We've heard for a long time that General Motors is planning to make the Chevrolet Corvette a global sports car with the availability of right-hand drive, but now it's actually happening. For real.
This past weekend during a virtual Corvette presentation in lieu of Corvettes at Carlisle, the car's chief engineer Tadge Juechter and product manager Harlan Charles said the team is already testing the C8 Corvette Stingray in right-hand drive after the automaker built a handful of pre-production cars. They added the first country to receive the RHD Corvettes will actually be Japan.
"The car sold out almost immediately in Japan when we introduced it," Juechter said. Other countries slated for the RHD 'Vette include the UK, India, South Africa and Australia.
So strange to see for a Corvette.
General MotorsAustralia will actually be treated to a whole new brand to usher the Corvette in. While GM announced the demise of the historic Holden brand locally in Australia and New Zealand, it plans to create General Motors Special Vehicles to handle Corvette sales. Holden has long worked with a local company by the name of Walkinshaw to run Holden Special Vehicles. With Holden's demise, GMSV will handle sales and some local conversions of left-hand drive vehicles, namely the Chevrolet Silverado. The Camaro's also been an HSV project, but it's not clear if the pony car will be part of GMSV's stable.
The first RHD Corvettes should be ready for shipment in the second half of next year, and it will be a monumental occasion for the nameplate as it finally reaches the entire world straight from the factory.
Discuss: Chevy Corvette Stingray in right-hand drive is real, headed to Japan first
Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic. We delete comments that violate our policy, which we encourage you to read. Discussion threads can be closed at any time at our discretion.