The 2020 Corvette

Also known as the C8 (8th generation), the 2020 Corvette is Chevrolet’s all-new mid-engine sports car – the one they’ve teased us with for more than 50 years. Is it the best Corvette GM has ever built? Find out what Scott, Ben and Kurt think of the redesigned icon. Plus, Ben announces his Escape.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Car Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios,
How Stuff Works. Hell wan, Welcome to car Stuff. I'm
Scott Benjamin, I am Ben Bolan, and I am Kurt
garn Hey, that's that's all three of us. Yes, that's
everyone in the room. We've taken a roll call. Now,
as long as everybody else is out there, we're good, right, Yeah,

(00:22):
And I don't know about you guys, but it feels
like we're on a pretty good mood. Today. We spent
u we spent a few minutes just shooting the breeze
about today's episode before we eventually said. I think Kurt
had to get us in line and say, hey, guys,
maybe we should we should just record it and just
do this show. So this is I've got. I've got

(00:44):
an announcement before we get started. The short thing. Alright, alright,
I don't know how you guys are gonna take this,
but I for years I have been driving one iteration
of a Monte Carlo or another, and all of all
of our long time listeners, you guys have been with
you guys have heard my trials and travails with that

(01:04):
with that car, and you know what it's like when
you own a car for a long time. You know,
it's idiosyncrasies. You get used to not having a car payment,
which is beautiful. Uh, And eventually I had to give
up the ghost man. I still have my money, Carlo,
but I bought a new car. Yeah, yeah, it's it's

(01:24):
it's what do you get what? I got a seventeen
four to escape because I got a great deal on
the newest car I've ever driven, and I'm actually taking
possession of it, like all the deal stuff has done.
I'm taking possession of it tomorrow as we're recording. Congratulations. Well,

(01:45):
let's let's hope man. It's I still have the money, Carlo, though,
it's you know, I won't be able to sell it
for anything, honest, Yeah, I understand. Maybe your dad will
take it. He takes about he takes on projects like this, right, yeah,
maybe maybe he will. Well, you know, I'm I'm just
a couple of quick questions if you don't mind, I
know we have to jump into just a couple al right,
So how did you find it? Is it something you're

(02:06):
buying from a dealer, You buying it from a friend,
you buying it from you know, just Craig's list what
where has it come from? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm buying
it used with I found it with the help of
a third party, but the purchase itself is direct. And
so I've checked out the car and I'm literally tomorrow

(02:27):
all I'm doing is like taking possession of it. It's black, black,
okay black on the outside, and it's you know, that's
another thing with the cars as a little worried game model,
because the color is kind of the last thing I
care about when an engine that works that says this
has six d K on it. But I got a
good deal, uh, And I was just very happy that

(02:49):
I didn't get stuck with you know, like a corn
flower yellow or they have all these fancy car paint
names like you know, absent minded, vermilion and whatever. I
don't get it. But yeah, I just got just a
regular black Bard Escape because I gotta do some haul
and I got some road trips ahead of me, and
so I I, uh, I wanted to get, uh, just

(03:13):
a little beater pickup truck. But like we talked about before,
we're talking about the Ranger, it's tough to get the
kind of pickup truck I would want, you know, no
disrespect to an F one fifty. But I don't need
something like that. I want to like a little manual
transmission to seater that parking lot, which is already difficult enough.

(03:34):
And you know that's funny. I mean, I don't know
why I asked the color. I mean that that's the
last thing that you should be, you know, concerned with. Yes, yeah,
probably just so I can prank you in the parking
lot if I see it out right. Well, this this
made me start thinking because I actually went through some
of the old research that we had done on the

(03:54):
ends and outs of buying a car, what you should
know and what you should avoid, what you should look for,
et cetera. Confusing as hell. Yeah. Well, and a lot
of people here in the audience today have war stories.
And one of the things that we had said in
the past that I think maybe some people weren't on
board with was that I like you, and I don't

(04:14):
know about you, Kurt. We'll see if you're on board
with this. I am very much against uh buying a
brand new car. Oh yeah, I just it's just not
for me. I know it's for some people, but it's
not for me. What about you, Kurt? I'm not completely
against it. All right, So you buy a new car
and it's gonna last you for maybe four or five years,

(04:36):
I mean depending on how much you drive, but for
five years trouble free, maybe more. You can get two
hundred thousand miles on pretty much any car nowadays. I'm
not totally against it. So you see some security in it. Yeah,
if you get used to making the car payment every month,
it's not too big. That's the one thing. That's the
one thing. Because I did get it, like through a

(04:57):
third party, so I do have a have a car.
Note again, Yeah, it's sure, just it's tough to d stomach.
But you know what, you've got, that reliability, you've got,
you know, the the solid feel again of a car
underneath you. Because i know what it's like to go
from an older vehicle to a newer vehicle, and I'm
back to the position now, by the way, where mine
is feeling older. You know, it's a little more sloppy,

(05:18):
it's not quite as tight as it was yet. It's
just it's tough to explain unless you're in the seat
experience in it. But a new car just has that
correct feeling, that right feeling to it and something new
to you. I mean going, You're going from what you're
two thousand four, yeah, yeah, yeah, actually two thousand, two
thousand six six. You're going from two thousand and six,
almost almost ten years with feature many many less miles

(05:41):
on it. I'm sure it's probably it's probably just a
more solid feeling vehicle underneath you. It's gonna be nice.
I'm excited about hearing about whatever you intend to do
with this. I mean, you know, honestly, guys, the fact
that it might start every time that I wanted to
start is flowing me away, you know. But I I
bring this up. I bring this up. I know there's
a very long tangent, but it bring this up because

(06:03):
it had me thinking about new cars, and you know
how it is whenever you're going to buy an automobile.
I can't speak for everyone, but for me, a good
seventy of my time overall is just window shopping through
one format or another. I know that, I would say

(06:24):
easily twent That is me taking deep dives into cars
that I will probably never buy, you know, like I
I one time saw a ninety three Rolls Royce that
had an ungodly number of miles and was just like
barely affordable, to the point where I thought maybe it
was an estate sale from like a criminal in the

(06:44):
Atlanta area or something, because I had it was not
a pretty vehicle. It had been road rough. But one
of the things that the three of us have been
talking about for a little while now off air in
different conversations is the idea of getting the classic car,
you know what I mean. And that's why today's episode

(07:06):
is about the Chevy Corvettes. Oh yes, and that's the
car we've talked about a few times in the past.
Of course I have to bring this up. And you
know what, I think, we've talked about corvettes many many times,
So I'll just leave it at this. We would you
say we're veterans, I would says, oh, got okay, now
we are. We've talked about for sure in full episodes.

