A brand-new Chevrolet Corvette is coming, and plans for its inauguration are now under way at General Motor’s Bowling Green Assembly Plant in Kentucky. Inning accordance with The Bowling Green Daily News and the National Corvette Museum site, factory tours will be suspended for 18 months starting June 16. While there has been no official description for the closure, a year and a half looks like sufficient time to remodel the factory tooling for a mid-engine sports car.
Indeed the automotive publications have been anticipating the reveal of a mid-engine Corvette for 50 years, however numerous spy pictures reveal that the automaker is dealing with something special. Furthermore, we have reason to think that the Chevrolet Corvette’s V8 will move away from pushrods, finally embracing a free-revving DOHC design. While GM has worked Merlin levels of magic to make pushrods happen in this day and age, the relocation to overhead cameras was going to occur ultimately. Along with the mid-engine platform, the factory might be setting up a brand-new DOHC engine production line.
Obviously, the stopping of tours may simply be to conceal the brand-new C7 Corvette ZR1 that we observed running around. The truth is likely someplace between, since we believe both automobiles are coming and 18 months is really too long to remodel the plant for another variation of the C7, even if it is the hot and ready ZR1. If the ZR1 is whatever we anticipate it to be, it’s going to be a way to liquidate this generation of Corvettes.
2018 will confirm the 6th year of production for the C7 generation, a short lifecycle when compared to previous Corvettes. Point is that the C7 has roots going all the way back to 1984 and the introduction of the C4. Ever since, the vehicle has been going through heavy changes and adjustments, however the lines can be traced back.
