Clay model in aero video

[68roadster]

What is this model, and why do they have it in the video of the C8?

[Frenzy36]

Exactly. Your guess is just as good as anybody. Could it be past ? Could it be future?

[Meldoon]

That side vent looks sleeker than the Stingrays......very nice......

[68roadster]

Well I love ME cars, and that also looks way cool

[Klinn]

I think it was an early clay when they were still working out the main features. I wonder if the other side has different sculpting? They often do that when this early in the process.

And don't be deceived by the ZR-1 in the background, it could have been in the studio well before its release having final tweaks being done. So the timing may be earlier than you think.

[Klinn]

That side vent looks sleeker than the Stingrays......very nice......

The side vent *looks* like a stingray! Squint a bit and you'll see the similarity to the emblem. Personally, I'm glad they didn't get too attached to that concept.

[CraZ8]

I made a thread on this before, personally I think it’s a future hp variant.

[meyerweb]

I made a thread on this before, personally I think it’s a future hp variant.

I understand your logic, but I find it hard to believe GM would leak anything remotely related to a future product this way.

[Chris Draper]

I spoke one on one with Kirk Bennion at the Petersen Museum over the weekend. He said they had no less than 30 iterations for the front corner intakes to get them just the way they wanted. I'm sure this clay is one of many they had, and not a future design.

[brad66]

Looks like an early clay model. The C7 ZR1 in the background is also a clay model.

[John]

I spoke one on one with Kirk Bennion at the Petersen Museum over the weekend. He said they had no less than 30 iterations for the front corner intakes to get them just the way they wanted. I'm sure this clay is one of many they had, and not a future design.

GREAT post Chris!!! Excellent info and lucky you to have had that conversion. Kirk loves not just his design times, but as an HPDE instructor himself, loves to spend time in the wind tunnel refining the aero on our Corvettes. As Tadge reported, Kirk was in GM two great wind tunnels over 100 hours just fine tuning the 2019 ZR1. I will ask him at the Bash how many hours he spent inside of them on the C8.

GM has this excellent process for aero, first initial design, then subjecting those designs to a combination of Cray and other computers, superb software, wind tunnels, fine tuning with 3D printing fractionally each small-changed part, testing them again in the wind tunnel, etc. I know that the C7 Stingray/Z06 door mirrors, its spoiler, and its top-of-rear-fender NACA ducts collectively went through that process hundreds of times for the C7 development process.