Tadge Juechter Says There's No Mid-Engine Corvette Zora/ZR1 On The Way!

March 16, 2015

Corvette's Chief Engineer, Tadge Juechter, has been left in the dark on the mid-engine Corvette project, which I'd say is pretty unlikely given he's such an integral part of the Corvette team.

 In fact, it's all becoming a little confusing because Juechter flat-out denied reports of a mid-engine C8 during a recent interview on Autoline After Hours (video below) when asked if there is a Zora model in the works.

"I'll have to check that out because I know no such car exists. Frankly, if such a car exists, it belongs to another division is my best speculation," he told Autoline, addressing reports we covered here that a rendering for the car might have accidentally been revealed.

The Chief Engineer added, "We looked at mid-engine as an alternative for the seventh-generation car, and we've always said that when the whole car gets better as a mid-engine architecture, we would do it."

Juechter goes on to make a pretty good argument of why a mid-engine car might not make sense for the Corvette lineup.

"Mid-engine requires a lot of compromises. You look at the elite race programs around the world; they're all mid-engine. So … if all you care [about] is purely performance, then it makes sense to put the engine in the back. If you're still talking about a car that can be used as a daily driver, long-distance tourer as well, handle benignly on the track, and have accessible performance, there's a whole lot of other things that come into what is the optimum."