MR Corvette C8 - General Discussion

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If you absolutely had to get from LA to Miami by road as rapidly as possible, without fail, and you had the choice of Corvette, Ferrari, Lamborghini or indeed any other supercar, which would you choose?
I’m pretty sure all supercars would be bound by the same speed limits along the way and accompanying traffic laws, so I’d probably pick a comfy one that I like the look of. Perhaps a Ferrari F12 or 812. But of all supercars for a long road trip I don’t think I’d take a Corvette, Ferrari or Lamborghini.
 
I’m pretty sure all supercars would be bound by the same speed limits along the way and accompanying traffic laws, so I’d probably pick a comfy one that I like the look of. Perhaps a Ferrari F12 or 812. But of all supercars for a long road trip I don’t think I’d take a Corvette, Ferrari or Lamborghini.
Is it the suggestion here that there is nothing to choose from in terms of reliability; today all supercars are equally bulletproof in that respect? No overheating, no punctures, no electrical or mechanical failures over thousands of miles of deserts, mountains, rain, roads under repair, etc? I would think the quantity/quality of service/repair facilities would make a difference for the chronic long distance traveler.
 
Is it the suggestion here that there is nothing to choose from in terms of reliability; today all supercars are equally bulletproof in that respect? No overheating, no punctures, no electrical or mechanical failures over thousands of miles of deserts, mountains, rain, roads under repair, etc? I would think the quantity/quality of service/repair facilities would make a difference for the chronic long distance traveler.
I'm pretty certain a Ferrari 812 could handle that hypothetical journey without overheating or breaking down. As for punctures, dont drive fast over pot holes.

If I'm a chronic long distance traveller I'm probably not doing those journeys in a supercar at all though.
 
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I'm pretty certain a Ferrari 812 could handle that ypothetical journey without overheating or breaking down. As for punctures, dont drive fast over pot holes.

If I'm a chronic long distance traveller I'm probably not doing those journeys in a supercar at all though.
In the past, I have routinely driven at insanely high speeds in Idaho and Montana. I recall the Cannonball Runs of back in the day. The essence of my question is that some supercars, subjected to rough driving conditions over long distances are going to break down more frequently than some others. Again, back in the day, there was the concept of the Grand Touring car, a high performance two seater with the capacity to carry some luggage and a full size spare that would be fast and reliable over continental size trips. But I suppose all that is meaningless nowadays. Nevermind. It's a ridiculous question, relevant only to the distant past.
 
If I had to pick a supercar for the trip, I would go with the Corvette.

In reality if I had to go across the U.S. by car, I wouldn't choose a supercar at all.
 
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Absolutely. If you're going to travel long distances, I can't think of anything better suited to do so.
Plush, power and presence. The one pictured has one more thing going for it and I bet nobody can guess what.
 
Hi there. It's been 6 years since the C7 debuted. I still hate how tortured and overwrought it looks, and the C8 basically just copies some of its worst styling elements even though it has a completely different shape.




Can I still call it ugly, or are you going to accuse me of kneejerking to change?
People have opinions, and you have your own. If you still think the C7 is ugly, fair enough. And while I don’t think it’s ugly, and certainly not overwrought, and I don’t agree with your take on the C8, my point was that many people do come around on car designs, and do have knee-jerk reactions to this kind of stuff. I’m not calling your opinion wrong, or bad, but I was just saying that many times, car design does grow on people, especially after a few months, that happened to me with the Supra, which, as I said, was in a very similar place to this car.
 
Is it the suggestion here that there is nothing to choose from in terms of reliability; today all supercars are equally bulletproof in that respect? No overheating, no punctures, no electrical or mechanical failures over thousands of miles of deserts, mountains, rain, roads under repair, etc? I would think the quantity/quality of service/repair facilities would make a difference for the chronic long distance traveler.
Most supercars today are as reliable as can be. The only issue they have is the shorter time between their service intervals compared to most cars, so the more you use them, the quicker you’ll need to eventually get it serviced. But they will absolutely make a trip from LA to Miami. Gumball, Goldrush Rally, plenty of cross country rallys in the US that supercars make just fine.
 
As expected, C8 looks much better in person.




(skip to 1:30)

This thing is sick. The red with the natural dipped interior totally makes this look like a Ferrari :lol:

What you can't see in the press event that you can see in these sunny videos is how the slab-sidedness of the car is broken up by the light hitting the car. The big ugly side pods are now balanced by a "forward arrow" shape highlight as the sun hits the panel. The rear of the car also looks much better viewed from a standing height, and the headlights look longer than in the press pics. What a killer car.
 
Every time I look at it I like it less... in fact my oppinions on it have been all over the shop, and Im not entirely sure why. I started off hating it, then I thought it was okay, and now its dripping back down to dislike again. Perhaps it has so much noise in its design my brain is struggling to take it all in in one glance.
 
Plush, power and presence. The one pictured has one more thing going for it and I bet nobody can guess what.

