2020 Chevrolet Corvette: Three Challenges the Mid-Engine Car Presented

Everything about building a mid-engine car was new to the C8 development engineers. There's virtually nobody left from the earlier mid-engine Corvette programs (or even the Pontiac Fiero team) to consult with, so the C8 team pretty much had to benchmark state-of-the-art competitors. And because most competitors have been developing mid-engine sports cars for several generations, the pressure has been high to nail the benchmarks right from the start. Plenty of computer-aided engineering and rough mule prototype vehicles were involved in this program. Below are a few of the diciest challenges the team faced.

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Some of the nastiest (in a bad way) sounds an engine makes are now 12 inches from the driver's ear: the accessory drive. Hence the firewall is well insulated, and the bulkhead window is 9mm thick (most windshields are 5mm thick).

Everyone loves exhaust noise, but that's really far away, and the pipes are short, presenting no opportunity for X-pipes and other plumbing elements to improve the sound. Even the intake is located pretty far back, but airflow is directed through some body cavities with openings near the driver door in an effort to naturally direct some of that noise forward.

The car's audio system is primarily programmed to cancel objectionable frequencies, but a bit of constructive enhancement of the trademark small-block burble is also dialed in. The Z51's low-restriction exhaust valve makes the car as loud as it legally can be. A mid-motor NVH windfall: Road noise is inherently reduced by moving the big rear tires aft and insulating them behind an engine.

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Few sports cars can touch the Corvette hatchback's 15-cubic-foot luggage capacity. The ability for the C8 to continue the legacy as a weekend getaway car was deemed crucial. So despite an engine sitting where all that luggage used to go, the team has managed to package 12.6 cubic feet split roughly one-third in the frunk and two-thirds in the rear trunk, behind/above the powertrain.

The front accommodates a standard airline-regulation roll-aboard laid on its narrow, tall side. The rear can fit two reasonably sized golf bags. And although a new four-piece set of fitted semi-rigid leather duffels will be offered for the C8, the C7s five-piece set fits in the C8. You know what else fits in the back? The removable targa roof panel (though not necessarily along with the golf bags or fitted luggage).

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The long-hood/short-deck front-mid-engine layout was a breeze for energy management. There used to be plenty of room to gently steer crash energy down around the front wheel to the side frame member. Swap the powertrain and cabin positions, and suddenly the tire is right behind the dead pedal, leaving no room for a crash energy load path. Those forces must now be directed into the center tunnel structure.

The comparatively narrow box the engine used to fit in is smaller and more inherently rigid than the larger opening required to accommodate the C8's entire powertrain. But the team reports that the torsional stiffness is better than that of the C7 and several key competitors. There are also several local stiffness wins, one of which is the steering column. Because it's shorter and more direct, it was easier to stiffen it up.