(07:28):
I know we've talked about the Remember the old v
H one Corvette giveaway that they did. We had a
full episode on that because I remember someone discovered them
years later after an artist had owned them and left
them abandoned in a parking lot. You know, he had
painted some of them. It was really a mess. I think.
I think there's some work underway to restore that full
collection now, by the way, But anyways, that was like

(07:48):
thirty six Corvettes that were given to one winner back
in If you have interest in that, you know, check
out the Car Stuff archives. The other one that we
that I know for sure we did about Corvette was
the switch over to to the C seven model, which
is the model I think it's model year we did,
you know, just ahead of time and uh and that's

(08:09):
kind of something similar to what we're doing now, only
now we're gonna be talking about a completely different animal. Right.
This is something that people have been been talking about, really,
I mean, if you want to really get down to
it here, I guess people have been talking about this
for fifty one years at that point, and finally, finally
people are getting, you know, the Corvette, and not everybody,
but some people are getting the Corvette that they've been

(08:31):
asking for that entire time. Pretty exciting forward with the future,
right the Corvette is already the motor trend car of
the year. It's we're not done with January and you
know what we are. I checked into this, We're about
this is just bad timing on our part. I suppose

(08:52):
but I mean, this happens right as as of the
recording of this episode, and I know this will change
by the time the episode airs, but it is in
the running. It's the top three for the North America
Car of the Year and as well, and Corvette has
one in the past. You know, there've been I think
at least two other years when Corvette is one. I
believe back in the year that we talked about, uh,

(09:12):
that one did win the North America Car of the Year. Uh.
So you know, it's not unheard of that this one
might be the car of the Year by the time
this episode airs. But Corvette is really something to behold.
I mean, it's a it's a to me. I think
it's a beautiful car. I really like it. I mean,
we can each talk about it, you know what we
think about it. I suppose if you think it it

(09:32):
hears or it it it holds two Corvettes, you know,
lasting image. I guess the you know, the historic image
of the Corvettes and what we see as a Corvette. Um.
I think a lot of people have felt that it
it so dramatically deviates from that that you know, it
doesn't hold true for the purest you know that the
people want to see the long front end. Uh, you know,
the real world drive of course, but you're you're kind
of slung way back in the in the chassis. Yeah, well,

(09:57):
you know what I mean. It's it's it's just a
different um, it's a different looking car all around. I mean,
the silhouette is completely different than it was before. And
I don't think that's a bad thing. This new Corvette

(10:19):
kind of reminds me of the spirit behind the original
in the way that it wanted to be kind of
like this new thing, this innovative thing that other companies
looked at and said, whoa, we wanna we want to
make a car like that. This particular car may start
a trend with companies looking to make kind of a
low cost supercar, or at least a lot of a

(10:42):
lot of new people can get into. It's kind of
a neat concept. Low cost. He just said it. That's
one of the key points here that we want to
talk about today. And I don't know if we want
to jump in this right now or maybe we can wait.
You tell me, we can do it later. But low
cost doesn't mean lacking in features and performants, design standards

(11:02):
and all that. I mean, it's a great looking car.
And I would also say low cost is a comparative statement,
you know what, I every time you new used whatever, right,
I feel you have to uh categorize that even if
you're talking about buying a new pair of socks or something.
I mean, so we're both notoriously cheap with stuff like that, right,

(11:25):
that's right? So what about what about this? What if
we talk a little bit about the before we get
to the price, before you get two brass tacks. What
if we talk a little bit about just some of
the specs, a little bit about how this came out.
Because one thing listeners need to know, uh, and people
who have already pre ordered to Corvette are very well

(11:48):
aware of this. Uh. Production on the vehicle actually got
pushed back to January, right even a little bit later.
Maybe I got a little bit of insight info just
just garnered yesterday, and I can tell you about you
want to tell you about right now? You see, I
went I went online and I went to Corvette. I

(12:08):
got it gause a beat Chevy dot com or Corvette
dot com where but I ended up chatting with the
Corvettes person on the other end. You know, it says
you want to chat with GM about the new Corvette,
and I said, why not, I've got some questions. I'll
just do this. So I go on there and I,
you know, of course, I guess I had to pretend
that I'm really interested in buying one of these and
so that I could get, you know, some realistic answers, right,

(12:30):
And I just said, you know, I'm really interested in
the new Corvette, which I am. A lot of this
is not made up. I guess the fact that I was,
you know, want to buy one. I do want to
buy one. I don't know if I will, um, but
but I pretended to be an interested party and I
talked to someone on the other end, or chatted with
someone named Carrie. Now who knows if Carrie is a
real person or not, but robots. But the answers were

(12:51):
very real, so I'll leave it with that, very human answers.
But I said that I'm you know, interested in corvette
and the and the production schedule, you know, when they're
planned to begin in production. Because I've heard that the
same thing as you, that this strike had pushed production back.
The strike, yeah, it was, it was like the longest
strike and what like fifty years or something like that.
It was a long strike ended finally the end of

(13:14):
October of last year, and really it really bumped back
production on this brand new vehicle, which is something GM
didn't need at this time. Of course. In fact, you know,
i'll tell you this right now. I found a number
about this strike. It said that, you know, due to
the extent of it, how long this thing lasted. GM
as a company lost two billion dollars in production during

(13:35):
that strike. And you might think, well, Okay, the workers
really showed them whose boss. You know, they got, They
got what everything they wanted. But it turns out they
didn't necessarily come out much better either. They got a
couple of benefits, I guess to this whole thing, you know,
they didn't exactly win. It wasn't a big win. They
also ended up losing a billion dollars in wages during
that time, so kind of a a lose lose for

(13:55):
both parties involved. But I think they were just happy
when it was over. Fortunate timetell So, so I asked, when,
you know, when does this uh, when does this corvette
production schedule to begin? Because I thought it was January,
but it looks like it's going to begin in February
or mid February, and I think they're started to begin
maybe early could also be pushed back to early second quarter,

(14:17):
so it could go as late as that um And
they said that productions start up from that time all
the way until when you'll see the cars on dealer
lots is going to be approximately six to eight weeks,
but you know, of course that time can vary, and
they're gonna launch, I think with the coup and then
they're going to begin the convertible production just after that,
so it's gonna be a little while before you see
them on dealer lots because I've been really anxious to

(14:39):
go and check one out on a dealer dealer property,
just to go see one. I know that can be
a little awkward for some people to go into a
dealer and you know, you have to kind of play
the game and you know, act interested, or you know,
they might know that you're just there to kind of
kick the tires, you know, but it's fun either way.
I like doing that. And I did get another couple
of answers too. I was looking for specific information if
they were going to continue some of the trends of

(15:00):
pass some of the things that they had done at
the Bowling Green Assembly plant in Kentucky where they allow
you to come in and take a factory tour, watch
your car, your specific car being built and you know,
final assembly and then you get to drive it away
that kind of thing, photo op all that, and they
said that that. Unfortunately, right now, and I think this
might be because of the strike, they are not going
to allow that at least for the foreseeable future. They

(15:22):
might change that in the near future, but as of
right now, no factory tour is no factory you know,
assembly experience. You know, you can't go help build the
engine or any of that stuff. You couldn't have passed
with some models. So I don't know, just just it's
it's kind of interesting to get to talk to the
Corvette concierge for a bit and uh and get the
straight scoop on things, and it's a it's a great
tool to use if you ever want to do something

(15:43):
like that for any vehicle. There's plenty of answers out
there for everyone. Now, did you go into any nuts
and bolts under the hood stuff? I did not, And
that's that's what I think you're probably gonna be able
to shine some light on here, because I don't have
a whole lot of facts and figures on this other
than just the standard quick stuff, you know, like the
stuff that everybody reads in the you know, the first
three or four bullet points of the story, right right,

(16:05):
stuff like of course it's zero to sixty and two
point eight super fast. That's what I I think that's
one of the most important stats that people want to know.
I feel like it is. That's it. That's so quick.
I mean, that's this is a big car. It's it's
you know, long, low, and wide, the big vehicle two
point eight seconds. That's that's gonna feel awful fast, like

(16:26):
like rockets led fast, and a lot of the So
there are three there are three different iterations. You can
get different builds that they have listed. And one thing
that I thought was interesting was that the the initial build,
the one LT or the you know, the lower end,

(16:47):
the emphasis really from Chevy side is on how light
that that vehicle is. I like it. They know that
there is a huge demographic of people who Corvette fans,
who are probably probably even grew up around them and
then later bought their own. We're very excited about this,

(17:07):
but they're excited for the old school kind of Corvette,
which was relatively few frills and it was about being
able to drive like a bat out of heck. Since
we're a family show. What's interesting about the zero to
sixty number is that it's I mean, I don't think
it was the base model. It was maybe had like

