Michael T

The difference in dry weight and curb weight on the C7 was 158 pounds, so with 68 pounds more for the C8 dry, delta of ~226 pounds wet. Keep in mind the hp is up ~8%.

billh1963

Like I had posted earlier the new 992 looks like an efficient modern transportation unit.....period.

I drive my 76 911S with its CIS 2.7L engine, 915 transmission, and archaic suspension and come home in love with car every time. As I sit in the garage afterwards I smell the hot oil and listen to the pinging of the cooling engine and feel a bond. The car and I have been somewhere together. Maybe it was no where special, but we did it together. Most of the time I actually pat the car the car on the fender and thank it for a fun drive. Anyone else do that? That's passion. Of the 120+ cars I have owned, very few cars do that for me. This old brown 911 is the car I'll probably keep forever.

I sense some of those feelings stirring with the C8. Maybe, it will do the same for me. Maybe, it won't. But, I can tell you I'm intrigued by it...more so than I have ever been for the 991 or 992 series.

TexasRider

I got an email from Mike Furman one of the biggie Corvette sellers. In it he said the Corvettes are not all sold out - or in other words we frothy buyers can still get a 2020 Corvette.

I didn't read the whole thing, but I also think that GM might have gotten too far on that. It likely that the dealers have placed enough orders to take up the production. But it still has to be sorted out on allotments and such. Also I have heard or read that while GM floor plans a variety of the fleet, that Corvettes are actually sold to the dealer upon delivery.

In any event the car is going to be available and these waves happen when the water gets whipped up.

ZDan

Chassis stiffness (within reason) is not strictly related to the rate at which screws loosen or structures become permanently deformed. You can have an extremely stiff chassis and have parts come loose and deform. You can have a more compliant chassis and have parts stay tight and never deform. Particularly at chassis stiffnesses we are talking about here. And despite your protestations, 15,000 N-m/deg is IMO quite stiff! Relative to reasonable sports car requirements anyway.
Personal experience:
I had a '90 FC RX-7 convertible that was flexible as hell, but it stayed better screwed-together and more rattle-free vs. way way WAY more rigid FD, which had notoriously fragile interior parts
I'd guess the FC 'vert's stiffness had to be less than 3000 N-m/deg. With the top down the first natural frequency felt like maybe 5 Hz, I mean it was very noticeably flexible! Car was totally solid structurally and interior bits wise, up until it lunched a couple of apex seals at 105k miles... FD was supposedly 15,000 N-m/deg. It was a street/track car for me with 13kg/mm springs, (and a 550hp 6.8 liter LS3...), chassis was a brick as far as I could tell. Interior bits snapped and came loose if looked at funny, though...
My 2001 S2000 had a stiffness of 7100 N-m/deg, reportedly. To me, it felt plenty stiff, and it stayed well screwed-together and rattle-free for 240k miles plus 50 or so track days! It was totally stock save for 4-point roll bar.

At one point I actually had a 1995 Z28 convertible, another flexi-flier! Believe it or not, as palpably soft as that car's structure was, it gave me zero problems and had no rattles ever. I had it from 60k to 110k miles.

To reiterate: 992 'vert is 15,000 N-m/deg... That does NOT mean it will fall apart or suffer permanent deformations during a lifetime of usage...

But it simply *isn't*. A chassis being stiffer does NOT mean it is "better-built", or more durable, or less prone to fasteners loosening, or less prone to structures permanently deforming or fracturing.

Well, 15,000 N-m/deg is stiff enough for Porsche's 992 covertible...

Again, as a professional structural engineer with industry experience, IMO 15 kN-m/deg shouldn't concern anyone who is going to drive this car on the road and at the track. If you're going pro racing at Daytona, Sebring, or LeMans, you might hold out for C8R...

Actually there are a fair number of direct comparison tests through the ages where the Corvette has been declared the better-handling and more driver-engaging car vs. 911 and Cayman even... Hell, here's a random one from my bathroom, November 2014 Road & Track, C7 picked over the Cayman in comparison test (3rd place M4).

Are there no bolted structures on the 911? Nothing inherently wrong with properly-designed bolted joints. Almost any modern vehicle is going to have a combination of welded and bolted structures, I'm pretty sure we already covered *why* they probably are going to more bolted-joint construction...

Anyway, in looking into this I came across these comments from an automotive engineer on engtips.com:
With production cars we saw a rapid increase in torsional stiffness in the 80s, and it hasn't stopped going up. At around 10000-20000 the gains in handling and S&R start to reach the point of diminishing returns but some manufacturers have a bit of a fetish about it.
The conversation was about how a "requirement" for a Chaparral 2 CanAm car from the 60s was a torsional stiffness of 4000 N-m/deg...

Here's what Bugatti had to say about the torsional stiffness of the open-top 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse (2012-2015), a 1200hp 4200 lb. car:
Like the Super Sport, the Vitesse uses a full-carbon monocoque which enables an extremely high torsional rigidity of 22,000 Nm per degree...

Again I'd like to say that as a structural engineer and long-time sports car enthusiast and track dog and driving instructor, this is where I LIVE. In my opinion, we have gotten to a point where just about any performance car is going to be *plenty* stiff enough for just about anything you want to throw at it. If anything I would prefer manufacturers of sports cars to dial it back a bit on *everything*: size, power, weight, stiffness, etc. and give me something like a modern 240Z...

