Tadge Does a Deep Dive About Designing the Mid-Engine C8

Corvette Chief Engineer Tadge Juechter joins Autoline for a fascinating discussion about designing the 2020 C8 Stingray.

Tadge Juechter, who you probably know from Ask Tadge here at Corvette Forum, is the chief engineer behind the brilliant new 2020 C8 Corvette. He recently sat down with Autoline Network After Hours and took questions from the show’s viewers as well as the journalists in attendance, which included Gary Vasilash, John McElroy, and Greg Migliore.

The show gets off to a great start when a viewer asks Juechter what the biggest challenge was when it came to engineering and designing the first mid-engine Corvette. Juechter responds that ensuring that the C8’s air flow and engine cooling could still accommodate the practicality that buyers expect from a Corvette was a huge challenge.

“We basically were starting from a blank sheet of paper,” he explained. “We knew that a lot of the challenges would be just coming up with a transaxle that would enable the architecture was a massive challenge. There’s nothing on the shelf in the world that would be a plug and play for us. You put the engine in the back and you’re basically isolating the engine. You don’t have the natural evacuation of air because the occupant compartment is in the way.”

Juechter also says that the C8 had to have a removable roof that could be stored in the car, which presented challenges. “We weren’t going to delete the removable roof and we didn’t want people to leave it on the garage. So you have to have a place to store it. And that roof is not small. So we had to figure out a way to do all that and have good luggage room both front and rear.”

The next viewer question asks Juechter was what aspect of the the C8 he’s most proud of. Juechter replies that, when it came to previous Corvette generations, he always said “the bandwidth is what I’m proud of. The car is awesome on a racetrack. It’s great as a daily driver. It’s great as a long distance tourer. It does a lot of things well and that’s why it fits into people’s lives really well. And this one does that too, but it does more. And the thing that I am most proud of is the ride and handling tradeoff. You’re starting to see people that have been in the car talking about how it handles and how it rides. People are shocked at the ride quality. The architecture really enabled that in a lot of ways.”

The discussion also dives into the acoustic engineering that went into developing the car. With the engine right behind the cockpit, Juechter and his team needed to reduce accessory noise while letting intake and exhaust noise shine. “One of the puzzles we were trying to figure out was how do we have a car that sounds good,” says Juechter. “You want to hear the intake and you want to hear the exhaust.”

In the process the engineers disassembled a mid-engine Ferrari to see how the Italian company solved the problem. “The back window was really thick glass. We knew we were going to have to do that. We just didn’t realize how much we were going to do it. The back window on our car is twice as thick as a windshield.” The rear window is also surrounded by thicker fiberglass. And he reveals that the C8’s side glass is thinner so the driver and passenger can hear that magnificent intake roar of the engine.

Overall its a fascinating discussion into the origins of the C8 and the thinking behind its revolutionary step forward. Be sure  to check out the entire segment.