It sounds like the 'Vette is torquey enough that it could do nicely with 3-4 gears for the LT-1. However, the increased number of gears would be more for fuel economy in the C7 application. Tadge's interview at the reveal has him saying a couple of interesting things - 1) they looked at an 8 speed auto but it wouldn't fit (Aisin or ZF sourced probably) and 2) that a DCT was considered but there wasn't an available unit which could handle the torque. He goes on to say that 6 gears is fine for the auto. Yet they added a 7th (3rd overdrive) on the manual