{"id":20332,"date":"2017-03-27T21:09:18","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T01:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=20332"},"modified":"2017-03-27T21:09:18","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T01:09:18","slug":"what-if-gm-built-a-corvette-suv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2017\/03\/what-if-gm-built-a-corvette-suv","title":{"rendered":"What if GM built a Corvette SUV?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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What if Chevrolet made a Corvette SUV?<\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s not so far-fetched. Corvette is a singular car within Chevrolet, and in many ways is a performance brand unto itself. Almost every performance brand now has its own crossover; the most prominent of which is Porsche\u2019s money-machine, the Cayenne.<\/p>\n

If Corvette did make an SUV, what would it look like? Detroit News presentation editor Jamie Hollar drew his own concept car, shown here. And The Detroit News talked to ex-GM big wigs, auto analysts and car enthusiasts for their ideas on what the high-performance SUV should be.<\/p>\n

Since the first Jeep sport utility appeared in 1984, the automotive landscape has been transformed by high-riding, five-door SUVs with visibility and utility to spare. Even legendary performance brands that once built only ground-hugging sports cars have jumped in. Beginning with Porsche in 2003, SUVs have become a performance-maker\u2019s goldmine. Nearly every performance badge wants a piece of the lucrative ute market.<\/p>\n

Notably absent is the Corvette, America\u2019s V-8-powered workingman\u2019s superhero.<\/p>\n

Though technically a Chevrolet product, the Corvette long ago became an iconic nameplate that\u2019s equal to Europe\u2019s elite sports car names. It\u2019s faster than the Porsche 911, Jaguar F-Type, Alfa Romeo 4C and Lamborghini Huracan. And while those brands have all exploited their athletic images to expand into sport utilities \u2014 the Jaguar F-Pace, Alfa Stelvio and Lamborghini Urus \u2014 the Corvette remains a one-off.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s certainly precedent for non-traditional SUV makers to jump into the market,\u201d says Karl Brauer, senior analyst for Kelley Blue Book. \u201cEvery time one of them has jumped in, it has worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

With nearly two-thirds of Porsche buyers opting for SUVs, Porsche makes up a whopping one-third of Volkswagen Group\u2019s profits while generating only 2.3 percent of its sales, according to MotleyFool.com. \u201cThe idea of a Porsche SUV still rubs sports-car purists the wrong way, but it has been a spectacularly profitable product for the brand,\u201d says John Rosevear, senior auto specialist for the website.<\/p>\n

GM executives won\u2019t talk about future vehicles \u2014 and even if they did, there\u2019s no evidence a sport utility is in the works. But everywhere we went, car fans loved the idea. The consensus was if Corvette were to build it, it would be a home run.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s give this dream car concept a name. We called our concept the Corvette XC7: \u201cX\u201d for crossover, \u201cC7\u201d for the sports car\u2019s seventh-generation architecture.<\/p>\n

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\u201cXC7 and X06 (mirroring the high-performance version\u2019s Z06 name) are great starters for naming,\u201d says Tom Wallace, the retired GM engineer who ran Chevrolet\u2019s Corvette program from 2006-08. \u201cStingray is off limits.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would be essential that any Corvette crossover share the sports car\u2019s DNA.<\/p>\n

\u201cFront engine, rear drive, with AWD option. Lots of aluminum in the structure,\u201d muses Wallace. \u201cAluminum is mandatory to support the theme that Corvette embraces to be the lightest vehicle in its class. The two V-8s from the Corvette stable are also a must.\u201d<\/p>\n

That means the 460-horse V-8 shared with the base C7 sports car \u2014 or for the Z06 version, the supercharged 650-horsepower V-8 for what might be the fastest SUV ever built. Considering the rear-wheel drive Z06 sports car is slightly slower from 0-60 than its all-wheel drive 540-horsepower Porsche Turbo rival, an all-wheel drive X06 crossover should be competitive with the all-wheel drive Cayenne Turbo\u2019s 3.8-second, 0-60 romp.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaximum Bob\u201d Lutz, the ex-vice president of GM product design who is revered for bringing back The General\u2019s design mojo, agrees with Wallace\u2019s assessment: \u201cLike the Cayenne, the appeal of the \u2019Vette SUV would be RWD proportions. It should, in fact, have a silhouette not too different from a Cayenne.\u201d<\/p>\n

Start with the C7\u2019s dramatic, sculpted lines created by Tom Peters and widely recognized as one of the best designs in Corvette\u2019s 54 years. All performance SUVs are essentially vertically stretched, five-door versions of familiar sports coupes, giving them an inherently heavy look compared to low-slung two-seaters.<\/p>\n

But angular designs like our mock XC7 or Lamborghini\u2019s Urus show that it\u2019s possible to break with the soap-bar shapes of the Porsche Cayenne and Maserati Levante. With Corvette\u2019s trademark shark nose, scooped hood and quad exhaust pipes, it would drip with menace.<\/p>\n

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