(17:28):
sports package or something, but it's not like a z
R one or anything. It's a fairly entry level car.
You can up this. Now we're gonna go through some
of the the upgrades and you know what you can
do in the pricing and all that in just a minute.
But one step there's something called a Z fifty one package,
and that is the performance package. It costs a lot more. Yeah,

(17:49):
we will talk about what that gets you, I guess
in the end. But here's the other thing you said.
There are three versions of this, right, So you get
to the top version, there's the one EL there one
LT right, Yeah, the two l T the sting gray trims.
Sorry LT one and l T two. I'm mistakenly had
them transpose. But yeah, so there's trim options. But then
there's the LT three also, right, which gives you even

(18:12):
more of the same. Really, the engine stays the same,
The engine stays the same throughout, and they're uh, that
higher package, that higher trim package. It's more on oddly enough,
of course has everything from the first two package builds.
But then it it has this emphasis on making the
interior of the Corvette nicer. Which aren't the Corvettes traditionally

(18:36):
Aren't they known for not having the best interior? You're not, Well, yeah,
I mean yes and no, And I think I've really
tried to improve that in the past, right, I mean,
customers want it. It's like, do you feel like there's
a lot of older buyers of this vehicle because it's
gonna GE's getting out there in price, it's gonna be
a lot of people that are older. They're gonna want
a few more comforts, it's gonna be, you know something.

(18:57):
But but at the same time they want that you know,
that killer perform it And and well I got kind
of animated over here when you started talking about this
is because you're talking about how it's lightweight and it's
sort of a no frills version. If you go with
the bass version that they are thrown out there for
what fifty nine, there's under sixty, right, get comparatively when

(19:19):
you're talking about a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand dollars,
very absolutely when you when you compare it against what
it what it can compete against. But when you go
from the the LT one to the l T three,
this is what I found really remarkable. You're talking about
just a fraction of a second difference in zero to
sixty time. In fact, the performance package, when you start

(19:40):
adding the spoilers and some of the other accessories, it's
a tiny bit slower than the base version of the
same vehicle that you pay less four. But you get
all the you know, the appearance packages, and you know
all the the benefits of like cooling and breaking and
all the other stuff that we'll we'll talk about. But um,
and if you go up to the LT three, I
think between LT one and LT three, um, you're talking

(20:03):
about just again like a tenth of a second from
zero to sixty faster for you know, the top version
versus the lowest version, which is not going to be
really felt a whole lot. I mean, we are talking
about two point seconds as quick, um, But they have
the exact same quarter mile speed, So it's not like
you're really gaining any top speed or anything like that.
So if you're going to just just purely for speed

(20:24):
in this car and you don't really care about, uh,
you don't care about the handling characteristics of it, because
that's added in later with different you know, performance, well
we'll talk about them there. There's a really interesting chassis
work going on here too. But if you just want
a flat out fast car for the price that they're offering,
which not a lot of people are going to buy,
you can still get that for that for that base price,

(20:46):
it can It's something that's definitely accessible, which I thought
was pretty exciting. You know, not very often that you
know the performances matched so closely between the low end
vehicle and the top end v That's a good point,
you know, And I think it's it's also pretty well
thought out. The way that you can tell Chevy was

(21:07):
Chevy probably spent some intense research time figuring out which
customers would want what, because I think maybe I'm a
little more optimistic. I think there there's a ton of
people out there who will say a car like this
for sixty grand, you know what I mean? Uh, And

(21:28):
and true, maybe some of those people say, well, the
kids are finally away of college, right, and now I've
got a little more time and uh, a little more
capital will play around with, you know, so I can
see so many kitchen table conversations or some family it's like,
all right, uh, the kids are gone, or maybe I

(21:50):
just retired and years ago you promised that I could
get whatever car I wanted after that, you know what
I mean, Like I could see that happening for sure. Yeah,
and you know what, sixty thousand might be kind of
your upper limit to you might have you wanted a sedan,
it was gonna be fifty five thousand anyway or fifty
and this is a bump up, sure, and it's a
sports car versus sedan, that kind of thing, you know.

(22:12):
I mean, there's a lot of considerations to to make,
some concessions to make as well, you know, if you're
moving to a sports car from you know, a family vehicle.
But still, you're right, it could be a very exciting
move for somebody for a relatively low injury price that
gets you right in the in the performance bracket with
other supercars. As as Curse said earlier, you know, this

(22:33):
is something this is a remarkable vehicle. Really. I mean
when you when you really, if you go online, you
really look at what they've included in this package and
included in this deal, and the the redesign that's been done,
because every single part of this car has been gone over.
It's all new. They've got some This is like it's
got to be a marketing thing. They say there's one

(22:54):
carryover part from the previous model, uh model Corvette. No
one knows what the one part is, and I feel
it's just one of those things that you know, is
meant to garner attention. Yeah, so that's just something that
people love to say. And if to me, this is
an all new car really, and then that doesn't make
it a bad thing. I saw the same thing you're
talking about with the one component being carried over, but

(23:15):
I also wasn't able to nail down what it was exactly. No,
I don't think anyone ever will probably unless you know,
someone leaks at the top and maybe that'll be you
know later like oh, it's this emblem or whatever it is.
You know, this log nut, it's the carpet. The carpet
is the same. It's the carpet. It really, it really
does though it doesn't feel like there was some meeting
where there was a brilliant engineer describing this and they

(23:38):
said one that one throwaway line and then somebody in
their sales are marketing was like, I remember that one
sentence and someone said, oh, really, what specific component wasn'
and they're like that, I just remember that part of
the sentence. I can't tell you, but people love it. Yeah,
cut and pri but but yeah, so it's it is true,
And I think for that reason. You know, Motor Trend

(24:02):
does their research. I know that they're not perfect, but
I think that affordability to get into that supercar kind
of bracket, I think that is one of the primary
factors making this the Motor Trend car of the year.
They've had some weird choices in the past, and then
sometimes they've chosen things because of what they see as

(24:23):
the the future potential of it instead of what it's
actually done. So like the Tesla Model Esque, for instance,
was the car of the year, right, and Tesla again
has no shortage of criticism, right and honestly rightly so
in some degrees. But I see the logic of Motor
Trend going towards this, and honestly I spent some time

(24:46):
looking at one, and I thought, well, sixty grand, that's
that is a lot of money. It's a lot different
than an escape though it is it is, but I mean, I, um,
you know, I I love road trips and I would
love to have a car that I could take out
on a track for it. Escape is not that, No,

(25:10):
not necessarily. It might require some modification. Yeah, we might
have to mode it a little, just a little, yeah,
I would say. So, you know, there's a there's just
a there's a ton of exciting things about this car.
I'll tell you what. I'm gonna go ahead and list
off a few more of these specs that I have,
and then we'll jump into a few other things that
I found interesting along the way, and maybe we can
kind of branch off from there if you want. Yeah.
So another couple of things that people should know about

(25:33):
this vehicle if you don't already, is that, um, there
are twelve here we go with colors. Again, they're twelve
colors to choose from. However, you can pay for additional
four colors that are an up charge, so they kind
of make it a little specialty. But these are colors
probably that tested very high in their focus groups or whatever.
Those are going to be the ones that you pay
a premium for. But I think it's on the order

(25:53):
of something like, you know, five extra bucks or something
like that. And it's been the way that Corvette has
done in the past. You know, they've been different colors
of it that are you know, sought after that they
then say this is our premium color and you have
to pay extra if you're gonna order a brand new vehicles.
So colors again probably, yeah, Like if you're gonna order
a new car, that's pretty important, I guess, right, yeah, yeah, sure,
why not? You have three seat options. They make a

