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My assumption is that is probably a retired image from the earlier days of sketching. Leaking info is one thing (especially in this case, which is probably an orchestrated leak), but leaking images is strictly verboten. If anyone in the design center so much as emails a confidential sketch to a non-GM email address they are fired immediately and without appeal. Although I have no idea what it looks like beyond the shot in the article, reputable design people I know are excited about it.
Me? I'm fuckin' stoked. Half a decade in Los Angeles has made me allergic to all things German and there's something keenly douchey about Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Maseratis and McLarens. Although I discovered recently that a 2006 Maserati Cambiocorsa is not out of my price range at the minute. And they have back seats. So I'm toying with the idea of waiting for the Gran Turismos to slide down that depreciation scale towards approachable. They're at, like, fifty k right now. The image I grabbed is literally the second-coolest looking one available from a google image search of "mid engine corvette." I remember seeing it before; I think it's a rendering Car&Driver commissioned a year back or so. (The coolest, of course, is the best car Chevrolet never made.)
As a sidenote, did you know that for ESL people like me 'all but' / 'everything but' is super confusing? Especially since the literal translation of 'all but' -at least in Dutch- means 'it is anything but that', while it is used as a synonym to 'almost'.
I woke up to the dog stepping on my nuts. This is equally surprising, though much less painful. If GM is building a mid-engine car, and it looks like they might be, I really wonder if it will be the next Corvette for a few reasons. The current generation is still relatively new and while 2019 is a bit away, it seems a bit early for such a radical change. At the same time, mid-engine cars tend to be a bit more expensive, both to purchase as well as maintain and one of the key appeals of the Corvette is that for what it is, it's simple, cheap, and reliable. All three traits that make it appealing generation after generation. That said, I can't imagine it being anything but a Corvette. Time and time again GM has treated the Corvette nameplate as top dog, even going as far as nixing cars that might compete with it. Additionally, if Toyota could make an affordable, reliable mid-engine car with the MR-2, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard for GM to do so as well. Edit: Also, I went to find Jack Baruth's editorial from earlier this year because he brings up the same talking points I've heard over and over for a few years now, just in a more persuasive voice than mine.
You just link to Road & Track to get my goat at this point, don't you? Jack Baruth is an asshole and anything he hates is probably a brilliant idea. The Corvair was rear-engined and it was awesome, particularly '65-'69. The Fiero was mid-engined and it was also awesome. Jack Baruth may rag on it but that car is legit 20 years of kit cars. And FFS. The Corvette has been effectively a Porsche 928 since '95. It went 32V and then went back because of WATBs like Jack Fucking Baruth. It's 2016. Road and Track can whinge about Chevrolet's halo car kind of competing with everyone else's halo car but that only makes them look stoopider. Want a cheap front-engined Chevy that goes fast? Buy a fucking Camaro and STFU.