My Z06 runs at a cool 192 degrees cruising down the Interstate at 75 MPH and at 199 degrees when running hard at 160+ MPH on the track.

PS...it has a thermostat that keeps it at that "hot" 192 degrees.

FOR CRYING OUT LOUD MAN, HOW DAM COOL DO YOU WANT IT TO RUN?

That Old man looks to be the one that is the lead designer of the C7.

Yes, we all know how special your Z06 is on the highway and on the race track.

This isn't your Z06. It's a different car with a different power plant.

And it's entirely likely they're setting the cooling up for a forced induction engine in the future.

Use your head and THINK FFS.

Now go away.

jas

Oh, that's right, GM never got around to building a forced induction C6 ZR1, so they didn't have worry about keeping it cool.

I'm assuming the first picture was posted tongue in cheek or as an inside joke of sorts, but yes, thats Tom Peters. Hes the studio boss, and knows every square inch of the car. He's also, iIRC, the guy who had a hand in the earlier split window concept car.

Pretty cool car guy, and very passionate about the project.


The "Where are the coolers in the duct system" is a question I had, but got tangentially taken away from in the course of a long question and answer.

I understand the resistance to excess complication regarding the fans, but how do we actually know how hot the trans axle/diff gets on earlier fan versions? Are the monitored?

I seriously doubt if the guy who posted the original pic of Tom Peters knows who the "old guy" is.

He was just trying to get a dig in on the old guys on this forum.

I think that's just it about the C7. It's about the "old guy" AND the new guy. I like small cars. Own an S2000, soon to race a Miata. <In before the small car & Miata joke ensue lol> Seeing this car really, really made me want one. In many respects, it felt like it wasn't for the average Joe because in my eyes it competes (at least design and look wise) against much more expensive cars. 911? In the past, I'd say Porsche. Now? Honestly, I really think Corvette. I've always thought Vette = great sports car. Yet now, I'm thinking supercar.

In some ways I hate this car!!! Why? It's a 2 seater, I have a 5 yr old and we have 1 month to go for a second. It's also out of our reach financially. Which makes total sense why 40 something guys is the market for this car. It's been a long time that I've been this excited about a car such as this. It sure felt like the people involved at GM felt a stronger connection and something special too.

Alright, I'm rambling but it truly has hooked me.

1st off, Thanks so much for posting your article, very nice indeed and greatly appreciated. Regarding the fangs I believe the new Honda Accord has a similar set of "fangs". Whether or not I personally luv every styling cue of the car what impresses me is the pure love for the car the GM folks have for the corvette and I applaud them for their efforts. Obviously a lot more thought was put into the features of this car than many of us would have assumed. Thanks again- Jeff

I too was at that event in NYC last week and was going to start a thread here about what I learned. You beat me to it. Here is my what would have been my post for the thread:

So I spent about an hour in and out of the C7 this past Wednesday…All I can say is that when you see it in person the only thing that will be foremost in your mind is how much you can get for your current Corvette and how fast you can get on an order list. The car is epic from every single angle.

Some quick points before I get to the back:

1. It has no CD player. They believe they may be the first to take that plunge. Reminds me of when I went from my ’99 C5 to my ’05 C6. The C6 had no cassette player. At first I was surprised then I remembered that I hadn’t bought a cassette in years. Same now that I look at the C7. I can’t recall the last time I bought a CD. Come to think of it, I can’t recall the last time I saw a CD for sale.

2. There is a USB in the large cubby behind the NAV screen which drops down. There also appear to be two more in the center compartment as well as an SD card slot.

3. Quick Easter Egg, the back glass, the shaded portion at the top edge that fades out as it hits the clear part that you look back through. Look closely at the shaded part, it is thousands of tiny crossed flags. Nice.

4. The steering column is now power tilt and telescope…ahhhhhhhh. Finally, no manual adjustment fine tuning after the wife drives the car.

5. Same goes for the seats of course. Now full power.

6. Interesting bit on just how much influence the race team had on the design. Apparently the C6.Rs rear NACA ducts caused the team some grief because their required location in the hatch itself caused them to have to practically break apart the interior ducting apart whenever they had to open the trunk for repairs or service.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._America_3.jpg

So the race team specifically asked for body cutouts where the vents now reside on the top of the rear fenders. Now when they have to get to the coolers in the trunk area there will be no NACA ductwork in the way.

7. Round taillights were sketched and the sketch saw the light of day for five minutes before all concerned realized that they did not work on this much more faceted car.

8. The C7 is being tested at VIR where it is proving to be a second faster than the C6 Grand Sport. Given this, if and when they do a Grand Sport version of the C7 it will be almost C6 Z06 fast.

9. Pricing, you will not believe it when it is revealed given that the car has an aluminum frame and two major carbon fiber body panels. Remember, you had to spend Z06 money in the past to get that.

10. You can’t believe how good the car looks from the back. The first time I walked up to it I tried to put my hand in the lights because they looked three dimensional. People nearby laughed and said they had all tried to do the same. I am struck by how two-dimensional the C5 and C6 on hand looked from the back compared to the C7. The money shot if you will of the C7 from the back…

http://larryfire.files.wordpress.com...e-stingray.jpg

The car is simply spectacular. As you can see from the shot above, putting solid buttresses on it makes it look so much more substantial than the simple glass bubble ever did.

The interior…oh the interior! Smells like a coach bag. Everything that looks like leather is. If it looks like carbon fiber, it is. Looks like metal, same thing. The seats won’t just silence the critics, they are going to tear their tongues out. Twin high-definition screens will make sunlight washout a thing of the past.