(26:14):
big deal about the seats in this car, and the
seats do cost you know that you get different versions
in different packages that you order. Of course, if you
go online you can find all that. But people are
talking a lot about the seats in this vehicle, as
they always do. You like this, the stitching and the
comfort and just the appearance of them and everything, and
the color leather that you use, and you know, the
inserts and all that. I mean, it's it's always a

(26:36):
big deal when they talk about seats in a in
a sports car. They all look like fantastic choices to me,
even the base seat looks like it's an incredible seat.
I would love to get some seat time GM listening.
But it would be a lot of fun to drive
one of these, even even with a base seat. I
can tell you that. But maybe maybe people's last, last

(26:57):
last option they choose. Maybe um, magnetic ride control. That's okay,
that's one that we had talked about being in this
Z fifty one package. Now, the Z fifty one advantage
is really if you do want to go up to
that package, which does bump you up to the l
T two package as well, it's not the speed, um
you're again we talked about that, how it's you know,

(27:17):
really similar to the base model in speed as far
as you know zero sixty and in quarter mile speed.
What you are getting for the Z fifty one package, though,
is this magnetic ride control, and you're also getting upgraded
breaks and cooling. As I mentioned earlier. The Z fifty
one package, however, is a five thousand dollar upgrade, plus
you have to pay eighteen hundred and fifty dollars on

(27:39):
top of that five thousand dollar upgrade in order to
get the magnetic ride control. So if that makes sense.
You have to kind of bump up to the Z
fifty one package and then also opt to get the
magnetic ride control, so it becomes essentially a nearly seven
thousand dollar option if you look at it that way,
you know what I mean. I mean you have to
have one on top of the other. You have to
kind of combine these numbers to get it, so kind

(28:01):
of an expensive upgrade. They have things like, you know,
as you would expect, you can get better speaker systems.
You can get a fourteen speaker sounds, and so I
don't know where you're gonna put fourteen speakers in that
in that cockpit anyway, but I think they get aggressively smaller.
I think so too. But they said that, you know,
most people are happy with ten will no kidding, They're
probably happy with ted I mean, and and likewise, you know,

(28:21):
there's probably a lot of people that will never turn
the radio on in that car. I mean, I would
think you're gonna have the windows down listening to the
engine the whole time. You know. That's it's probably the
way most people drive it all the time. And it
does have some kind of cool things too. It has
a big display you know, heads up I'm sorry they well,
they do have a heads up display, but then just
the driver information display, the one that's behind the steering wheel. Yeah,

(28:42):
the touch screens like behind and to the right. Well, yeah,
that's a different one. I'm talking about that. Well, they
have a big twelve inch display that has you know,
the tech and you know, the accelerometer displays and all that,
you know, some really fancy stuff behind there. And then
they do have the NAV system that you're talking about. Yeah,
the entertainment thing, right, So that's like a pretty big screen.
It's like an eight inch HD screen that is standard

(29:04):
in every vehicle, so you can even again, you can
get the base model and still get the standard HD
eight inch uh you know entertainment screen, which is exactly
the same one you're gonna get in the three LT version,
although it's going to have more features and options available
to you at that point. And one last thing that
I feel like, I'm I'm just listening off a bunch
of crap here now, but have you seen that that

(29:26):
array of buttons or that that lineup of buttons that's
on the side of the driver's driver's console. So you
get in and it's like everything is is angled towards
the driver, as is the kind of the trend recently
in the last chiefs maybe decade really to kind of
position everything so that's in control of the drivers, so
they feel like they've got access to everything to the

(29:47):
right and all the way down from the dash down
to practically where you fasten your seatbelt. That looks like
there's a lineup of looks like twenty buttons in a row,
but they're all in a single file row all the
way down. It looks a little difficult navigate it first
to manage, but it has just a cool appearance. I
like the way it looks. I think it's a good
use of space really, because they're gonna have that beam
there anyway. Talking about that single strip, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(30:11):
that is interesting to me. It is I've just never
seen anything like that in another vehicle that you know
that it doesn't mirror exactly some of the other vehicles.
I've seen a lot of controls over there, but they're
always clustered together into clumps, you know, like this is
the the navigation, this is the window operation for you know,
all the windows in the car. Well, it's also the
minimized the distraction to right. Sure, yeah, exactly, But I

(30:33):
just wonder how hard it is to learn those positions.
It's almost like learning a keyboard, you know. Yeah, doesn't
seem like that. I mean maybe some of them are.
Most of them are meant to be you know, viewed
and then pushed instead of you know, trying to access
them at you know, at speed. I would hope, Well,
here's the here's the thing. Those buttons are all the

(30:54):
climate controls, right, so it's the fans, speed, airflow, to frosters,
stuff like that. And of course it's a little classy
now it's guys. So the passenger and the driver have
different temperature controls and then heated seats stuff like that.
So it maybe something people do at speed, but typically,

(31:18):
you know, if you're doing a de froster or something,
you put that on when you're starting your car. You know,
I don't see a lot of people hopefully there's no words.
I have to eat later. But I don't see a
lot of people, you know, doing and saying, you know what,
this seed is too cold? Hang on, let me look away.
I have to adjust my lumbar right now. My lumbar

(31:39):
is killing me. Yeah, maybe people say that. I don't know,
but um, but yeah, it is an interesting design and
it's not it's not something super familiar. There is while
while we're going along this side, there is one thing
I have to say, um, that you had pointed out
off air, Kurt, that is probably one of the greater

(31:59):
contra verses about that. It's automatic. Yeah, now, Kurt, that
particularly bothered you, but didn't really bother me. I just
thought it was interesting that they wouldn't have They wouldn't
include that option and a Corvette, at least at least
from the get go. I think eventually maybe now I

(32:20):
saw you stand up and kick your chair across the room,
gambling loss so scambly all right, I thought I thought
maybe it bothered you more than I guess it did.
But but we had a little back and forth about that.
I just know that it it bothers a lot of
other people. I think that it makes the car a

(32:41):
lot more accessible in a way, along with the price
point and the automatic. I mean, I guess I guess
they could have. They say that it was a structural issue,
like that center posts there is essential to the rigidity
of the car, So if they cut a hole in it,
and also of the transmission. I mean the placement may

(33:03):
may cost some issues with that as well. Yeah, I guess,
you know, everything in the car, as we've heard with
the the other vehicle, kind of had to fight for
a place on the vehicle. You know that everything had
to be proven, everything had to be within weight, specks
be within you know, of course the design spec so
that they didn't have to change too much along the way.
But but you know they had automatic by the way,
that's a that's a pretty amazing piece of machinery there itself.

(33:25):
I mean they say that the shifts are made within
what is it like, one tenth of a second? One
tenth of a second, which is still uh as they
say ultra quick. It's ultra quick shifting. It's an eight
speed automatic transmission, and it's the same one that they
use in again all three models. Yeah, and you can
get the paddle shifter stuff as well. Yeah, so if
you want, you know, the supercar feel, I guess you

(33:46):
can shift with the battle shifters or just throwing and
drive and go. The Corvette did make an appearance at
Daytona in January seven. Do you guys see that it
was just it's weird because it's it's also on the
track with Ferrari and Porsche. This is the roar before

(34:06):
and more or less. Think of it like if you're
not familiar with the Rice, think of it like a
dry runner, a rehearsal for the Daytona Endurance Races time. Yeah, yeah,
I didn't. I did not see that. Man, Things like this, it,
things like this are just passing me by. Ben. We're
gonna talk about this in a future episode. I know
we're gonna talk about you know, some motorsports events that

(34:28):
are just kind of missed. Yeah, Like there's so much
scattering of of I don't you don't even know where
to I don't know how to better put this than
you just don't know where to go sometimes to watch
it all, to take it all into to realize what's happening.
Unless that's something that's marked off in your calendar every year. Uh,
you know, there's a good chance that you know it's
January eight and you realize that happened on the seventh.
That's happens a lot nature of the game. But also,

