Chevrolet’s C8 Corvette Won’t Premiere At Detroit Auto Show

We’ve known for quite some time that the long-awaited, mid-engine, C8 Chevrolet Corvette will premiere next year. While no official announcement has been made, many expected the supercar to premiere at the Detroit Auto Show 2019 in January. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen.

Carscoops contacted the automaker about its plans for the event, specifically whether or not the C8 Corvette will premiere at the show. Chevrolet’s official response is the company “will not be hosting a formal press event at NAIAS”. To put simply, the company won’t be launching any new vehicles at the show.

With Detroit officially off the cards, there are just a few options left for the C8 Corvette’s launch. Most likely is the New York Auto Show, scheduled for the second half of April. Alternatively, Chevrolet could decide to blindside us all and launch the new mid-engine Corvette at an auto show outside of the United States, perhaps in an attempt to broaden the international appeal of an all-new supercar. If that were the case, March’s Geneva Motor Show would be the most likely candidate.

No matter when Chevrolet decides to launch the new Corvette, we’re unlikely to be overly surprised by what we see. After all, a multitude of prototypes have been spied testing in recent months and expert rendering artists have provided us with an excellent idea of what the supercar will look like.

According to recent reports, there will be three variants of the C8 Corvette offered. One of these, the ‘GT’, will allegedly use Cadillac’s 4.2-liter twin-turbo V8 and be sold as a rival to the Mercedes-AMG GT. A performance-focused ‘Grand Sport’ could then be offered with a twin-turbo 5.5-liter V8 engine pumping out upwards of 800 hp.

Separate reports have claimed that a twin-turbo V8 hybrid with 1000 hp is also on the cards.

Opening rendering copyright Carscoops / Josh Byrnes