They removed the large black plastic frame around the inside rearview mirror. You can’t believe the difference it makes. The trunk mounted stereo speakers are in some sort of subwoofer enclosure at the back of the car instead of by the wheel wells.

Length of the vehicle is now within 10ths of the new 991.

Performance parameters are amazing. Bear in mind that this car is debuting in a world which now has severe fuel economy restrictions which effectively just arrived within the last couple of years and which will now severely constrict the performance of all future vehicles.

All manufacturers have had to scale back. A few U.S. examples – VW dropped all V8s from the Touareg line and the new R32 here dropped from a V6 to a 4-cylinder. Volvo too dropped the V8 from the XC90 and S80. Audi completely dropped V6s from the mainstream A4 line, relying now entirely on 4-cylinders. The S4 went from a V8 to a V6 with less horsepower than the old one. The A8 now has a V6 as the base engine. This situation of constricting power, available engine sizes and smaller power increases where they occur at all is now the near term future for all manufacturers until new ways are found to increase power and performance.

It is therefore amazing that the base C7 with narrower tires is faster than the C6 Grand Sport. People often forget that there are basically four C6s. The base car, Grand Sport, Z06 and ZR1. That the C7 can reach past the Grand Sport without the benefit of that car’s wider tires is testament to the effectiveness of the Gen III MSRC system tuning, wider track and the inclusion of lightweight materials such as the standard carbon fiber roof which has the effect of lowering the car without actually doing so.

Looking at Car and Driver’s most recent Lightning Lap this would mean that the base C7 will be clearly faster around a track than the R8 5.2, and 991 Carrera S., two of the C7’s primary performance competitors. Incredible given the as-tested price of those two cars.

Anyway, the C7 is simply epic. The materials and engineering is worthy of cars costing twice as much. The world class interior will put your eyes on stalks. The exterior looks exotic. The mufflers in particular are as big as drainpipes. They are integrated into the bodywork in a way that reminds of the back of the Ferrari 458. This was not easy as the C6’s mufflers were deliberately hung away from the body so they would not melt the rear fascia during track days. To get the integrated and tailored look of the current car meant adding mass in the form of heat shields all around the now flush mounted exhaust.

Every vent you see on the car was placed at the specific request of the race team. From what I was told, when you see the race car make sure you are sitting down. Will be a while though as the C6.R will start at Sebring and run most if not all of the current ALMS season.

Has this forum degraded to the point where we actually have people complaining about improvements to the car? I don't get this.

Michael

Granracing, great article!

I agree on the steering wheel not fitting the rest of the car. The airbag bubble just doesn't look right.

I agree. People make way too much of output per liter, and are assuming that if the engine has a smaller displacement, that it also must be physically smaller, lighter, and more fuel efficient. GM has proven them wrong on all accounts.

People should look at an engine more as a black box, and ask how big is the black box, how much does it weigh, how much power does it produce, and how much fuel does it consume.

No one has mentioned how much better this engine looks appearance wise compared to the LS3. To my eye, it is a huge improvement, and downright handsome.

Michael

Naw man, the stock C6 is the end-all be-all of automotive aerodynamics and cannot be improved upon. Those ALMS engineers are a bunch of chumps and ricers.

pics?

Maybe it's soft touch plastic that feels so much nicer( ala audi and merc) then the hard plastic I'm used to in so many Chevys. It doesn't look that way but I'm being optimistic.

Nice write-up B. I wonder how you got into that NYC thing... :mad:

jas

Go figure...Its change thats got some with their panties in a bunch...60 years and only seven generations/changes...of course some are going to be unsettled...Its simple if you like it buy and if you dont dont...Me I think its a Beast...Cant wait until the Z version hits the street

I don't see how anyone could complain about improvement to the C6's only true performance weakness. It's pretty ridiculous. Just because the C6Z "feels" planted doesn't mean that its as good as could be given 10 years of improvement in aerodynamic design. SportAuto in Germany pretty singled that out as the only problem with the car at the Nurburgring.

It isn't new news that the C6 wasn't all that great when it came to high speed stability. That's why aftermarket companies have been designing extractor hoods to mimic the C6.R. The car has always had a problem with air getting trapped under the hood. The C4 and C5 had the same problem. Now you get that solved from the factory along with a big lip spoiler along with comparable drag to the base C6. Who would complain about that?:crazy2:

JoeC5 thinks its about loss of control. No, its about adding more stability. That's one of the reasons why they can run narrower tires this go around. ZL1 engineers were saying that they were seeing improvements from their work from as low as 80mph. He also thinks I haven't driven the C5 and C6 at the 150+mph speeds he talks about either.

Tom Peters - Director of Exterior Design and Global Rear Wheel Drive Vehicles for GM. :thumbs:

No, my dig was that a lot of old guys played a role in the car they are attempting to market to a younger generation... :D

Thanks for taking the time to post an informative and well-written post.

Interesting you say that. In our talk with Tom, I commented on how this car was more "Dense" with visual features and cues, especially compared to the previous generation. His comment was that younger designers are more apt to cram more in, and he referenced various social and physical influences. Also, theres a significant Asian influence, and their design tends to reflect that it's difficult to view cars as a whole in their tight cities, and the designs are driven by 'snippet views'.
I think one indication of GMs desire to court a younger buyer is the dash, and it's various configurations. Old geezers aren't too enthralled by the complexity of that, I imagine.,