Mike Petrucci, Corvette lead devel-
opment engineer. The final design,
the so-called “squircle,” allows a
clear view of the new dash display
and went through countless iter-
ations before it was finalized. “It
gets down to millimeter by milli-
meter,” says Juechter. “That’s just
the wheel. There are literally a mil-
lion decisions on the way to making
a new car.”
And those decisions get more
complex when you move to the inte-
gration vehicle phase, represented
by the third car in the garage. This
is the point where everything has
to be production-ready. And so:
They build it. Over two weeks,
throngs of engineers bring in their
parts—or 3D-printed facsimi-
les thereof—and build the first C8
from the ground up, the world’s
most complicated IKEA project.
There’s no instruction manual.
Along the way, they cataloged 400
issues that needed to be addressed
to make the car possible for the
production line.
The integration vehicles are
also where the team addresses
ENGINEERING
DEVELOPMENT VEHICLE,
AKA BLACKJACK
NUMBER PRODUCED: 1
GOAL: Test computer
models of basic structure
and suspension geometry.TEST MULE
NUMBER PRODUCED:
12 (5 crash-tested)
GOAL: Te s t p ro d u c t i o n
engine, transmission, and
structure, using C7 parts
where convenient.INTEGRATION VEHICLE
NUMBER PRODUCED:
108 (36 crash-tested)
GOAL: Finalize production
parts and tuning (includ-
ing interior), validate the
build process to ensure
the car can be mass-
produced, define the
character of the car.PRE-PRODUCTION
VEHICLE
NUMBER PRODUCED:
Hundreds.
GOAL: Assess how produc-
tion-line cars differ from
integration vehicles, and
tune accordingly.THE CARS
small details, from stuff you
just expect to work, like the fuel
gauge, to subjective topics, like
shift quality. “We’re tuning on the
racetrack,” says Petrucci. “You’re
taking a pile of parts and turning
them into a Corvette.”
And that preproduction Cor-
vette sits 10 feet away. They just
got this car from the Bowling
Green factory two months ago,
and the interior is still mostly
camouflaged. It seems like the
car is done, but not quite. “When
you’re used to driving these devel-
opment vehicles and get into one
of these from the production line,
it’s different,” says MacDonald.
“And you go, OK, why? It’s all the
same parts. But it’s balanced dif-
ferently on the track, the ride and
handling has subtly changed. So
you figure out what changed and
what you need to do to get it back
where you want it.” They’ve got
some time—the C8 isn’t slated
for production until the end of the
year. But given what I’ve seen, I
can’t help but wonder: What are
they working on next?Far left: Not the
final interior.
Left: The pro-
duction car has
60 percent of
its weight on
the rear wheels.
Blackjack helped
teach GM how to
take advantage
of that—and deal
with new chal-
lenges. Like: The
C8 engine is so
low, they had to
use a smaller-di-
ameter flywheel.September 2019 21