Rob Loszewski
When Ed Welburn, GM’s Global Design Chief, retired in July of 2016, he was replaced by Australian-born Mike Simcoe who will be responsible for shaping the design of the next generation, C8 Corvette.
Simcoe was responsible for revitalizing the Holden Monaro and has now taken the reigns as GM’s head of global design. As Ed Welburn did before him with the design of the C7 Corvette, Simcoe will have the ultimate say over the overall design of the C8 Corvette.
In a recent interview with Drive, an Australian automotive publication, Simcoe admitted that having the ability to influence the design of the legendary Corvette is a daunting and exciting task and comes with much more pressure than his work reviving the Monaro.
“The level of excitement is the same,” he said. “But realistically the level of design is just as involved in every vehicle they do. Certainly there is a lot more emotional pressure to designing a Corvette. If I likened it to the Monaro the emotional pressure there was in its early days nobody knew about, it was kind of exciting….You’re dealing with an icon that has been consistently successful,” Simcoe told media at the 2017 Detroit motor show.
While Simcoe wouldn’t give up any details on the next generation Corvette, he did he say that he wasn’t opposed to moving the design away from the Corvette’s traditional proportions.
For now, we’ll just have to be content with enjoying any spy photos of the next generation Corvette we may see running around!
