The C7 Corvette Grand Sport is a classic in the making. It’s a simple recipe—wide body, brakes, and chassis of the Corvette Z06, with the naturally aspirated V-8 of the Stingray—executed to perfection. There were faster C7 models, but the Grand Sport was perhaps the sweetest.
Today, we’re all getting hyped about the upcoming Corvette ZR1, which seems to be a step forward from the Z06 formula. If Chevy’s teaser video proves true, the new ZR1 may get a twin-turbo version of the Z06’s LT6 V-8. But that got me thinking about the Grand Sport, and wondering why a new one doesn’t seem to be on the horizon.
It would be a simple thing to make. As before, take a Z06 and swap out the LT6 for the Stingray’s cross-plane LT2 V-8. That car mostly exists today in the form of the E-Ray, which uses the Stingray engine in a Z06 body, but paired with an electric motor for the front wheels. So you can consider a new Grand Sport either a lower-powered Z06, or a de-hybridized E-Ray.
Motor1 editor-in-chief Travis Okuski argues that the last thing a C8 Stingray needs is more grip. And he has a point. This is a rear-drive car with just under 500 horsepower that can crack off sub-three-second 0-60 MPH runs and set blistering lap times at any road course in the world. Plus, there’s an argument to be made that today’s performance cars generally have too much grip. That taking tire away is actually a recipe for more fun, if not as much outright speed.
I say let the customer decide. It would be simple enough for Chevy to engineer and market a new Grand Sport, and it can charge more for it than a Stingray, while further amortizing the wide bodywork of the Z06, E-Ray, and presumably, ZR1 plus future model variants. This hypothetical Grand Sport could focus on lowering curb weight with a few key composite components, while bundling the Corvette’s more track-oriented features into a single trim package.
Plus, combining the different pieces of a performance-car Lego set in various permutations seems to be a recipe for success. Porsche sells so many different versions of the 911, and while cars at the higher end like the Turbo S, GT3 RS, S/T and the like are the big profit makers, there are still a ton of models at the lower end. Dodge had similar success mixing-and-matching various components to create a wide range of Charger and Challenger models, and now Toyota’s doing something similar with the many models of off-road trucks based on its TGNA-F platform, and the huge number of trim levels within each model range.
You can argue that Chevy doesn’t need a new Corvette Grand Sport, but does Porsche need a 911 Carrera T to slot between the base model and the Carrera S? Does Toyota need a Land Cruiser, 4Runner, and Lexus GX that are mechanically almost identical?
Maybe we’ll see a Grand Sport towards the end of the C8’s life. That’s how the C4 and C6 Grand Sport came about, after all. These were runout specials, models designed to inject a bit of life into a car that was about to be redesigned. Maybe once the ZR1 and the rumored Zora hybrid flagship are out, Chevy will start mixing and matching to make us a new Grand Sport.
