C8 Chevy Corvette Z06 prototype bears big wing and big shoes

Earlier today a car we suspect is a C8 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 prototype gave us a sound check while accelerating up a suburban Michigan street. Another set of spy shots offers more info about the rear end of what we still think is the Z06: A multi-plane rear wing. In January, automaker sources told GM Authority that the Z06 due sometime next year would “feature a massive rear wing spoiler” that resembles the wing in back of the Koenigsegg Agera RS. A recent report called the rumor into question, but what do you know — minus the endplates, the wing on the putative 2022 Corvette Z06 adopts a similar bi-level design with central stanchions seen on the Swedish hypercar.  

Compounding the evidence, the prototype is shoed in Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R rubber, the same tires the recent report warned us to expect on the track-focused Corvette trim. The front sidewall reveals a size of 275/30ZR20, the exact tire specified in the report, and the rear could be the predicted 345/25ZR21. As we noted in our earlier spy video post, hiding the actual wheels is an unusual step on a prototype, which we take as a hint that there could be carbon rims lurking behind the covers.

Our guess, in line with various suppositions since the beginning of the year, is that the wing car represents a Z06 with the Z07 Performance Package.

The wing car doesn’t sport the prototype center-exit exhaust seen on the car in the video, though. Insiders told Muscle Cars & Trucks that engineers want the central exhaust in order to improve the aural reward for Z06 occupants, but they hadn’t yet got GM to approve the setup. Another guess is that the standard Z06 could get twin-pipes down the middle, but the changes made for the Z07 kit require piping at the flanks. 

COVID-19 has wrecked timelines for all the fun things, but if this is the C8 Z06, we should get to know it personally sometime next year. The sooner, the better.

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