Well it doesn't have 22" wheels, but aside that I'm not sure. BMW's 8 series aside (and the RR Wraith for that matter) I can't think of a better GT.
 
Well it doesn't have 22" wheels, but aside that I'm not sure. BMW's 8 series aside (and the RR Wraith for that matter) I can't think of a better GT.
I was being facetious. And I'm not really color blind.

:)
 
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While I still am happy that the Corvette C8 is finally being built in right-hand drive for countries such as Australia, I still prefer the looks of the C7.
 
I am genuinely curious what this new car will mean for Corvette Racing. Obviously they would have had prior knowledge and been working on stuff...but every year we continue it becomes "is this the year Corvette will quit racing?". They've more or less done everything and won everything. I would like to see at least 3-4 seasons with this new car before they close up shop (heck, they may never stop racing). I suspect I will like this car in racing trim at least.
 
I am genuinely curious what this new car will mean for Corvette Racing. Obviously they would have had prior knowledge and been working on stuff...but every year we continue it becomes "is this the year Corvette will quit racing?". They've more or less done everything and won everything. I would like to see at least 3-4 seasons with this new car before they close up shop (heck, they may never stop racing). I suspect I will like this car in racing trim at least.
Post #286 and #294 in this thread have the old spy shots of the GTE/GTLM spec car from mid last year (quoted below)

Corvette C8.R spotted testing

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I don't really consider the Camaro to be a baby-Vette, as it's both bigger and heavier than the parent. Only in price does it resemble that. It's very capable, but not the pure sports car the Corvette is.

I'm not sure they want to bring the Fiero name back, haha. I do give them points for trying back in day though.

EDIT: More C8.R pictures of the front/side. Best look yet.

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I was initially sceptical about the Corvette going mid-engined after hearing that the race car wasn't going to have a 6.2 litre V8. Thankfully they kept the good old-fashioned V8 for the road car and I'm pleased. I thought I would hate the car but I actually like it a lot. After all the concepts from the past, to FINALLY see a mid-engined Corvette being put into production is monumental to say the least.
 
Decades of concept cars and prototypes experimenting with a mid engine Corvette has now came to this.

Not bad of a car I actually like it to be honest but it took long for a Corvette to become a mid engine car.
 
Is the new Corvette a supercar? Or is the price too low?
As it currently sits? I would say definitely not. The bar for a supercar continues to be raised by the exotic market. When the Z06/ZR1 comes, it'll likely have a legitimate argument of supercar.
 
What did these people think of the C1 Corvette?

Probably weren’t alive when that model was around so they didn’t care. I’m sure most of the general public hasn’t even seen a C1 Corvette. It was a ridiculous thing to complain about but eventually people got over it.

If someone says fixed headlights "are wrong", that doesn't say anything about how well designed they are. Saying the fixed headlights look like a cheap copycat from another brand, that's something more related to how those specific headlights were designed, most probably.

Because there are tons of different possible ddesign solutions for fixed headlishgts and whoever said " are wrong in a Corvette", said that regardless of how the headlights looked like.

That's the difference. I will never look cars I don't like the looks of. And being MR vs FR or fixed headlights vs pop-up headlights is irrelevant if either of them looks poorly designed.

It's all a bit irrelevant. I think the C8 looks ugly from several angles and probably one of the worst looking corvettes I can remember.

I think you’re misunderstanding what was going on at the time. Because they thought it was “wrong” they automatically called them ugly because their bias influenced their opinions that much. They even said the lights looked like they were taken from other brands so there’s that too.

It’s really no different here. Most knee jerk reactions on the Internet are because people don’t like the idea of a MR Corvette and because of that bias are calling it ugly. I’m not saying everyone is like this but it’s a thing with any product that undergoes change after being just an evolution for years or decades.

Imo I think it’s time the Corvette changes things up. From the C3-C7 it was all evolutionary. The last big change in design was the C3. C4 was just a flattened C3, C5 was just a rounded C4, C6 was just a C5 with fixed headlights and a bit more curves, C7 was just a more angular C6.
 
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As expected, C8 looks much better in person.




(skip to 1:30)

This thing is sick. The red with the natural dipped interior totally makes this look like a Ferrari :lol:

What you can't see in the press event that you can see in these sunny videos is how the slab-sidedness of the car is broken up by the light hitting the car. The big ugly side pods are now balanced by a "forward arrow" shape highlight as the sun hits the panel. The rear of the car also looks much better viewed from a standing height, and the headlights look longer than in the press pics. What a killer car.


Something still looks off with the back. The front end looks fine. The back end just has a chunk to it that doesn't look right.

I had thought that I was being too critical, because I knew that the C7 had a bit of a high and wide rear that looked bad.

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But even though I don't particularly like the C7 rear, it looks better than the C8.

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That last shot is actually kinda gross. It's like they took the C7's worst feature and amped it.
 
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