(34:49):
you know a lot of the I think part of
that is because a lot of times if somebody really
loves a race or racing, they love a particular genre,
are kind of racing. I mean they might say like,
uh so and so it is fine, but I'm a
NASCAR guy, you know, something like that. But I've been
keeping an eye on some of the Corvettes um news

(35:13):
the or some of the Corvette appearances would be a
better way to say it. One of the things that
I don't know whether we've emphasized this enough, Kurt, you
mentioned it a little bit. Remember this doesn't just enter
into the supercar category. It holds its own in there.
The the Ferrari, for instance, the Ferrari twelve super Fast

(35:36):
also hit sixty in two point eight seconds for several
hundred thousand more. Yeah, several We have to keep adding
that that, Yeah, this is a bargain. And so for
the past I don't know how many years, the Corvette
has been the best in this class. Yeah, I mean
the fastest. Yeah, there it is. It's comparable specifically to

(35:57):
the two seventy grand six to forty horse power Lamborghini Hurrican. Okay,
so this car, but this one is it's four horse power, right,
and and it's based, so we're talking based vehicles. Four
power seventy pound feet of torque. But if you do
go up to that Z fifty one package, here's again
you're not gaining a whole lot there. You're gaining mostly

(36:20):
in breaks and cooling and and the potential for the
magnetic ride if you if you opt for that, But
you're only gaining five horse power and five pound feet
of torque if you go up to the Z fifty one.
So it's not really a tremendous increase. And that's why
we see again just that very very slight difference in
overall speed top speed and zero sixties speed. So I

(36:41):
don't know, it's just it's an interesting way that they've
gone about this, isn't it. I Mean, you would think
that now. I wonder if we're gonna see soon, and
I would hope we would. We'll see like the you know,
the zero six package come out and uh or the
z R one package you know, which still top even
that and and just come out with some of these incredible,
crazy ultra performance versions. Of course, the price is going

(37:01):
to probably double, you know, if you if you do that,
but it's going to have you know, all the added
bells and whistles, and it's gonna look more like the
Batmobile than the one you know that's already out there,
if that's possible, and just be kind of a cooler
version of something that's already cool. That's what I think. Anyways,
I think we're gonna see it soon. I don't know
if they've even said it or not. I think it's
gonna happen. I mean there's gonna be of course, there's

(37:22):
there's coup and convertible versions of each one of these,
and and you know what, should we just like, let's
talk about pricing right now, just so that we can
get that out of the way. I think we've already
talked about the base. Of course, the one LT coupe,
which is gonna be if you want to get the
one LT convertible, Uh, that sends it up significantly. It's
a it's sixty seven, so it's just under sixty eight

(37:43):
thousand dollars and that does. However, I should say that
the convertible is a folding hardtop, which is that's pretty nice. Actually,
it's kind of cool to watch it. It It looks really cool,
it is, yeah, and it's just a it's a really
interesting thing. Yeah, I think you can operate that up
to which is again, that's that's right right there alone.
That's pretty interesting. Really. The bummer with the convertible is

(38:05):
that you can't see the engine through the rear window. Yes,
that's another point. I love being able to see the
engine through the Yeah, I like that too, or you
through the glass. It's not a rear window. Well, you're right.
With the you're right though. With the convertible, that panel
covers up that that entire area. You don't get to
see it. Yeah, since the roof slaying on top of
basically the engine, there's a lot of heat concerns and

(38:28):
sure things like that, so you don't get to see that. Okay,
well that's but it still does. Yeah, I guess so.
I'm a man. We were getting another conversation, but just
not a convertible guy. I'm not much of a convertible guy. Yeah.
I like, well even more so on this one. Yeah, exactly.
You can already take the top off of the Yeah,
and you can still in the back. Right. It's a

(38:49):
hard time. It's like a um, I guess what they
call a targa top. Yeah, it's like a single panel
that you can put behind you. Open the glass again
and you store it back there somewhere. It's just a
method of taking it off isn't as cool. You can't
do it at thirty miles. You could try, but I
don't think it would be a good idea. What you

(39:09):
could just kind of let it go, you know, also
where we are. You know, I love the idea of
driving one of those vehicles and hitting that drop top man.
That would be so cool. Converting a like twenty miles
an hour, But uh, to me, more moving parts equals
more opportunities to break. So for that reason, I'm not

(39:31):
the biggest convertible. Maybe I would convert to convertibles if
I owned one, and I would think this is the
best thing ever. God knows. I was blown away the
first time I got a sunroof in a car. I
was like, things are different, but there's a big hole
in the roof with with another seal to leak, right,
that's that's what happens often happens. Right. Convertible has six

(39:53):
motors to bring the roof back, six six. Those little
micro motors six broll probably more than that of those
little micro sensors that you know determine the buttons that
determine when to fire those motors, so even more parts
to break. And you know, someday, Kurt, you and I
should talk about the Cadillac XLR and uh and it's

(40:14):
the convertible top on that one, the hard top and
uh oh, what a disaster. It's hard and not so
much a disaster, is just really really difficult for service,
really difficult. The uh. I think we're back at two LT,
which is the coup if you go to two two
l T convertible seventy So we're getting up into the

(40:35):
mid seventies already at this point. So if you get
a convertible kind of mid level, it's up to just
under seventy five thousand dollars already, the low end or
the brother the high end coupe, the three LT, you're
looking at a base price of seventy one, and again
the high end convertible around seventy eight thousand, four ninety five.
Now I believe you can even go up higher than

(40:56):
that if you want. I mean, there are other options
you can add on, of course, sure, mostly appearance, as
you have talked about before. Change the wheels, you can change,
you know, the sound system, you can change, the leather,
you can oper you know, the convenience and comfort package
that has you know, the heated steering wheel and all that,
um but it but really that just comes down to
you know, your opinion, your taste esthetic. Well it is

(41:18):
yeah at that point, but some people, you know, they
really want all that stuff. They like it. If you're
gonna pay that much money for a car, might as
well be, you know, instead of just a sports car,
might as well be a luxury sports car, right, and
you can turn it from just a performance car into
a luxury performance car, or you can go the other
way with it. You start out with, you know, the
performance car and get upgrades that that are soon to come,

(41:39):
I would guess, either from the factory or you know,
right now, early early days, they are not going to
be the aftermarket pieces that everybody is you know, probably
dream enough right now, it doesn't happen that way. There's
a little bit of a leg until they figure everything out,
get to play with the parts a little bit, and
then there comes the aftermarket, and then they refine the
aftermarket and gets better and better, but it takes a while.

(41:59):
So so early on you're gonna be stuck with whatever
you buy. Not that you're stuck with it. But you're
gonna be um in the position where you just buy
that from Chevrolet and and that's what you've got unless
you mody yourself, which is another reason a lot of
people buy used cars. My friends. Yeah, that's true, but
I do want to say still to emphasize Chevy clearly
knows that people are buying this idea of a Corvette. Yes,

(42:22):
but they're buying the engine. The engine is really the
it's almost cliche to say at the heart of the sale.
Here at the heart of the drive. And I think
it's pretty telling that no matter which build you buy,
you get the same engine. As you said, Scott, that's
the only part that's non negotiable. Well, I you know

(42:43):
what I like to do, and I tried to do
this with this car, and I eventually I got to
the point where I kind of I wouldn't say I
lost interest, but I just got distracted with other things.
There were so many options that you could choose on
this vehicle. So as as Car and Driver put it
in one article that I read, it's it's uh kind
of the way that they would specttte they built one
on their own, and I wanted to see kind of

(43:03):
where my own version fell in there, and I never
got to the you know, the ultimate end of this
whole thing. But I was somewhere up near where they
got to, and they said, you know, it's fantastic value,
it's a great vehicle. But as they put it here
in this article, he said, let's be They said, let's
be real here. No one is buying the base price Corvette.
No one's going to buy that one. But I, like

(43:24):
you said, you're probably more optimistic though, right, Well, I
think people no rights. So there's some psychology here. I
think people will go into a dealership or go onto
the website to spec out builds and stuff with the
full and honest intention of only paying the base price,
plus you know, a tax tag and all that, all
that jazz. Will they get to the end of the

(43:47):
deal by and still have stuck to that price. I
don't know, man, I don't know. You know how it
is when the fever hits. Well, I'll tell you that
in this by the time you get to the end
of this article, the same one that you know, they
started out with the base price, and by the time
they got to the end, the price of their vehicles
seventy eight six seventy five, so just under eighty thou dollars.

