Car and Driver: 10 Awesome Things to Know about the 2014 Corvette Stingray

Since its debut in Detroit this January, Car and Driver has been collecting information about the new 2014 Corvette Stingray and last week they put some of that info together as a top ten list. While much of the features and options have been discussed before, there are few things that caught our eye and confirms yet again how the new C7 Stingray is going to be one badass sports car.

Here’s the list of 10 awesome things you need to know about the C7 Corvette from Car and Driver. Once again, you’ll see that the Chevrolet Corvette leads the automotive industry in a number of “firsts” which means that we’ll eventually see some of this technology in use on other cars.

1. The C7 marks the first use of a “shape memory alloy wire” in a production vehicle
2. The C7 is the first-ever production Corvette with a rear weight bias
3. The C7’s eLSD (electronic limited-slip differential) goes from open to full lock in tenths of a second
4. Corvettes equipped with an automatic transmission or Z51 Performance Package get functional vents and rear-mounted transmission and differential heat exchangers
5. A NASA-developed insulation called Aerogel is used on the transmission tunnel
6. $50K was the price target from the beginning
7. It’s the 30-mpg supercar
8. No more cross-drilled rotors
9. It wears some pretty special shoes
10. The tires feature asymmetrical sidewalls

One of the coolest items on the list is something we were unaware of. It’s the use of the NASA-developed Aerogel, a super light weight insulator that is used in space suits by our astronauts. Aerogel is 99.8% air but that .2% insulates 39 times better that fiberglass. The C7 Corvette uses a super thin coating of the automotive grade version of Aerogel in the center tunnel to combat the heat generated from the torque tube. Check out this video demonstration of aerogel protecting a Hershey’s chocolate Kiss from a blowtorch.

The other item worthy of pointing out are the “special shoes” the C7 will be wearing. The new Corvette tires from Michelin are a direct result of the technology transfer from racing to street cars. The Michelin Pilot Super Sport ZP’s are a cross between Michelin’s PS2 and PS Cup tires and were engineered for the C7 Corvette using the exact same computer models that Michelin used to create tires for the Corvette C6.R race cars. The new tires even incorporate many of the same rubber mixes in its construction too.

Each of the items on the list has an interesting description so head over to Car and Driver to read the entire list.

Source:
Car and Driver

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