There's new Chevrolet in town, and it is not the new Cruze or Orlando. It is the legendary Corvette, the seventh iteration of the iconic American sportscar. Styled to impress the newer generation of performance car buyer who has been spoilt by the edgy design paired to explosive performance, C7 Corvette wears a well-cut suit.
The front end of the the new Chevrolet Corvette Stingray wears an familar traditional face, but has been made crisper with a strong characterline. The bodyline continues to rise towards the back, where the traditional wrap-around rear glass has been ditched, and in comes a normal C-pillar that also housed the rear quarter glass, previously unfound on any Corvette except the earliest coupe model. The rear end too is controversially new, where the quad-rounded rear light has been replaced with a squarer, recessed unit. Quad tail pipes complete the dramatic rear end styling.
The new Corvette retain the familiar chassis architecture of removable targa roof, but it is also packed with innovative construction. The hood and the removable roof are made of carbon fibre, while the fender, doors, rear quarter panel and some underbody panel are manufactured from composites. The body structure is aluminium and the weight distribution has been optimized for perfect 50:50 balance front to rear.
The chassis main frame is composed of five aluminium segments including and extrusion panel at each end and centre main rail jointed by cast nodes at suspension interface points. Each segment thickness is tuned to meet their respective strength requirement, thus thickness vary from 2mm to 11mm. These results in 45kg weight saving, plus it is also 57% stiffer. More photos and details after the jump.
