\u00a0<\/em>reports that the mid-engine 2020 Corvette C8<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0which has been seen roaming the streets near GM’s Milford test track \u2013\u00a0will carry the marque’s familiar\u00a0push-rod V-8 (married to a quick-shifting automatic transmission) and will carry a familiar, affordable supercar entry price.<\/p>\nBut higher-trim, $100,000-plus models, writes Car and Driver’s Dan Pund,\u00a0will push hypercar performance with all-wheel drive, turbocharging\u00a0and electrified options.<\/p>\n
Options are said to\u00a0include \u00a0a twin-turbo\u00a05.5-liter V-8 driving the rear wheels and a 200-horsepower electric motor turning the fronts. Horsepower numbers over 1,000\u00a0demand\u2013\u00a0the traction and balance of mid-engine, all-wheel drive to stay on terra firma.<\/p>\n
“With today’s horsepower numbers, every supercar is moving towards AWD and mid-engine chassis,” says Karl Brauer, an auto analyst with Kelley Blue Book, and owner of\u00a0a mid-engine Ford GT and front-engine\u00a0840-horsepower Dodge Demon.<\/p>\n
The Demon, the fastest production car ever through the quarter-mile, stirred consternation when it was launched last year with Automotive News editorializing that the rear-wheel drive coupe was so unsafe “that\u00a0its registration as a road-worthy automobile should be banned.”<\/p>\n
Brauer says the Demon has to go to extraordinary technical\u00a0lengths to keep its rear tires from spinning like a bandsaw, including mechanical and electronic\u00a0tricks to the suspension,\u00a0transmission and engine.<\/p>\n
When the mid-engine Corvette debuts next year,\u00a0Wallace is confident that “it will be fundamentally quicker with less chance of going sideways.” But, adds the veteran GM engineer with dozens of laps around Belle Isle, “if you’re not careful through Turn 2, a mid-engine Corvette could still lose it.”<\/p>\n
Santino Ferrucci and Mark Reuss no doubt would agree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pace driver and General Motors\u00a0executive Mark Reuss wasn\u2019t the only driver to spin in Belle Isle\u2019s tricky Turn 2 on Sunday.\u00a0IndyCar\u2019s Santino Ferrucci came out of the pits too hot\u00a0later in the race and spun, damaging his open-wheel\u00a0race car’s front wing. But Reuss’\u00a0Corvette ZR1 pace car\u2019s crash\u00a0is Exhibit A as to why Chevrolet is developing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22435"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22435\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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