These 2000bhp Corvette Concepts Are Coming To Gran Turismo 7

It’s been over a year since the last addition to the long-running Vision Gran Turismo programme that sees car manufacturers – and occasionally other, slightly inexplicable brands – create flight-of-fantasy concepts for the Gran Turismo series.

That last entry came from Skoda last April, but now there’s a new one from Chevrolet, with both road and racing versions to boot. They’re called the Corvette CX and CX.R, and are the latest in a run of concepts being unveiled this year to hint at the future design direction of the beloved American sports car.

Both cars share the same fundamental design, with low-slung cab-forward proportions and a massive hinged canopy for entry and exit. It’s underneath where the two concepts start to take different approaches.

The roadgoing CX has been envisioned as an all-electric supercar, using a 90kWh battery that feeds an individual electric motor for each wheel, complete with torque vectoring. All in, it develops over 2000bhp.

It also features an active front diffuser and rear wing, but its biggest aero trick is its ‘Vacuum Fan System’. This uses fans built into the car’s underside to pull air through its plethora of intakes, generating huge downforce and allowing for the precise adjustment of airflow over the rear diffuser.

Inside, meanwhile, there are two integrated bucket seats set far back in the cabin, a yoke-like steering wheel and a ‘digital windscreen’ with performance data projected right onto it.

The CX.R features an even more fascinating powertrain. It’s a V8, as many would argue a ’Vette always should be, but not in a form that’s ever been seen in one before. The engine is a tiny 2.0-litre twin-turbo unit, developing over 900bhp and spinning up to over 15,000rpm. Driving the rear wheels via an eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox, it’s paired up with three electric motors – two powering the front axle, and a third integrated into the transmission – for a peak of around 2000bhp.

The aero is still active but far more prominent, and the cabin, while sharing the same basic architecture as the CX, is a typically stripped-out affair.

You’ll be able to drive a Corvette CX for real, erm, never, but it does give a hint at some of the styling and tech that could filter down into future Corvettes as the model goes after the supercar elite ever more aggressively.

Chevrolet has confirmed, though, that both cars will come to Gran Turismo 7 later this month. That’ll likely be in the game’s (mostly) regular monthly update, which, if it sticks to the usual last Thursday of the month release, will arrive on 28 August. We’ll be keeping an eye out on series creator Kazunori Yamauchi’s social channels for the usual silhouette teaser to see what else might be in store. In the meantime, does the ridiculously rapid Dodge SRT Tomahawk VGT finally have some (fictional) competition from across Detroit?