Twin Sport

May 252009

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Recently the rumor mill was smokin' with chatter about the C7 Corvette over new images of the Transformers Sting Ray Concept car. But when AutoWeek announced that the C7 was "on indefinite hold with no official word or set timetable," I was not surprised. The article quoted Vehicle-Line Executive Tom Wallace as saying, "No one is saying we're not doing Corvettes. We're still bullish on Corvettes." When asked directly if there was any chance the Corvette would die, Wallace stated emphatically "No way." What a relief!

Let's pull back and get some perspective. The C3 holds the longevity record having a 15-model-year run. By '82, the car was riding on a chassis and suspension that was OVER 20 years old. Numerous facelifts define the C3s into three groups; '68 - '77 with the sail-style b-pillars, '78 - '79 with the bubble-back rear window, and '80 - '82 with the shovel-nose / rear spoiler motif. A '68-'69 Corvette looks very different from the '80-'82 car.

The C4 had the second longest run with 13 years. C4 changes were limited to wheels, fender vents, and front-rear bumper covers. While the car's looks didn't change much, under the body there was a world of difference! C4s came in like a lamb with 205-horsepower and went out roaring with 330-horsepower.

Tuners loved the C4s, most notable being the 1989 Callaway Sledgehammer. This 349.8-CID, 898-horsepower, twin-turbo small-block beast was TOTALLY STREETABLE! In fact, John Lingenfelter drove the car from Callaway's Connecticut shop, 800 miles to Transportation Research Center in Ohio and blasted the 7.5-mile test track with a 254.76-mph run! Afterwards, the car was checked and driven back to Callaway's shop.

C4s raced in the Showroom Stock Series from '85 to '88 and beat up the 944 Porsches so badly that Porsche bought two Corvettes to take apart to learn why they were so fast. The C4s were kicked out for being "too fast."

Then there was the ZR-1. The all-aluminum, double-overhead-cam, Mercury Marine-built ZR-1 packed 375-horsepower from '90 to '92 and 405-horsepower from '93 to '95. Base '90 Corvettes had just 250-horsepower and from '92 to '96 had 300-horsepower with the new LT1. Tommy Morrison ran a specially prepared '90 ZR-1 to a 24-hour average speed of 175.885-mph, shattering a 50-year record! Lastly, in '96 we saw the 330-horsepower LT4 optional engine, as well as the limited production Grand Sport.

What we're saying here is that a long production run isn't necessarily a bad thing. Now the 2010 C6 enters it's sixth production year - just one more than the C2 Corvette. In just six years, Chevrolet has dished up the Z06, the 205-mph ZR1, and a base model with 430-horsepower. A recent road test of the '10 Grand Sport showed that the base LS3, when installed in the Grand Sport with its Z06 dry-sump oil system, gets a little more TLC, resulting in a power output that's just a tad on the high side. According to Motor Trend, the '10 Grand Sport does 0-60 in just 3.9-seconds and the quarter-mile in 12.2-seconds @117-mph. To the uninitiated, that's downright frightening.

There was talk of the C7 Corvette being a 2013 model. That certainly would have been enough time to develop the C7 and get it right. Corvette marketing and product planners would have had a field day releasing the C7 as a 60th Anniversary special option. Then the C7 release date got pushed back to 2014. Now, it's indefinitely on hold.

How can the Corvette group justify a $500 Billion capital expenditure for a car line that just posted a 52% drop in sales in today's market? They can't, and for now, they should keep a low profile. That's a skinny branch no one wants to go out on. - KST

Silverlit X-Twin Sport