The C9 Corvette is still in the planning stages, but Corvette chief engineer Tony Roma has shared some insights into what the company has in mind for the next generation of the iconic sports car. According to Roma, the C9 needs to remain true to its roots and offer value to customers.
Roma emphasized that the C9 should have performance improvements over the C8, but this does not mean targeting a higher price point to compete with luxury brands like Lamborghini and Ferrari. “The C9 needs to be a Corvette at its core,” Roma said. “It needs to have value; we would obviously try to improve the performance over the C8, and that goes to the value offer the customer something more than what they have in their current car.”
Performance and Price
Roma rejects the idea that the Corvette needs to chase high-end brands, stating that the move to a mid-engine design was based on physics and performance, not a desire to enter a new market segment. “Even though we’re a mid-engine car now, there’s a lot of people that think that means we need to go chase Lamborghini and Ferrari tit-for-tat,” Roma said. “That’s not the core of what a Corvette is.”
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The C8 Corvette’s performance metrics have shown that the car is faster and better, while maintaining the ride comfort expected from previous generations. Roma believes that the C9 will continue this trend, with improvements in performance and value.
Transmission Options
Roma also discussed the possibility of a manual transmission option for the C9 Corvette. While he personally prefers a stickshift, the cost of developing a new manual transmission is a significant barrier. “Transmissions are super expensive,” Roma explained. “When we had C5, C6, and C7, we could use basically the same manual transmission architecture that had been around and slowly developed over like 30 years, and it was mostly paid for and we were doing slight upgrades on it and it cost reasonable amounts of money to keep it in production.”
The move to a mid-engine design with the C8 Corvette means that a new transmission would need to be developed from scratch, which would be a costly endeavor. Roma is skeptical about the viability of Tremec’s aftermarket gearbox as a production option, citing the need for validation, emissions certification, and other requirements.
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Manual Transmission Demand
Despite the challenges, there is still demand for manual gearboxes, which Roma acknowledges as part of a larger trend in the auto industry. “When everybody else had manual transmissions, luxury meant the first Ferrari F1-shifted automated manuals and some of the things those competitors were doing,” he explained. However, the added cost of a manual transmission would be at odds with Corvette’s goal of delivering value to customers.
Roma believes that the C9 Corvette will likely stick with a dual-clutch transmission, which offers faster shifting and better performance. While he would love to see a manual transmission option, he is not sure if it would be feasible from a cost perspective. “I would love it as a driver, as a customer, I would love it. I just don’t know if we can make it make sense,” he said.
