1991 Chevrolet Blazer Silverado Sport Utility 2-door 5.7l on 2040-cars

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GM says hybrid Corvette no laughing matter [w/poll]

When Mark Reuss was in LA recently, he sat down to have a few words with the scribes at the Los Angeles Times. When the issue of a hybrid Corvette came up, Reuss answered with "Don't laugh." The General Motors president is a complete fan of the possibility, calling it "attractive" and "really fun," believing it would improve GM expertise and that "people would love it."
Naturally, the president being supportive of an idea doesn't give indication that a hybrid Corvette is on the way. However, with supercars like the Porsche 918 Spyder and Ferrari LaFerrari giving hybrid tech a solid, if remote, place in the performance car world, the inexorable trickle-down of technology means we shouldn't be surprised if and when it does happen.
And now that we have that non-negative half-answer to a speculative question, it would be irresponsible for us not to commence rumormilling for the C8 Corvette. Taking Reuss at his word, the C8 will obviously be a hybrid with all-wheel-drive - the left side wheels driven with electric motors, the right side with the mid-mounted, four-cylinder diesel engine. With coefficient of drag of just .16, figure on a 0-to-60 mile-per-hour time of under 2 seconds and an all-electric range of something like 30 miles at top speed. Don't forget, folks, you read it here first.

Vert-A-Pac train cars kept your Chevy Vega's price in check

Our apologies to those who've seen this before, but for the rest of the class, how awesome are these pictures of the Vert-A-Pac shipping system General Motors came up with to ship the Chevrolet Vega back in the 1970s? Developed along with Southern Pacific Railroad, GM was able to double the amount of Vega models it could ship by packing them into the unique storage cars vertically.
At the time, rail cars could fit 15 vehicles each, but Chevrolet was able to lower shipping costs by making it possible to ship 30 Vegas per rail car, in turn allowing the price of the Vega to remain as low as possible. Each rail car had 30 doors that would fold down so that a Vega could be strapped on, and then a forklift would come along and lift the door into place. All the cars were positioned nose down, and since they were shipped with all of their required fluids, certain aspects had to be designed specifically for this type of shipping, including an oil baffle in the engine, a special battery and even a repositioned windshield washer reservoir. See for yourself in our image gallery above.

First 2014 Chevy Corvette Stingray spotted crashed in the wild

This restyled blue 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray is wearing manufacturer plates, and it appears to be the same one seen around the internet in various pictures lately. This crash is likely not part of the Chevrolet testing regimen, however. Digital Corvettes forum member gpetry posted the shot with a note: "got this picture e-mailed from a friend in Arizona last week..." No circumstances are given, other than the incident occurred in the thick of a set of curvy roads, and the coupe ping-ponged off a guardrail and into the rock wall. Hopefully everyone involved in the incident walked away.
It may not be a pretty thing to see, a crashed sports car that's not even available for sale yet, but rest easy. Many pre-production cars are used for development and then unceremoniously crushed and scrapped, anyway. If that's the case here, that makes this wrecked 'Vette less of a tragedy and more of a case of exceptional efficiency.