Detroit for Clues About The Next Corvette

We're itching to know the details about the C7, Chevy's next Corvette. So, to investigate one of Detroit's most guarded secrets, we hit the city's Woodward Dream Cruise and tried to find insiders who'd talk.

 Handicapping the next Corvette is the car geek's version of fantasy football. And next year will be the seventh model year for the current Vette, known as the C6, so the speculation about the next version has gotten only more intense. Hard data is tough to come by. GM employees are notoriously tight-lipped, and pundits make what amounts to guesses (We're not immune. PM's crystal ball predicted the C7 for 2012, but GM's trip through bankruptcy delayed that date). 

To find some answers, I headed to Detroit for the annual Woodward Dream Cruise. Why the Cruise? It's the world's biggest single-day automotive event. Some 40,000-plus cars crawl up Detroit's Woodward Avenue in front of 1.5 million spectators. But more to the point, in that Motown crowd you can find the employees of the automotive suppliers, engineering firms and outside vendors who have a role in the Corvette's development and might have some inside knowledge. And perhaps, after a day broiling in the late summer heat, they'd be willing to share a few tidbits. So armed with a 2011 Camaro Convertible—an ideal car-guy conversation starter—I joined the moving parking lot that is the dream cruise. 

The Corvette Clubs

Corvette enthusiasts from outside the industry came in droves from across America. Larry Courtney's club, Corvettes on Woodward, rolled down the avenue this year with a record 563 Vettes, C1s through C6s. 

These folks intensely catalog and compile Corvette rumors, and they were more than happy to weigh in on what they want in the C7. A former McDonnell Douglas and Boeing engineer felt that "between the C5 and C6, there wasn't enough of a change. The C7 needs to be a whole different beast while retaining the Corvette tradition of affordability." One owner of a pristine C2 Stingray hoped that the rumored split-window option will come to fruition. A former GM toolmaker for Fisher Body Plant 21, who now fortifies Chevy V8s for marine applications and owns a new ZR-1 to boot, says rumors of small turbocharged V6s and V8s have him worried the C7 will get soft. 

It's fair to say that GM listens to what the Corvette clubs want—after all, those folks are the main customers. But no one had anything more than speculation. I got back in my Camaro and inched down the boulevard. 

The Insiders

Out on the avenue, I got the polite brushoff or the stern silent treatment when asking about the new Corvette. Many people offered up a terse smile at best. Finally, a Nissan ergonomist, tailgating with his wife on the back of a Juke, spelled it out for me. When I asked for his take on the C6's much-maligned interior, he said: "Hey, I work in this industry and I have lots of friends who do, too. They would never talk to me again. I ain't talkin'." Tough crowd. 

Amazingly, I lucked upon an insider who wanted to sing. Perched on a lawn chair next to a pristine C6, he happened to be reading from a score that was more than just fantasy. After talking about my loaner Camaro and the 10 Corvettes leading up to his current baby, he suddenly flipped through emails on his BlackBerry and pronounced: "Y1XX. Yup. That's the platform code for the new one. From what I seen, it's gonna have square taillights. And it ain't gonna be a 2013, neither. Supplier tooling is ramping up for production in May, June, July of 2013. C7's a model-year 2014 car." 

Before he could tell me more, his wife shot a nasty look and hustled over to shut him up. But not before he coaxed a little from her about their C6's instrument cluster and nav/radio unit: "That's ancient GM technology," she said, and hinted the next-gen would be vastly superior. She sounded, and acted, like another Detroit industry insider. 

The Designers

Through Corvette-like vehicles featured in the Transformers movie franchise, Chevy has hinted at a revolutionary redesign with C7. Could it be true? 

I managed to crash a private party filled almost entirely with young auto designers from the big three‹celebratory, liquored-up designers at that. One, a twenty-something who has seen the C7, blurted out that the new design will have Ferrari-style quarter windows for the first time since the C2. Admitting that the split-window C2 is the only design he ever liked, he nonetheless enthused that the "C7 will knock the current Vette out of the water. It won't be an old guy's car anymore." Beers in hand, the others, many who claimed to have seen the car, agreed that the C7 finally has the careful details that will give it strong appeal to youthful sports car buyers who've never lusted after anything but European metal. 

Before the kitchen-table prognostications ended, a designer with knowledge of the Corvette program said that base horsepower will approach that of today's Z06 (505 hp) and that Z06 power levels will climb within a stone's throw of the radical 638-hp of today's supercharged ZR-1. 

The Powertrain

The Corvette probably will be the first car to feature the new, fifth generation of the Chevy small-block V8. From what I heard, the new engine will still use space-saving pushrods to move the valves and will have an aluminum block and heads, direct fuel injection and probably variable camshaft timing. Beyond that, I kept hearing that the next Corvette's base V8 will shrink in displacement from 6.2 liters to 5.5 liters. ("Who told you 5.5!?" blurted Tom Read, communications representative for GM Powertrain, when I mentioned displacement.) To pull nearly 500 horses from 5.5-liters, I'm banking on Chevy using a significantly increased compression ratio of 12:1 or more. 

Read says that the C7 will gain "one point" on the efficiency scale; we'll have to wait and see what exactly that means in terms of mpg increases. He didn't flatly deny Viper-style cam-in-cam variable-valve timing (used on Chevy's recently discontinued 60-degree pushrod V6 family). Turbocharging for higher performance models is a possibility, too. 

A GM Performance Parts representative, dizzy off Woodward Avenue's haze of exhaust and ground-level ozone, let it slip that an eight-speed automatic is in development. Two more speeds than the current automatic would go a long way toward keeping the C7 competitive with the Europeans (think Porsche's seven-speed PDK in the 911) by maximizing mpg, refinement and performance. But also, no automated dual-clutch transmission. The six-speed manual will also be available. 

The Bottom Line

It's safe to say that the next Corvette will be an evolution—not a radical redesign—of the current car. The V8 will remain in front, the gearbox in the back, and the space-saving transverse leaf springs will support the wheels. That makes sense, since the base price will still be around 50 grand. Among all the tipsy enthusiasm in Detroit, I heard whispers of a vastly improved interior. Chevrolet will maintain or reduce weight, the performance numbers will be a tick or two better on all counts (acceleration, braking, lateral Gs, fuel economy) and, most important, the bulk of the engineering has been dedicated to improving subtleties like steering feel and seat quality. 

And the styling too, should be a hit. GM's on a roll in this department with handsome cars like the Buick Regal, Cadillac CTS and Chevy Sonic becoming the norm rather than an anomaly. One thing is for sure: We're not the only ones who can't wait to see it. 

Source: popularmechanics.com/cars - We Search Detroit for Clues About The Next Corvette - C7 Corvette - Popular Mechanics