The new E-Ray electrifies an iconic American automotive nameplate: Corvette

When, a little over 60 years ago, Chevrolet released its new, second-generation Corvette, dubbed the Sting Ray, is couldn’t have known that it would become a motoring icon - the American answer to the Porsche 911, which was also first revealed that same year, 1963.

Designed by Bill Mitchell, the Sting Ray was both technically advanced - with its independent rear suspension, which made it unique on the American market - but aesthetically, with that split rear window (albeit only for one year, after which management decided it was hazardous to road safety). It made the Sting Ray name a hard act to follow.

Maybe that’s why, while multiple generations of the Corvette would follow - among its C and ZR lines - it’s with the launch of the brand’s first electric car, the E-Ray, that the name has been invoked again.

It’s the first electric car from the Corvette stable - actually a hybrid, a V8 together with a 1.9kw regenerative battery pack, giving it an acceleration of 0-62mph in a hair-raising 2.9 seconds - as well as being the first all-wheel-drive model and the first to be offered with right-hand drive. With delivery set for September, it’s Corvette’s bid to make more of a splash in Europe.

‘We believe that the market is shifting towards more interest in hybrid systems, especially when you look at the data,’ argues Pere Brugal, president and managing director General Motors Europe, Corvette’s owner - indeed, if just last year some 4% of high-end sports cars were hybrid, now around 20% are, with the McLaren Artura, Ferrari 296 GTB and Lamborghini Revuelto among those having gone the same way.

‘When we’ve run focus groups people are starting to understand [the value of hybrid] - how it brings that extra punch of acceleration without losing the sensation of the internal combustion engine,’ Brugal continues.

That fits with a brand that’s somewhat rebooted its racing heritage with its very first victory at the European Le Mans Series’ Four Hours of Imola race this July. Corvette - which has a healthy European following in the form of enthusiastic owner’s clubs - is not about to go all-electric.

‘We don’t have that in the line-up right now but as a company [General Motors] we have the second biggest electric portfolio in the US, so if customers tell us they want that for Corvette, then why not? Hybrid is in some sense [a stepping stone],’ says Brugal. ‘As for the distinctive Corvette sound, we’d have to cross the bridge when we came to it, but we know the sound is a great asset.’

In the meantime, the greater enthusiasm for EV across Europe than across the US - regardless of the European regulatory mandate to go all-electric - means there are great expectations for the E-Ray, coupled with what Brugal says is the petrolhead appreciation for American automotive design heritage.

He adds that the European edition of the E-Ray has been calibrated in terms of driving dynamics and suspension for the continent too. ‘The roads are different in Europe,’ he says, coyly. That is, he admits, they’re often full of holes.

Brugal also concedes that, while American cars have, it can seem, been built largely to serve the domestic market - Ford and Jeep being the clear exceptions - the E-Ray may be the start of Corvette becoming a ‘truly global brand’.

A recent styling exercise, the Corvette Concept, was undertaken in GM’s UK studio and is the first of three conceptual expressions of a future Corvette direction with a more international outlook.

Brugal is also overseeing the impending European (re)launch of another historic name in American motoring, arguably the definitive one: Cadillac. ‘People know the name from the movies, songs, maybe even its technical firsts, but how many people [in Europe] have experienced a Cadillac behind the wheel?’ he asks. ‘Very few.’ That, he hints, is all about to change for both of these famous marques.

Chevrolet.com, @Corvette