A picture was shared to me today, and it made my heart swell with sadness. I then set about searching for as much information as I could about it.
But first, and I did brace you for it in the title…
Now, before feeling too horrible that a client has already wrecked their 2020 Corvette C8, there are a few important things to note.
First, the wheels have no center caps.
Next, the rear bumper and LED tail light glass show significant lateral force was applied.
Third, the striations and door damage show a rubbing impact. Also note the broken left rear wheel spoke.
The car, from the front of the door forwards, looks normal.
After doing some research across the web in regards to this crash, it appears that this was one of the pre-customer cars that were sent to performance driving schools such as Ron Fellows, Spring Mountain, and crucially, the Corvette Museum, where you can take a C8 on the track as part of the Museum delivery option.
A lot of people are claiming it’s a photoshop, but that has been debunked already by several sources.
The nature of the damage, including the way the door has “torn” across the side impact structure and along the body lines, suggest that this was a track incident.
What has most likely happened is someone got a little too enthusiastic on the loud pedal coming out of a fast corner in track mode, the rear end stepped out, and hit the end of a tire barrier with the door and rear quarter panels.
The harsh vertical black rubber mark at the back of the main door tear leading to the body line tear on the lower part of the door suggests quite a bit of speed was involved, and projected the car upwards enough that when it landed, it broke the spoke on the rear wheel.
With the way the wheel is cambered in at the bottom and the way the car is sitting, it also suggests the rear suspension tower mounting point has been broken and shoved upwards into the engine bay.
So, thankfully, this is more than likely a pre-production or pre-customer car, and either owned by GM directly, or by a performance driving school, many of whom have extremely robust insurance plans.
If not, well, someone will be having an interesting conversation with their insurance company…
