The UK Corvette concept uses a feature dubbed Aero Duality that uses fan assistance in the road-going version to direct air over and through the car’s ducts to “fill its wake”, thus increasing efficiency and cruising range. A hypothetical track version of the car has a deployable dorsal fin for stability, upper aero surfaces that reconfigure at speed and a sculpted underbody with fan assistance to deliver ground effects.
Summarising the wider Corvette project, Simcoe said it was vital that participating studios both paid homage to Corvette’s historic DNA and brought their own unique creative interpretation to the project.
He said: “This is exactly what our advanced design studio network is intended to do: to push the envelope, challenge convention and imagine what could be.”
Q&A: Julian Thomson, head of advanced design, GM
Why did General Motors need a European design studio again?
“GM was looking to redo all of its design studios – Warren, Pasadena and China – and it decided that Europe was a missing link, given both that it values fresh ideas and that it wants to expand with Cadillac in Europe and re-establish Corvette here.”
Did the Corvette project have a completely open brief?
“We had some basic criteria – size and so forth. We also had the existing car; it’s not as if we were being asked to make a smaller Corvette or a van Corvette. Just a Corvette. The car you see here is quite skeletal, with lots of exposed aero, because [GM design boss] Michael Simcoe liked that idea. But all the design language came from us.”
Is it an advantage to be new to GM?
“Sometimes it’s good. When your work goes to established studios, there are elements both of ‘we didn’t think of that’ and ‘that’ll never work’. But all your input soon feeds into the whole. There have been lots of Corvette models; what you’re doing is making a contribution.”