(44:09):
Now that's upgrades. And I'll tell you just quickly. And
they got kind of a I think it's a white color.
It looks like maybe I think they call it like
Micah silver or something that's like a real light gray color.
Was that one of the four premium colors? No, no,
it's not one of the colors, just just one of
the colors. But they chose a pretty simple looking color,
and they decided they were going to go for performance

(44:29):
versus appearance in this whole thing. So there the idea
was just make it fast, make it cool, make you know,
something we can live with. But you know, we're not
going over the top with you know, I don't I
don't need every heated option, you know, the steering wheel,
the you know, every every other thing. I don't know,
the vibrating pedals to your feet, are you know, relaxed
on the tree. No, I'm just kid. They don't have that.

(44:50):
But but they did upgrade from the two LT the
three L T and that's of course an expensive option there.
I think it's like all in it's like seventy because
of other desirable convenience features. They had it in but
um so they went to the for the Z fifty
one packet Performance Package, which is five thousand dollars. They
added the suspension with magnetics selective ride control, which I

(45:11):
think a lot of people will Yeah, that's another one thousand,
eight hundred dollars. The g T two bucket seats, now
they did go up from the first so they did
change the seats. I think that was the recommendation of
someone who said, I have experienced in these seats and
you probably will want these if you're gonna take it
to the track, if you're gonna really want to be
held in place while you're you know, potentially racing this.

(45:34):
So they got the competition seats, competition sports seats. Yes,
that's right, g T two bucket seats. It's fourteen. It's
a fourteen up cell. So almost fifteen hundred dollars for
the better seats. Not like the car didn't come with seats,
they just got the seats. That's that's what I want
to check. So there are three different seats they can get.
The top one is the competition Sports seat, and the

(45:57):
main difference is that has more robust bowl stirs for
track driving. It sounds like they went up just to
the mid grade seat, which has the carbon fiber trim.
Oh come on, did they really? Okay, second, I gotta
more carefully read this article then, because I thought, I
really thought that they were just going simply for track performance,
because that would mean that they would go to the

(46:17):
g T three seats or the third level the competition
disease anyways, Okay, so it's an expensive upgrade. Anyway, they
went with the Oh, they did upgrade the wheels because
I think the wheels are a lot of people are
complaining about the wheels in this car. I like them.
You know. One thing it's interesting is there's a package
you can get that includes summer only performance wheels. Oh yeah, okay,

(46:38):
a lot of sports cars do that. Or you can
do the three season tires as well. Yeah. So it's
it's a tire package essentially the rubber that you buy
on the wheels. And if you do that, you got
to be pretty confident if you're going for just the
summer wheels, right, I mean, just the dry weather summer
wheels or summer tired. They keeps saying wheels, but summer tires. Yeah,
so you've got to be pretty confident I think that

(46:58):
you're not going to be driving this in any inclement weather.
You're not going to be driving it in I mean
any snow at all. Of course, I mean most people
can you know, determine if that's true or not. I'm
pretty sure most people know when it's snowing. But but still,
I mean, even so, the three season tires don't really
cover that either, So I don't know, this is all.
That's all gets very tricky. But the wheel upgrade, you know,

(47:19):
the actual metal part the wheel upgrade. They went with
the five tried and spoke wheels, which look really cool.
They really are cool. That's an that's an additional dollars.
So that's not necessarily the cost of the wheels. It's
just the upgrade cost of the wheels. Okay they did okay,
you know here it is. Here's against right here, ceramic matrix,
gray metallic paint. Zero dollars. That was a free one.

(47:41):
That's that's one that you know, it's just an option.
The yeah, not bad, that's that's that's the right price.
Oh and you know what you can also just see,
you know, in the seats, you can also offer something
they call the the adrenaline red seating surfaces and inserts
which you can have into whatever seats you get. And
that's also zero dollars, so another another name, not bad upgrade,

(48:03):
I guess if you want to spend no money on
something like that, not bad I mean, and to offer
something like that, I know it's cosmetic, but it does
look pretty cool in this vehicle when you look at it,
because you can do a three sixty view of this
car and to see that, you know, the red seats
behind the glass, it looks pretty nice. I agree. But again,
but you know, just these simple things that we talked
about here. You know, the UH, I guess the biggest
one is of course going up to the Z fifty

(48:24):
one Performance package, and then the UH the selective ride control,
the magnetic ride control, those are the big ones. But
but getting up to about eighty dollars isn't quite as
hard as everybody thinks. And this again was one where
they were holding back on some of the options. They
didn't go for everything. And as I went through, you know,
this build process, where you know, I wanted to like
kind of see what mine would cost, kind of like

(48:45):
they did. The price did start to rapidly climb at
some point and I realized, oh man, yeah, I've got
to back this down again. Maybe I don't need, you know,
the the caliper's painted red, you know, or maybe I
don't need because that's like, you know, another five dollars,
and you think, like, well, just paint on top of
the calipers, calipers that were already there. It's not like
they're better, they're just read and it's five dollars. Do

(49:06):
I really need that? Probably not? But but when you
look at the photo, like, yeah, I need that. You
can design the most beautiful looking car, but I mean
they also have like, you know, stripe packages that have

(49:28):
you know, fender fender stripes and you know stripes to
go over the full car, and they all look, you know,
someone look really good. Together the packages and the combinations
you can do and you can play around with that.
It's very tempting to do stuff like that. But then again,
every time you click that button, it's another five dollars
or a thousand dollars. Also, I want to point out, hey, uh,
we're talking about the C eight. You guys anticipate a

(49:49):
price drop in the C seven's only well it's not
as the dealer lot. No, I don't use market for
the seven. I mean, hey, hey why not? Kind of
why not? There might be one that's been hanging out
there for a couple of years or something, you know,
a color you know, combination that someone doesn't want or something,
and you might be able to luck into a pretty
good deal, you ever know, how Okay to your point, unrelated,

(50:13):
well semi related, Uh, this is something I was running into.
I thought, how good does a deal have to be
on any car for you to agree to? You know,
like you're buying a used car. The mileage checks out,
the systems check out, and the price is actually great,
but one thing the car is just some terrible color

(50:36):
or design, you know what I mean. Let's say for
some reason, you wandered into this deal where you got
like a twenty fifteen kick ass sports car. But part
of the reason the price was so great is that
it had you know, this huge airbrushed bright green Mickey

(50:56):
Mouse on it or something like. Yeah, I get you.
Would it be something where you would buy it if
you were saving so much money that you could afford
to get a new paint job on it. I think
absolutely myself. But but it would have to be done
because I've bought you know, I've bought so many cars
where I think, I'm gonna buy this version of this,

(51:18):
but I you know, I'm gonna. I'm gonna make this
my own. I'm gonna, I'm gonna buy the wheels I want.
I'm gonna get you, I'm gonna, i'm gonna do the
engine upgrades that I want. You know, I'm gonna, I'm
gonna do this to this vehicle. And then everything else
gets in the way, and you know, some of that
stuff doesn't happen, maybe all of that stuff doesn't happen
along the way, or something else happens that, you know,
prevents me from doing that, and then I never quite

