Q&Auto: Tom Peters, Corvette designer

Posted by hpayne on December 22, 2013

Tom Peters, 2014 Corvette Stingray Director of Design Exterior, poses with his prodigy. (Photo by Steve Fecht for Chevrolet)

Brawny, bold, and brash, the Corvette is the iconic American sports car. When Chevy debuts a new design, the car has the presence of a rock star. Men’s knees buckle. Women swoon. Yet its lead designer, Tom Peters, is an unassuming, soft-spoken man who you would probably walk past at a fancy cafe as if he were any other patron.

Which is how I first encountered Peters, 59, in Palm Springs, Calif., this winter at the unveiling of Corvette’s new convertible. Thin and bespectacled, with a chin of grizzled whiskers that matches his balding pate, Peters sat alone studying a menu. Just a week into my new gig as Detroit News auto critic, I had to aska table-full of colleagues to identify him.

Peters (officially Chevy’s director of full-size truck and performance car exterior design) is as modest in demeanor as he is in appearance. There is no braggadocio. No bling. No hiding behind dark sunglasses. But when he talks cars, he is passionate and precise. I interviewed him about his latest prodigy, the 2014 Corvette C7.

HP: Let me start with the question that every motorhead asks every time we get a Corvette redo. Why stick with the front engine architecture as opposed to going mid-engine?

Peters: In addition to the balanced platform from a performance standpoint, there is usability: Where the passenger sits, the ability of getting in and out, and the usable storage space in the rear. I think it has become a kind of a brand key and a level of expectation for the Corvette customer. There’s something about a V-8 with a front location with the proportional fenders, that I like to refer to as a fire canopy on a fuselage. It’s part of Corvette’s DNA.

HP: How do you guys produce a car that performs on par with Ferraris and Porsches for half the price?

Peters: I don’t know if I can answer that completely. I think there is an element of scale. That engine is derived from our aluminum 6.2 liter engine that we utilize across platforms — most notably the trucks, actually. So it’s amortized over several platforms. Not having a multi-valve engine keeps prices down. And this is a production vehicle. There’s automation involved. There’s all those efficiencies.

HP: Why update the Stingray design? What is it about Stingray that made it right to do now?

Peters: The reason I’m in the business is because you always remember the first car you were involved with. I loved cars when I was a kid. Way back in third grade, I remember the local rich kid — his father one day pulled up in a silver, split-window Stingray. It was like a spaceship had landed. That left quite an impression over the course of my life growing up through the muscle car era. I’ve been trying to get Stingray on a car since the C5. But Ed Welburn (GM V.P of Global Design) said we’re not going to call this a Stingray unless we are confident that it lives up to the name.

HP: The front of the Stingray and the Ferrari F12 and the new Viper seem to share an international design language. True?

Peters: There might be, yes. We didn’t consciously look at them, but I think there are certain levels of functionality and where they need to be optimized. Our design challenges are universal.

HP: Talk about the Corvette racing program’s influence on the production car.

Peters: Incredible. I remember the day that former design executive director, Jerry Palmer, started the C5 program — I want to say 1996ish — they wanted a vision for Corvette and LeMans. I remember Jerry saying, we want the Z06 to be a race car for the street and we want brutal functionality. That set the tone. We spent more time together with the race team. The hood vent came from the race car; the radiator angle, the corner intakes, and moving the trans coolant to the rear had direct influences from the race car. That’s why this stuff is true design. Everything is done to feed the beast. When (the race team at Pratt & Miller) came and first saw this design, I kind of bowled them over.

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