The eighth-generation Chevrolet Corvette has been on sale several years and the world has become accustomed to its mid-engine layout. But do you know the role the Holden Commodore Ute played in the creation of this ground-breaking American supercar?
Spy photographs from the time showed what appeared to be a black Holden ute at General Motors’ proving grounds in Michigan, but it was no simple story. Instead, the ‘Holden ute’ was actually a seventh-generation Corvette cabin, with a Holden ute front-end bolt on to fool the spies and the ‘tray’ out the back made the ideal home for the LT1 V8 engine to be tested.
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While it was top secret at the time, running under the codename Project Blackjack, Holden’s contribution to the C8 Corvette is currently on public display at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
US publication Motor Trend recently published photos of Project Blackjack at the museum, showing the car managed to not only survive the trip to the crusher prototype vehicles usually take, but is a proud part of the Corvette legacy.
The Holden parts consist primarily of the headlights, taillights, front fascia and mirrors, plus of course the iconic lion badge, while the rest of Blackjack’s panels are custom. There’s also wider wheel arches, front and rear, to better simulate the track of the new mid-engine supercar.
READ MORE: What happened to the Holden brand?
The reason the car was built was primarily to test early suspension settings and weight balance as they shifted the engine from the front to the middle. Speaking to Popular Mechanics back in 2019 Corvette executive chief engineer, Tadge Juechter, explained the reason for Blackjack’s existence and how it helped develop the C8 Stingray, specifically the reason why it had a unique rear wing set-up.
“If you look at the wing,” Juechter told Popular Mechanics, “it’s on upside down. That’s because aerodynamics come into play on suspension development at relatively low speeds, and this front end had a ton of lift. So to get the pitch right, we inverted the wing to add lift to the rear.”
While Holden may be gone, the Corvette lives on and is available in Australia with the C8 generation for the first time as a factory right-hand drive model. The local ‘Vette range will expand in the coming months with the launch of the hybrid E-Ray and the track-focused Z06.
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