(51:39):
get the vehicle that I really wanted to have. And
I think a lot of people fall into that trap,
is that you know, I'm gonna buy this car. You're
sure I'll buy that one. And it's purple, but you know,
I'm gonna make it, and maybe you love purple. I
don't know, but but I want to make it, you know, red,
and you know, no big deal. You take it to
the paint shop and you have a painted It might
cost you a couple of thousand obviously got a really

(51:59):
nice at jop on that vehicle, and you fully intend
to do that the day you pick it up, but
you just never get around to it, and it happens,
it does happen, or someone or someone dnse the car
in the parking lot and then you have to get
the dent fixed before you can get the paint done,
and it just kind of it's snowballs like that, Yeah,
and there's trouble. So yeah, it have to be a
pretty darn good deal. Especially and I think about the

(52:20):
shows where we talked about in the past, where you know,
car sales and how strange that whole world is and
that you know, you can sometimes sometimes in these off
the beaten path dealer lots, find a brand new vehicle
that is several model years old that's just been that's
just been sitting there. You might be able to in

(52:41):
You might be able to go back and pick up
model that's been hanging out in the back of the
parking lot for a while and it's in rough shape.
You know, people are just trying to get rid of
it because they've been losing money on it. Yeah, and
they to be honest that they've probably forgotten about it.
But if you find it, you know, maybe that's the
deal that you go for because it has zero miles,
but you know that also comes with some inherent problems.

(53:03):
There's there's there's a lot to weigh into consideration here.
You know, Man, I'm sorry I just went off on
that time. It was all right, But I want to
say this because I know people are gonna say, well,
why aren't you talking about the most important part of
this car, the most important update to this vehicle, really,
and that's the mid engine. This is partly by design

(53:24):
that we've done this, but partly because I think this
could be another full topic for us. I think it
has been in the past. We've already discussed it, but
now that we've got some new vehicles out there that
are employing this, I'd love to do another mid engine
episode completely just about that. Let's do it because the
technological innovations, just the engineering breakthroughs that have happened with

(53:45):
mid engines have have change the landscape such that I
think it's worthy of an update. I absolutely agree, And
there's just can I just mention a couple of things
about the mid engine configuration while we're talking about it?
I mean it's a core it's uh, you know, groundbreaking
for the Corvette to do it. I mean they had
hinted at doing this back in nineteen sixty nine, I

(54:06):
think is the first time we really saw them testing
a version of this, you know, um early early days.
We're talking you know, photos with Bill Mitchell and and
Doune Tough behind the wheel and you know the transversal
amounted V eight just cool old photos with you know,
body work on it or anything, but really really interesting photos.
So I started digging into the different layouts of vehicles
and I came across something that I thought, and again

(54:30):
understanding that we're going to talk about the mid engine
layout later in a full show, but I wanted to
share this with you, Ben, especially since we're talking about
your my Carla today. Did you know that your car,
your Chevy Monte Carlo, the first generation, which is the
one that's front, well, I guess you know seven, But
the first generation of that vehicle was a considered a front,

(54:50):
mid engine, rear wheel drive vehicle. And this is a
category of cars that I don't know why, but I
just I have neglected to really think about those vehicles
as mid engine up until this point, and all it
has to do with with is that the engine is
of course placed in front of the front I'm sorry,
behind the front end in front of the drivers still,
so these are really easy to spot. And I again

(55:14):
I'm kind of baffle as to why I haven't really
thought a whole lot about this, in fact, because when
we talk about mid engine, we typically think behind. Yeah,
we that's what we typically think of mid engine. But
mid engine can also be in the front of the vehicle,
in front of the driver. But these are the cars
that have kind of that long elongated front end at
that long nose. So you're seeing that in cars like
you know, the old Opal GT, or you're seeing it

(55:36):
in new cars like the Keyest Stinger. You can see
that on the road. Of course, Dodge Viper is a
good one. Corvette, you know, the previous, not every version,
but see two through C seven. I think corvettes are
front mid engine vehicles technically, if you want to go
that with that route. But um, that's again this like
textbook definition of what it is. You still call it
a front engine vehicle, but it's placement behind the axle

(55:59):
makes it a front mid engine vehicle. And you know,
the S two thousand's another one. There's the excess the
Lexus l f A. If you just look for vehicles
on the road that have that stretched out front end,
you know where the driver, passenger, and even sometimes a
rear seat are set way to the back of the vehicle.
You know, you can you can see how the long
and low that front end is. Those are the vehicles

(56:19):
that have that front mid engine design. And again, it's
just a kind of a category that I don't really
think a whole lot about. It's one of those things
you can't unsee pretty often because you can tell by
the shape of the vehicle. And some Corvette enthusiasts have
reacted adversely to the mid engine of the They've said,
you know, I like the C five through seven way better.

(56:41):
Uh You've seen you can see some reviews where people
say that as a stubby nose and that it's the
opposite of the long nose with the shorter back deck
kind of sports cars or that Corvette had for you know,
the past six decades. Well, you know, I I just
I love the look and the style of this new vehicle.

(57:03):
I can't wait to get to a dealership and sit
in one you know, and just kind of kind of
go over one closely, real closely and check out everything
about it. You know, I just kind of marvel over
what they've done with it, because you know, they're gonna
have a great example. I'm sure in a lot of showrooms,
you know, just even if it's that one car that
they've got on the you know, the main floor there
to draw people in, they're gonna have one. Everybody's gonna

(57:24):
order at least one to get people excited about it. So,
you know, even if you're in a small town somewhere,
you can I'm sure you can find a Chevy dealer
in nearby that's gonna have one. They're available to do
something like what I'm gonna do, and it's going, uh,
you know, leave a few nose prints on the glass.
You know what a lot of people are doing now
and have been for a while. It's an industry that
I personally don't know a ton about. There are a

(57:44):
lot of people who are buying exotic cars or high
performance vehicles entirely to rent them out. And you can
actually make money doing this in you know, in a
in a city with a dense enough population like Atlanta.
I sense a new show coming on you. Yeah, well
it's at least a pitch. So what are you guys?

(58:05):
So well, they do it through um, they do it
through different I think there's a like a third party
service where you can say, Okay, I want to performance car,
high end luxury vehicle of some sort. And I only
learned that people were doing this because I talked to
a guy who really really did My god, he did

(58:26):
it that, that crazy son of a gun. He put
down his order for one of those cyber trucks, one
of the Testlas cyber trucks. Yeah, that's the face I'm ade, dude,
are you serious? Which one are you going to get?
You know, when we talked about it, and then part
way through he corrected, he said, oh, you know, I'm
not gonna it's not my daily driver. No, No, I'm

(58:48):
gonna put it up on this thing, and I'm gonna
get the camping package and then people are going to
pay to rent it to go camping. And I thought, well,
that's a what a cool idea. That's a lot of
confidence is And man, can you imagine what your insurance,
you know, premiums are gonna be for something like that
or like offering a service like this. Yeah, I don't know.
You know, people do it with boats a lot. Yes,

(59:11):
you could. You could own a fleet of boats or
supercars or just one. Yeah, And and it's an interesting idea.
I mean, it's definitely a way to support your growing
corvette habit. You know, I feel like, um, you know,
we're nearing the end here. There's there's just there's a
lot to talk about with this new Corvette. A lot
of it is just really kind of gut feeling stuff, opinions,

(59:33):
and you know, because right now we haven't really got
any kind of concrete vehicle to look at or get
hands on with right now. We're not one of those
uh automotive magazines that you know, they hand the keys
over to and allow them to drive around for a week.
That would be great if they did, wouldn't it. But
but we're not those guys yet. So we've only been
doing this like eleven years, right another another eleven, fifteen

