Yes Virginia, the Corvette is here!

The Chevrolet Corvette has always been America’s first real and only long-lived series production sports car. While other coupes such as the Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro, Dodge Charger and the like were also powered by V8’s driving the rear axle, the Corvette was a proper sportscar that steered, braked and accelerated along with the best of the European sports car aristocracy. A straight-line specialist the Corvette most certainly was not, as it remains a popular choice today for high-performance track-day enthusiasts, slalom and auto-cross, as well as factory backed GT Racing efforts in Le Mans, culminating with a Championship win in 2012 for the American Le Mans Series Championship.

The first ever Corvette was a fiberglass bodied show car unveiled at the General Motors Motorama Exposition in January 17, 1953 at New York’s elite and prestigious Waldorf Astoria Hotel. It was developed under the supervision of Zora Arkus-Duntov, Chevrolet’s first ever Chief Engineer

65 Years later, the seventh generation C7 Corvette Stingray finally breaks cover at another Motorama, this time at the Chevrolet Motorama slated on November 22, 2018 onwards at the SM Mega Mall Fashion Hall. The Covenant Car Company (TCCI) is the brand’s authorized and exclusive Philippine distributor and importer in the Philippines.

While the Corvette has grown and evolved over the years, there are a few non-negotiables that have identified the model throughout its 65-year history, which include:

– Strictly 2-seat sportscar, rear-wheel drive
– A long dash-to-axle proportion that enhances its powerful looks
– The bodywork has always utilized advanced lightweight composite panels starting with fiberglass in 1963, to carbon-fiber in 2018.
– The Corvette has always been a test-bed for advance modern technologies that will see their way down to the rest of Chevrolet / General Motors vehicle line-up
– The infamous SBC (Small Block Chevrolet) V8 has been the standard engine on 57 of the Corvette’s 65 years of service.

In its home market in the USA, the Corvette comes in three variants; the basic Stingray model, as an homage to the 3rd generation model Stingray which bears the same name, the Grand Sport model which is the mid-level variant and the track-biased high-performance ZO6 Corvette.

Initially the Philippine market will only be getting the Stingray variant. But if it can still accelerate to 100km/h from rest in under 4 seconds, it’s highly unlikely that performance can be considered ’basic.’

So what can we expect? Aside from the aggressive V8 soundtrack, expect a coupe body, the direct-injected LT1 alloy block 6.2 liter normally aspirated V8 delivering 455-460hp driving the rear wheels via an 8-speed automatic transmission, and painfully beautiful looks. A 7-speed manual is available in the USA but it remains to be unseen if Chevrolet will offer it locally, and if it will also offer the higher-spec Grand Sport and ZO6 models in the future.