[SPIED] Right Hand Drive C8 Corvette Finally Caught Testing in Detroit

Good news today for those Corvette Enthusiasts in Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom as we finally got some photos of a C8 Corvette in the right-hand-drive configuration in the wild as it was recently spied testing in the Motor City.

Spy photographer Brian Willams (Spiedbilde) nabbed the Accelerate Yellow Stingray as it drove around the snow-lined roads of Metro Detroit. We have previously seen just one official image of the interior released last February from the Corvette Team showing the cockpit with the driver controls swapped to the right side while the passenger area is now on the left.

It was back in August of 2020 that Corvette Chief Engineer Tadge Juechter and Corvette Product Manager Harlan Charles talked about the Right Hand Drive Corvettes during a live virtual seminar for Corvettes at Carlisle. When asked if they were testing the RHD cars, Tadge stated, “some of us are actually driving them around… it’s very strange to be driving a Corvette with the steering wheel on the right-hand side. We’ve built some and we’ll be doing some of our pre-production testing now in the US.”

Harlan agreed with Tadge and talked about the localization of the nav and other systems that brings the home countries’ native accents to the voice prompts. When asked which was his favorite, Harlan replied, “I really like the Australian car because it’s all localized and so the navigation, the voice, she has that cool Australian voice that comes through…A lot of fun.”

It was confirmed last month that the RHD Corvettes had officially started production. We expect the RHD Corvettes to go first to Japan sometime this spring, where over 300 pre-orders were taken following the reveal in Tokyo in 2020. Following the Japanese rollout, we expect the C8 Corvette to head to the U.K. and Europe in the middle of the year, and then in late 2021, we should see RHD Corvettes going to Australia and New Zealand.

Here is the full gallery of images from the latest sighting.

Related:
Chevrolet Has Built and is Now Testing Right Hand Drive Corvettes for Export
Corvette Assembly Plant Begins Production of Right Hand Drive Corvette Models
[SPIED] First Pics of the RHD C8 Corvette Stingray