Quote:
Originally Posted by xc_SS/RS
It's a world class exotic beater in the current time, but this time next year who knows what'll come out from Europe. It'll turn some people away but it'll also bring more people to buy it.
I think this might also be happening for racing purposes but that's probably not a major point to making the Corvette mid engined. Although with GTE/GT LeMans slowly turning back into GT1 it only makes sense to go mid engined
I think the price change will be a big deal if Car and Driver are to be believed with a entry price of around $80k, but with the Camaro now reaching into the 50's it would make me consider a Corvette currently over a Camaro. So this might be a move to protect sales of the Camaro and also move the Corvette into a much higher performance bracket. The Camaro 1LE might be pretty close to the Corvette (non Z06) in terms of performance, and the ZL1 might be as close of not closer than the 1LE because of the HP difference
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And here I always thought that the accusation was that it was Corvette sales that GM was trying to protect, at the expense of the Camaro ...
Anyway, putting the engine in the back isn't going to dramatically improve a base Corvette relative to a Camaro SS. The improvements in traction would probably be partially offset by weight gain (rear-mid engine cars have a tendancy to weigh more than front-mid). The Corvette would handle better, but anyone looking for the better handling car would be getting the Corvette now anyways.
And price ... I'm thinking that 80k would be very optimistic. I'm thinking 100k, if there is still a base model which could very easily be dropped due to pointlessness. If the goal is maximum performance, why even bother with a car that won't benefit much from the mid engined layout? It could very easily be only a Z06 type car, at 150 grand & thats it.