embargos from the Centre East. In this decade, production ranged from a loftier of 42,000 in 2016 to a low of simply under ten,000 last yr. Sales and product numbers also followed the aging of the models which ran five-x years:

Kickoff-generation (C1, 1953–1962)
Second-generation (C2, 1963–1967)
Tertiary-generation (C3, 1968–1982)
Fourth-generation (C4, 1984–1996)
Fifth-generation (C5, 1997–2004)
Sixth-generation (C6, 2005–2013)
Seventh-generation (C7, 2014–2019)
Eighth-generation (C8, 2020-)

In comparing, the Porsche 911, often considered the most iconic sports automobile, has most 1.1 one thousand thousand units produced. (No Ferrari is remotely close to a million.) Porsche sales are throughout the world where Corvette sales are centered in North America. Porsche sold 35,000 911s last year, worldwide. But where the 911 by itself was Porsche Cars for decades, now information technology'southward merely a fraction of Porsche's 256,000 worldwide sales last year, outsold by the Macaan compact SUV (86,000), Cayenne mid-size SUV (71,000), even the Panamera sedan (38,000). The 911 came out in 1963, at which point Corvette had a 70,000-unit head commencement. Porsche's biggest market is China, followed by the U.s. and Germany.

Detroit-focused Campbell-Ewald ad agency entrada from a decade agone noted who gets sung nearly.

More than a dozen songs take been written about the car, including "Fiddling Ruby Corvette," even if the lyrics meant something else, "Riding with Private Malone," "Expressionless Man's Bend," "Shut Downwardly," "The Best Day," "Corvette Dreams," "The One I Loved Back And then," and "Corvette Crusin'."

The Corvette has been the Indianapolis 500 step machine 16 times (17 when the C8 paces the 2020 race). Information technology has been on the Auto and Driver 10Best Cars list 20 times (Honda Accord has been on 33 times, BMW three Series 23 times). Information technology has been Motor Tendency Motorcar of the Year in 1984 and 1998.

Chevrolet produced 1.7 meg Corvettes over 7 generations since 1953. Production topped 50,000 in 1979 and 1984. This decade, production averaged 23,000 units a year. Note: Low figures such every bit 1983 are when most 1983 sales were assigned to 1984. New models were in 1953, 1963, 1968, 1984, 1997, 2005 and 2014.

More Than ane.7 1000000 Sold

Chevrolet produced 1.7 1000000 Corvettes over vii generations since 1953. Production topped 50,000 in 1979 and 1984. This decade, production averaged 23,000 units a year. Note: Low figures such equally 1983 are when most 1983 sales were assigned to 1984.

The car goes into production later this yr at its sole production facility in Bowling Green, KY. First sales are due to be early in 2020. You will probable detect few sub-$60K cars in the early on allotments. Buyers will find dealer markups because that's what the market will bear. While 100 Corvette owners staged their own polished cars outside the launch site, in that location will as well be cranky owners who can't fathom the thought of a Corvette with a mid-mounted engine, as if better weight distribution and treatment is a bad thing. Their fathers likely protested fuel injection.

2020 Corvette Crossflags symbol and script in chrome.

How Shortly Can You Get a C8 Corvette?

The base of operations 2020 Corvette will exist chosen Stingray and gets a 6.ii-liter V8 (LT2) engine with 495 hp (369 kW) and 47-pound-feet of torque. Tires are eighteen inches in front, nineteen inches in back, with 35 series front tires and 30 series rear tires.  One selection will exist the beginning Corvette rated all-season functioning tires.

Chevrolet will release more complete pricing in the fall. Exist prepared for dealer pricing adjustments (markups) if the Corvette is in hot demand. In the by, premiums on popular high-end sports cars have been $10,000-plus in their get-go months on the marketplace.

Along with every other announcer in America, we tin't wait to test-drive the C8 Corvette. Version 8 appears to be a quantum leap forward.

Now read:

  • Hands On at the Track With the 2020 Mini Cooper SE Electric
  • Brooklyn Electric Car Races Add Exhibit Stock Cars
  • The Go-Fast, Go-Safe Parts You lot But Become on Police Cars