Fascinating YouTube video series a must for rev-heads

JUST because it’s still the best part of a year away from touching New Zealand soil doesn’t mean it’s too early to bone up on the C8 Corvette’s background.

To assist with that, Chevrolet has helpfully created a series of backgrounder videos about the car that, by being mid-engined, represents the biggest shift in the nameplate's decades-long history.

"Revolution: The Mid-Engine Corvette Development Story" is a two-part documentary hosted on YouTube.

Chevrolet has just released the first piece, which focuses on the Corvette's interior and exterior design.

It’s a fascinating insight for car fans, regardless of how close your interest in America’s best-known sports car.

Plenty of involvement from the people who took the model into mid-engined territory for the first time.

The roster of stylists who appear in it includes Tom Peters, the former exterior design director of General Motors’ Performance Car Studio, Brett Golliff, Chevrolet's design and trim manager, Vlad Kapitonov, the Corvette's lead exterior designer, and Kirk Bennion, the model's exterior design manager.

Development work quietly started in 2011, but the idea of putting the engine behind the passenger compartment isn't new, and Chevrolet has experimented with this configuration many times since the 1960s. One 1973 prototype was even powered by a twin-rotor Wankel engine. Putting a rotary engine into the gen-eight car wasn’t considered.

Peters, Golliff, and others explained inspiration the latest car’s shape came from fighter jets and racing cars, among other sources. Jets are quick and purpose-driven, so the design team naturally looked at what members of the US Air Force fly as they sketched the car's finer details, like vents. Racing has been an official part of the Corvette's history since Chevrolet entered five cars in the 1956 edition of the 24 Hours of Sebring.

The series doesn’t give insight into what car might follow the C8, but has given a few hints about the processes that could apply from this point, with Peters commenting: “I'm here to tell you that it's just the tip of the iceberg. Just imagine where it can go from this point. This is just the beginning."

You thought McLarens were slinky simply to be sheikh chic?

‘Conversations online with the minds behind our pioneering technologies.’.

That all sounds a bit pretentious and utterly boring, right?

It could well be were the subject matter, say, window blinds or whiteware.

But it’s not. The subject is the Kiwi-founded, based-Britain hero brand that these days brings its astounding motorsport pedigree to the road.

Specifically, it’s the McLaren Tech Club, whose remit is to explain and explore the technologies featured in McLaren road cars. With videos in which the interviews with McLaren experts is abetted by footage of great cars doing their thing.

Here are episodes one and two, respectively dealing with aerodynamic magic and how air and wind affect a car’s design. The first centres on the open-top Elva concept and the second uses as its muse another wee special, the Senna GTR.

With the latter, principal Designer Esteban Palazzo explains how the latter followed the F1 GTR and P1 GTR in adopting a multi-tiered, multi-layered, carbon fibre pedestal wing.

Palazzo says it was not only inspired by high-performance cars of the past and aircraft design, but also by the likes and tastes of the intended customers.

So as much for show as go? Well, that might be so, but it is effective. Additional to episode two McLaren has released three videos of the Senna GTR testing on the Bahrain International Circuit, where the car holds the fastest race lap in the circuit's current configurations.

Any, you’ve lots of time to spare, so here are all five videos. Don’t forget to turn the track footage up loud.