The C1 Corvette was released in 1953 to compete against European made sports cars.
Over the years the Corvette has become a bit of a working class hero. It’s had a lot of motorsport success over the years and has offered European supercar levels of performance for a fraction of the price.
The Corvette has always been a front-engined car whereas European supercar manufacturers have long since moved to a mid-engined layout.
That all changed with the announcement of the C8 in April 2019 – the first mid-engined Corvette had arrived!
Production began in February 2020 so they have been about for a while, but I still think this is the most exciting mass production car the United States has released in decades, so as I was in the States for SEMA, I thought it would only be fitting to highlight the C8s of the show.
We’ll start with this Liberty Walk kitted car on the FEYNLAB (ceramic coating) stand.
Liberty Walk originated in Japan but make body kits for all sorts of different cars. This is their kit for the C8.
There were a handful more dotted about the show.
This car on TREMEC’s stand was still wearing its livery from a previous year’s OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Invitational (OUSCI).
OUSCI is a recurring event at the SEMA Show.
There are a number of regional events around the United States that look for track-capable, street-useable, show-worthy cars across a number of different classes from classic trucks to electric cars. They all come together at SEMA to compete.
This year there were a couple of C8s in the line up.
(There will be a dedicated post for OUSCI coming out soon, so subscribe to my emails if you don’t want to miss it!)
The most interesting C8 was Matt Field’s drift car. Whilst several mid-engined cars have been built for demonstrations, but as far as I know one has never actually been used in top flight competition. (The norm being front-engined, rear wheel drive.)
Tyler McQuarrie used a (obviously) rear-engined 993 911 in 2007 in Formula Drift, but other than that I can’t think of another competition car that has broken the usual front-engined rear drive mould.
This is manual swapped, 1000bhp and revs to 10000rpm. Also, I just noticed it’s also wearing the previously mentioned Liberty Walk body kit.
Thanks for reading! I’m afraid it was a bit of a shorter post today.
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By Richard Francis.
