Editorial: Thoughts on the Corvette C7

Through good time and bad, the Chevrolet Corvette has continuously been a standout at GM no matter what the rest of the company has looked like. While as successful as ever, the current car has taken an evolutionary and blander approach than some would have liked though.

It's GM's Porsche 911, if you will. The debate about its future has always been, and will continue to be, fierce. Should it be revolutionary, evolutionary or heritage-inspired?

Revolutionary would be a huge change, like a mid-engined layout that deviates from the front-engined/rear-wheel drive configuration the Corvette has always had. Don't expect that to happen. Evolutionary would be like the change from Corvette C5 to C6. Modern styling, revamped interior with no major upsets to the tried and true formula.

The third option could be a standalone, or a blend with evolutionary. That option would be heritage. Most of the signs point to a heritage-inspired next-generation of the Corvette. There is a danger though, GM needs to be careful not to take the Corvette into purely heritage/retro territory.

Because that isn't where the car is at right now. I'd prefer a thoroughly modern car, but with inspired touches from classic Corvettes. Many have speculated that the Corvette Stingray Concept from the Transformers movie previews the C7 C0rvette, but GM's head of design Ed Welburn says that is not the case.

"That car (the Corvette Stingray Concept) is not the next Corvette....but the split-window is something that I expect for the next Corvette.....with the back-up cameras and blind-spot detection systems that we have these days, the visibility issue is much less of a problem." While it was only put into production for the 1964 model year, the split window amazingly has proved to be an iconic Corvette design element.

Some of those classic styling elements with an overall modern design is what I expect GM to do with the next-generation Corvette. I trust that GM won't mess it up. They have done since the car's inception, right?

There has also been recent talk about a Corvette hybrid. My response to that? Nonsense. It's not going to happen - GM doesn't need to make the Corvette a hybrid due to mileage issues. Work on making other high-volume vehicles achieve higher ratings instead.

Besides, if the Volt really does achieve 230 mpg in the EPA cycle, that will make a big difference in the company's overall CAFE figure. The current Corvette is already pretty efficient, and can become more so through the proper use of technology.

That's why the seventh-generation C7 Corvette is going to be very interesting in many ways. GM's design prowess has improved so much since the current car's development. If the current Corvette was developed in the same time frame as the 2005 Equinox, imagine a Corvette developed with the improvements of the 2010 model. The C7 could be the most amazing Corvette yet - a car with all the attention to detail of recent GM models, and the world-class interior that the car has always deserved.