CORVETTE ZR1

THE MID-ENGINE C8 is a Corvette more than 50 years in the making. GM has toyed with the idea of a Corvette with the engine behind the driver since the 1960s, spending millions on engineering programs that went nowhere, building a bunch of running mid-engine concepts, like 1968’s big-block V8-powered XP-880 and 1973’s aluminium-bodied XP-895, cars that ended up mouldering in quiet corners of the company’s giant Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. But now, with its engine finally in the right place to optimise handling and aerodynamics, the eighth-generation Corvette brings America’s own sports car into the 21st century.

And GM is about to make the most of it. Four new C8 Corvette variants – the E-Ray, the Z06, the ZR1 and the Zora, each faster