The new Corvettes have now been snapped on the old Nürburgring circuit itself, and this time they had those all-important yellow stickers in the top left corners of the rear screens. Unlike the third car from the earlier set of images, neither of these cars had an electrical socket cap on the driver’s side front fender, but maybe the socket is hidden in the trunk to throw us off the scent or because these are earlier development cars. The E-Ray might not even be a PHEV at all, just a straight hybrid, but that seems unlikely given that Porsche, Ferrari, and Lamborghini all have, or are working on plug-in hybrid sports cars.
The two cars are wearing different wheels, both sets apparently pinched from the new high-performance Z06. Though car number 7’s five-spoke wheels look less interesting at first glance, they’re actually carbon fiber rims made for GM by Carbon Revolution that weigh 18.6 kg less than the standard Z06 wheels. Car 7 also has a more aggressive front splitter than its number 5 sister. Chevy makes no secret of the fact that a hybrid Corvette is coming and released a video earlier this year confirming that fact, while simultaneously revealing that it would be all-wheel drive. That would make the E-Ray, as it’s believed to be called, the first production Corvette to send any power through the front wheels, as well as the first hybrid.
But potentially the first of two, because
a Hagerty story based on an alleged leaked document from GM claimed that Chevy
was making a pair of electrified Corvettes with wildly different power outputs,
which would be followed by an all-electric C8. Hagerty’s intel suggested a
Corvette Grand Sport would combine a 6.2-liter V8 with an electric motor making
600 hp and 678 Nm of torque, while the flagship
Zora would get an assisted version of the Z06’s 5.5-liter V8 and churn out
1,000 hp and 1,322 Nm of torque. Chevy has
confirmed that one of those hybrids is coming this year, and our money is on
the Grand Sport being first in the line.