(59:54):
more years, whatever, and maybe we'll be those guys. One
one thing though, I do have to add u the
rumors about a possible hybrid plug in or electric model
continue to this day, and people are getting a little
little antsy about it on January eighth, so literally yesterday

(01:00:17):
as we record this, there was a little bit of
excitement because a stingray was spied testing with a cable
hanging out in the hood. So people freaked out and
they thought they're secretly testing the electric one, but uh,
Chevy reached back out and said it was a very
early test mule for the and that the orange cable

(01:00:39):
they saw sticking on the front hood was actually a
way to ease access to the twelve volt battery. Okay,
so it's like, yeah, it's not super we're not super
advanced and being top secret about it, this is how
we jumped the car as an extension cable from home
depot right exactly. Know. I was to guess, okay, this

(01:01:00):
is Detroit, right, that likely that we're seeing this this
car and driving around because that's where they test all
these things and they get to see all this stuff
right early, way but way earlier than us. But it's
probably camouflaged. And I was thinking, all right, that's somebody
who just got in and accidentally shut you know, their
their phone charge record in the door or something, and
everybody's like, oh, that's the electric version, but that with
an orange chord stick out of the hood. That would

(01:01:21):
be something that would draw attention. I would guess interesting though.
I wonder, you know'd be kind of funny if it
was like, well, man, this Detroit in January. That's that
that's a block heater. He's on the big diesel and
it's like like they can't park it inside at GM right. Yeah, yeah,
they're just straight out of garage space. Yeah, they don't
have any space at all. So yeah, I think the
reason these rumors are gaining so much power and so

(01:01:44):
many peoples have their eyes on it is because after
the car was debuted back in July. Uh, someone on
the Corvette team said, hey, we might electric, we might
try to electrify, to have some sort of electrification of
this vehicle at some point. But that's all they said.

(01:02:06):
And that's right where I would have slapped them, knock
it off, get out of this room. No, I wouldn't
have done that. But but oh man, this is a
different episode. Yeah, yeah, it really is. I just feel
like I just feel like the power is not there yet. Well,
look at the La Ferrari. That's everybody points to those cars.

(01:02:27):
Wasn't there a McLaren. There's McLaren m one or something
those have it that that's true. But just I'm just
saying for that price point, electrified a car and keep
you that performance would mandate a higher pro But I
can't help It's just it's just like the um instinctual
response to me to to like kind of screw my

(01:02:48):
face up and go, oh no, what are they doing?
Because I had the same thought when they talk about, um,
you know, electrifying the Mustang or you know, any other
performance car that that I've known from the past that
you know, like, what are they what are they gonna do?
Because every time I'll put it real simply, just anything
with batteries in it has always let me down every time.

(01:03:10):
And I don't anticipate this to be any different with
with cars, right, every everything has let me down. I
mean your phone, radio controlled toyss, early electric cars, remote controls,
and your you know, for your television. You're right, the
battery in this stupid laptop and I'm looking at right
now has let me down. Well we're recording as a

(01:03:32):
matter of fact, but every time anything relies on battery power,
it has always let me down through my whole life.
And I feel like maybe that's something that you know.
I I there's just something that that prevents me from
fully trusting that as you know, viable technology. I know
that there's a lot of you know, research and of

(01:03:54):
course billions of dollars spent to prove me otherwise. You
know that that it's it's working. But um, I just
get that that gut reaction and to say that you're
going to create a hybrid electric um corvette, I don't know.
I just having a hard time with that. I'll ease
into it maybe, yeah, I'll have to. I mean again,

(01:04:15):
this is another full show. We can talk about you know,
performance and hybrid hybrid electrics if you want to, we can.
But for sure we're gonna have another show about mid
engine design cars because, as you said, Ben, we do
need to do an update on it. There's a lot
more out there available now. We had not that we
had a limited supply to talk about before, but now
they're even more that we can discuss with that you

(01:04:38):
heard it here first. GM, if you do decide to
lend some corvettes to Scott myself, make sure you don't
give Scott an electric one, because it doesn't sound like
he's gonna have it. Uh. I don't want to sound
like I'm begging a bit, and I would love to
drive one of the Corvettes. I've been I've been on
this campaign. I've I've I've this is the honest truth.

(01:05:03):
Since last summer, I've been asking my wife if I
can make a large, you know, a significant withdrawal from
our savings in order to buy one of these cars.
I would buy one of these cars brand new. This
is what I would. I am jack about this car.
I think this car is It's amazing. I really, I
really am excited about the format at the beginning. I

(01:05:26):
really am. I'm excited about Corvette and you know, maybe
that will fade a little bit here in the near future,
but but man, I just it's such a cool vehicle.
It really is. Also, even though I know it's not
the same thing, think about how much the price on
a on a C seven is going to drop. Oh yeah,

(01:05:47):
and I love those two you know what I mean? Yeah? Yeah,
I think that's a fantastic design. And you know, okay,
we can't we keep adding more things, but I would.
I would kind of like to know this from from
you and from our listeners. Maybe this is the final question.
I don't know, but what's your gut feeling on this too?
Every time they release a new Corvette, I feel like
that it immediately dates the previous version of Corvette, you know,

(01:06:09):
like the when they released the C seven, the C
slicks look pretty old to me, and and all the
way going all the way back, and there are other
models that you know, I don't know, they still look
like they're they're not great if something I would would
still cherish where if I were to get one, of course,
but um, there's a few years in there that I
just don't really like personally. But what do you think
about the C seven Corvette now that you've seen the

(01:06:30):
C eight? Like, would you go back and buy a
C seven knowing that you could get a C eight
with the you know, dramatically different appearance? And it does
look like it's the old Corvette now, right, even though
it's still a fantastic car. It looks beautiful in my opinion. Yeah,
I don't know. I just looking at it, I was
thinking how quickly does this date everything else before it?

(01:06:52):
And it wasn't around that long. C seven was around
for a very short amount of time, just a few years.
I don't think I would feel it maybe dated, but
I don't think I would feel bad about it because
it's already. Um it's already such a great vehicle for
what what it does that. I don't you think it

(01:07:12):
holds up? I think it holds up. Yeah, I will
say that, I think it holds up. Now also consider that,
you know, if you take care of those cars in
a few years time, depending on how hard you ride them, uh,
you'll end up with legitimately a classic car. That's the
thing that kills me, you know, Like with last time

(01:07:33):
I mentioned the Monte Carlo and air for a while, man,
I was in those conversations with myself where I thought,
you know, I just gotta keep it running, keep it
going until until I can get so I can get
the old school license plate that means I don't have
to do emissions anymore. And I was like, then, I'm golden.

(01:07:53):
It's still several years ago, still while away. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
so I'm I'm I'm yeah, we can't get rid of
a C seven just because the C eight is out.
But no, I wouldn't say you get rid of it.
I just mean when you see it on the road, now,
are you gonna think, well, that's the old Corvette. I'm
waiting to see the new one. I'm still so impressed though,
you know what to the C seven is still a
beautiful car to me. Yeah. Yeah, And I can't believe

(01:08:16):
you're gonna buy a C eight. Let's not spread a
rumor here, but I but I, oh, man, if I
if I just had that that extra cash laying around,
you know, if I, if I did, I think that
at this moment, that would be the one that I
would get. Should our pal and fearless leader Scott Benjamin
purchase a Corvette C eight. Let us know. You can

(01:08:36):
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(01:08:57):
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I mean wherever wherever you want to go? Okay, somewhere else,
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Oh that's right. So if you go to Apple Apple Podcasts,
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(01:09:19):
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(01:09:45):
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