C7

2014. (Ugh!)

The April 2012 issue of my Car & Driver magazine features “25 Cars Worth Waiting For,” one of which is the new C7 Corvette which will debut for the 2014 model-year.
C7, eh? (Seventh Corvette version.)
I wonder if it’s a new chassis?
The C5 and C6 Corvettes are the C4 chassis, uprated of course, to make the car handle better.
It sounds like the C7 Corvette is still the same chassis layout, a leaf spring in the rear.
And to my mind, the new C7 is much uglier than the C6, which was one of the best-looking Corvettes EVER.
They made that chassis handle pretty well, to me the result of big tire-footprints on chassis-geometry optimized for those tires.
But you put similar tires on a C4, the disco-Corvette introduced in 1983 as an ’84 model, and it might handle about as well.
The chassis is also quite low to the ground, and very well balanced.
The transmission, its weight, is in the rear.
Corvettes always suffered from excessive weight; they’re hardly a feather-light Lotus.
The Corvette’s advantage would be blunderbuss acceleration between corners.
I saw this at a race years ago. A 427 ’70 Camaro creamed a Porsche (“POOR-sha”) on the straights, but the lighter and more sophisticated Porsche was all over the Camaro in the twisty parts.
Corvette has always been special to me, although the earliest Corvettes were mainly its fabulous SmallBlock V8 motor.
The chassis was essentially that of a ’53 Chevy, which compromised the SmallBlock.
Corvette was much better after 1963, the first Corvettes with independent-rear-suspension (IRS).
The IRS was rather crude, but helped the SmallBlock V8.
The C3 was essentially the crude C2 chassis with a dramatic Mako Shark body.
But it was still the SmallBlock engine, although you could get it with a Big-Block.
The Big-Block was also available in late C2 Corvettes, and the largest was a gigantic 454 cubic-inch version in the C3.
Maximum acceleration, but such a large heavy motor threw the balance off.
On a twisting byway a BMW 2002 could leave it behind.
In other words, don’t ask a 454 Corvette to corner — the trees were waiting.
Unfortunately the C7 Corvette takes its styling-cues from the new Camaro, which to me is incredibly ugly.
The new Mustang is much better looking. The Camaro is so slammed it looks like a tank.
Chrysler debuted gun-slit windows on its new 300 sedan, and GM quickly jumped on the bandwagon. The new Camaro has gun-slit windows, as does the Chevy Volt.
The C7 Corvette doesn’t look as bad, but its rear-end is that of the Camaro.
Taillights slammed rectangular into a tiny panel framed by rear-fender extensions. —That panel slammed atop a gigantic bumper-piece.
Also too much styling filigree.
To me this is sad because the C6 Corvette was one of the best-looking Corvettes ever.
At least Corvette remains the individualized offering it always was. In the ‘80s John Z. DeLorean (“de-LORE-eee-un”), head-honcho of Chevrolet, wanted to shorten the Camaro into a two-seater and call it a Corvette.
Thankfully, this didn’t happen.
Car-and-Driver wishes all Chevrolets were as good as Corvette, although it still needs better seats.


C6.

• “Independent-rear-suspension” is to make each rear-wheel independently sprung from its opposite. Most car-suspensions are (were) the Model-T Ford layout, each wheel firmly attached to a common axle — so that as one wheel was bumped, the opposite wheel was effected too.
• The Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches. It was made in various displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation. The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first to 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The “Big-Block” could be immensely powerful, and the “Small-Block” was revolutionary in its time. The SmallBlock is still produced, although much improved since 1955.