JT on Cars — Issue #3: Are we ready for Electric Corvettes????
Welcome to the third issue of my newletter. It has come in a quick succession to the second issue. I try my best to have an issue per week and I wanted to rant about some stuff and share some pictures with you and so here I am with it. Hope you enjoy it!!!!
GM commits to electric Corvettes
GM has confirmed that the Corvette is going electric. They confirmed it with a tweet showing a camouflaged car with 4 wheel drive taking off in the snow.
According to the tweet, they will be launching an electrified Corvette next year rather than a full electric version which will follow. Based on the video, the car will mostly retain the same body as the current Z06 version. When taking off, the front wheels of the car spins first before the back which only means one thing and that is four wheel drive. There is also sufficient engine noise in the background and as the tweet suggests, this will be an ‘electrified’ version which is a fancy way of saying that it would be a hybrid. The current generation has a 5.5 litre V8 which produces 670 bhp. It is possible that this V8 will be retained and will have twin turbos and a hybrid motor added to it which could result in over 1000 bhp.
Now time for my rant. Moving towards hybridisation followed by full electrification makes sense for a business now that even Porsche is following the same formula for the future models, but as for people who really appreciate and drive these cars, it is a very huge pills with spiky coating to swallow. If we always followed whatever made sense then we would not be petrolheads would we?? Corvette has always been one of the iconic cars to come out of the States where big engines were a necessity. And the worse fact about it is that the name ‘Corvette E-Ray’ was trademarked in 2015 which would only signify that this was always the plan even before the V8 Z06 launched.
My First Sunday Scramble
I did not mean scrambled eggs if you thought I did. Last sunday was the Bicester Scramble at Bicester Heritage. I am lost for words when it comes to describing what it is. It is more of a car show in an old RAF air base which is now used by several car resoration companies and also has an active runway.
The first thing that hit me when I entered was the shear variety of cars. There were cars ranging from pre-war to 2022, hyper cars to everyman cars, dragsters to paddle cars. I think it is best for me to shut up and let you enjoy some of the pictures from the event.
One of the interesting cars I came across was this Austin healey Restomod by a company called Caton. I had a chat with the guy there and the company that built this car has been building concept cars and show cars for many famous brands which they can’t mention so they wanted to put their skill into a product that carried their name on it and that is this beauty. This restomod is based on the 1953 Austin Healey 100 with a slight touch of modernity to it. The most recognisable changes are to the the front grille and the interior. The front and rear bumpers have dissappeared and the headlights have been upgraded to LED. Once you are in the car, the only out of place item would be the USB charging ports, but otherwise you would be sitting in 1953. The engine block is the same as the original 100 but the internals of the engine has been swapped for modern ones to make the car more reliable but it still retains the retro feel with a carburetor. The changes to the internals of the engine has given it a power boast from 90 bhp to 185 bhp. There is no power steering, ABS or traction control but it has got racing disc brakes. The plan is to make 25 of them and if you are one of the lucky 25 who can dish out £395,000 then you can get involved in the whole process and can even make a new colour and name it after yourself.
I am still digesting the day and the amazing cars that I saw there but this event definitely takes pole on my list of recent car events I have attended.
Rant Time
Welcome to my new segment where I rant about stuff that makes me go batshit crazy. Social media has become so toxic that people do crazy stuff to gain the attention of fellow human beings. The car social media platforms have relatively not been that toxic. We petrolheads are a simple life form, show as a picture of a car or a video of one being driven and we will love it. And I have personally met a bunch of car nutters just like me through these platforms one of them being Roadstr. Roadstr is a social media platform specifically for car enthusiasts. It has features such as posting photos like instagram but goes beyond that with arranging event and sharing driving routes and etc. Definitely try it out if you haven’t. So back on to the rant. One of the facts I love and admire in this community is the mutual respect for cars and how we all admire it more or less the same way. But recently I have come across some videos that have gone viral through the abuse of cars. In one of such videos, a guy is seen putting his forward moving Murcielago into reverse gear with alot of grinding noise. Many of the viewers were not happy but some of them came to guy’s defence to say that he had engaged the clutch and the grinding noise was not from the car but it does’t matter does it? Many of us grew up loving a Murcielago and would give a limb to own one and then seeing one being (pretend) abused doesn’t sit well but surprisingly that particular video has gone viral. Yes it might be that guy’s car and he could do what he wishes to do to it but just watching it hurts and to know that content like that are encouraged is sad but that’s the reality.
Thanks again for reading my rants 😉. Hope you enjoyed this short issue. Please share and subscribe to my newsletter to keep up to date with future issues.
