C7 Corvette ZR-1 to be twin-turbo V6?

[Cameron 77C3]

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What GM's planning for the C7... And what it must do to make America's Sports Car a world-beater.


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Extract:-

".................The 2008 C6 is the sharpest, fastest, and best-finished Corvette yet, while the 197-mph Z06 is, quite simply, the best-value supercar you can buy anywhere in the world.

So what's next?

That's a good question, because right now GM execs are planning the next-generation Corvette, the C7. What they decide over the next few months will be hugely important. For the first time in history, GM wants to take Corvette-one of the few American GM brands that doesn't play in the discount department of the mass market-global, accompanying Cadillacs in showrooms in Europe, Asia, and Australia. Complicating the picture are proposals to take the U.S. Corporate Average Fuel Economy mandate to 35 mpg by 2020. Depending on the fine print, the doomsayers hint there's a real chance that could mean there's no C7 at all.

Here's what we know: GM is considering at least three scenarios for the C7................."
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To read lots more, and with pics, click the picture below
 

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[Cameron 77C3]

www.motorauthority.com

The new king of General Motors' lineup, the Corvette ZR-1, has barely begun making the official press rounds but already insiders are talking about the next-generation version of the car, expected to be based on the as-yet unrevealed C7 Corvette. Definite information is at a premium, but speculation indicates the next ZR-1 could feature a twin-turbo V6 powerplant in place of the traditional big V8.

Wild ideas, including mid-engine designs, have been circulating around the C7 generation of the Corvette, but so far most have proven to be little more than fanciful wish-lists. The latest reports, however, seem to be grounded more firmly in reality, if still completely unofficial. The Corvette will almost certainly remain front-engined and reasonably affordable, reports Popular Mechanics. The drastic change in design would lie under the hood, where the 6.2L LS9 that currently generates a furious, supercharged 638hp (476kW) and 604lb-ft (819Nm) of torque would be supplanted by a twin-turbo V6, such as a modified version of the 3.6L direct-injection unit current found in the Cadillac CTS.

Insiders reportedly think that engine, in twin-turbo form, could easily produce 400hp (298kW), and given its current naturally-aspirated rating of 306hp (228kW), that sounds like a reasonable claim. That figure sits close to today's entry-level Corvette V8, but is a far cry from the ground-pounding ZR-1's statistical dominance. Extracting enough performance from such a small unit to generate the three levels of Corvette we've grown so familiar with - the base, Z06 and ZR-1 - could end up creating a very highly-strung unit at the upper end of the range. So highly strung that the cost and technology necessary might make it cost-prohibitive, even when fuel efficiency savings are taken into effect.


Though that in itself is a bit of a quandary for the twin-turbo idea, as the torquey V8s in the current cars are geared low enough that city and highway fuel economy isn't poor for the sports car class - even the brutal ZR-1 rates at 14mpg city and 20mpg highway. That's a long way from the CAFE-required 35mpg fleet average, but the ZR-1 isn't a high-volume unit. The current standard 'Vette manages a more respectable 16mpg city and 26mpg highway in manual guise. Beating those figures with a twin-turbo V6 won't be easy, as the slightly heavier but similarly powerful Nissan GT-R proves with its 16mpg city/21mpg highway rating.

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[77CVT]

That is a horn lookin' machine!