MT CONFIDENTIAL

Want a $60,000 C8 Corvette?

Better hurry because sources in Detroit confirm that price isn’t going to last. Not that anyone should be surprised: It’s become standard practice to launch new Corvettes at a low The car will use a seven-speed Graziano transaxle, trimming about 220 pounds off the overall weight. But the trickiest bit is calibrating the Daimler-sourced 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 to work with a manual. In every other application, from various performance Mercedes models to the regular Vantage, the engine is hooked up to transmissions that don’t need a clutch pedal. just as the Discovery Sport sits under the full-size Discovery and the Evoque provides the entry point to the Range Rover lineup. But sources in Gaydon say the baby Defender, originally intended to roll on the Premium Transverse Architecture that underpins the second-generation Evoque, is a nonstarter. “It’s on again, off again,” said one, adding it might become one of the products slated for a low-cost BEV platform under development. So fondly, in fact, that as the brand begins its pivot back toward performance vehicles, execs are reportedly pondering a modern Type R. And the rapturous reception given the Type S Concept following its reveal might have helped nudge the idea even closer to a green light. The late Ayrton Senna famously tuned the Honda/Acura NSX’s suspension in Japan and at the Nürburgring in the late 1980s, and Murray came along to Japan hoping to talk Honda into supplying a V-12 for his F1. That didn’t happen, but Murray’s exposure to the NSX completely altered his thinking about what would become the F1. And, one presumes, the upcoming McLaren T50, arriving 30 years later.