TexasRider

The 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera Slides In Just Under $100,000

The base version of the 992 is here, with a 379-hp 3.0-liter flat-six.




https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-car...otos-specs-hp/




But you will never see one for 100 at your dealer . . .

Shockwave

hf1

I've seen it in multiple places that the dry vs curb weight diff (weight of all fluids: oil, gas, coolant, windshield washer fluid) is at least 200+ lb. Do you have a link (or breakdown) for the 158lb?

The consensus number for C8 curb weight on the forums is 3600+ lb.

C7 Grand Sport curb weight is already 3428lb: http://autotk.com/weight/chevrolet/corvette/

iammacey

Nice. I was coming here to post this and you beat me to it.

STG

How hilarious. How convenient timing. $$$ base starting price. With average options?? $125K-$130K?

Never has a Porsche headline ever been "Porsche under $ ___._______". Now advertising price points like your local supermarket?

Shockwave

base model 911 is now $100k... Same price as a GT4.

Which would u choose?

bertram928

“Now advertising price points like your local supermarket?”


Even rich people like deals

i always shop the whoo hoo deals at Kroger

Michael T

Try page 22 here:

https://www.chevrolet.com.mm/images/...s/corvette.pdf

The published difference in the C7 Stingray dry to wet weight is actually 138 pounds (my bad eyes). The fluids are mostly gasoline at 18.5 gallons at 6.07 pounds per gallon or 112 pounds, 11 quarts of water (23 pounds), and five quarts of oil (8.5 pounds) plus tranny and brake fluid I get more like 160 pounds.. The C8 has about 5 more quarts of oil (dry sump) and will likely have more water on board given the additional plumbing mid to front. The Z51 weighs more (dry sump in C7) bigger brakes, diffy cooler), as do the GS, ZO6 and ZR1. But apples to apples, the two base stingrays C7 to C8 should be more like 230 pounds different.

K-A

Yep. And they keep touting “hOw mAnY cOmMenTs tHiS tHreAd hAs” yet said comments are all coming from the same handful of players.

Except you forgot the past where you can get a 911 with 40K deg of stiffness. Show me where you can get a C8 over 15K? I’ll wait.

Comparing it to a roofless 911 makes my point that you once again miss. And verts generally plummet in resale faster because of the fact that their flimsier structures don’t hold up as well over time (cowl shake, loosen up, not as tight as when new, etc.).

Did the emissions scandal kill over 100 people due to a known negligence for the company to save a few cents per car? And VAG execs are sitting in jail. Are any GM execs in jail for knowingly choosing pennies over lives? And you think
questioning their measly rigidity figure is irrelevant as it’s no cause for concern?

Again, either you “get it” or you don’t. 911’s are the hallmarks of sports cars and uphold resales values because their cars stubbornly follow one design idiom while the rest of the car market has to change design language constantly. I absolutely want to spend my money on a car that in 30 years someone will mistake as new. Hells yeah. That’s why 993’s are selling for more than new C8’s are.

And proof is in the pudding. Porsche, with its timeless “never changing” language, will continue to sell cars with less paper stats and far higher margins for over double the price of C8’s. Seems to be a winning strategy no one else can quite match.

As for “dressed up VW.” Ok, now you’re showing your bitter trolling cards. But hey, by your logic, a Vette would then simply be a “GM.” Not a “dressed up GM,” but simply “GM.” Can’t get much lower than that.

C’mon, 15K is at the lowest range of ANY new car today. Who wants one of the least torsionally rigid cars available, if they have a choice?

Yes, slews of verts will match that figure. But A: The C8 isn’t a full open top. And B: Many people like myself AVOID verts because they’re so flexy and don’t hold up so solid over time. The point is you have no choice with the C8.

The car you had which you’re referencing are 20-30 years old. We’ve come a long way since then. Those cars would also fold in an accident where newer cars wouldn’t. Those cars also didn’t have 500 HP engines, 3,600+ lbs and the capacity to pull 1G’s stock. I.e, far less stress on the structure.

I’m simply not entirely comfortable with a car launching in 2020 with such a low rigidity figure, when it comes from a brand historically known for soft chassis’ that flex and rattle over time, and whose owners who track Vettes commonly state how after abuse, the structures don’t feel the same.

Hence why why I am drawing correlations to the structure as well as the fact that’s it’s almost exclusively bolted being tied to a bigger picture.

Hypercar manufacturers go into great detail about how important their high torsional rigidity figures are to the long term durability and quality of their cars. If the C8 is expected to perform as well as it should, it simply won’t be helped by a yes, soft figure. Same goes for any verts who clearly show a loss of tightness quicker than their coupe siblings.

STG

K-A

The way I see this thread is that a handful of C8 fanboys refuse to understand the common economics in which a car at its cost will have shortcomings. That it must be sprayed with unicorn dust. Simply impossible. That Porsche owners must bow at the fiberglass throne. Running through the streets with “HA! HA! Everyone is jealous now!” signs. It happens with every gen Vette. Naturally more this time.

..... And I say that as someone who actually likes the car. But the fact that some fanbois want to pretend like the last 60 years of GM didn’t happen and the world button just got reset, desperately demanding 911 owners to concede at the alter of Corvette, lousy rigidity figure and all, well, just comes off as desperate and transparent.

Vettes have always been faster for less dollar. Nothing new. And many still chose not to buy them. Because there are more important factors for driver + ownership of enjoyment.

Yes, it’s a great car. No, it isn’t sprinkled by unicorn dust. Yes, you can find places to criticize it and not overtly defend it at every step..