Chevrolet’s Corvette Z08 may have hit the showrooms nearly five years ago, but development started on the new model nearly a decade ago and an Australian body was used to hide the mechanical aspects from prying eyes.
Captured by a spy photography in 2015, the test mule codenamed ‘Blackjack’ used the exterior of a VE Commodore Ute to hide the drivetrain, mechanicals and suspension components while completing development work at Spring Mountain Raceway Motorsports Park in Nevada.
The ‘Blackjack’ was clearly a hodgepodge Commodore Ute as is demonstrated by the lifted middle section of the body to allow for the Corvette’s V8 powerplant. The Commodore body surrounded the Corvette’s passenger section as even the Holden badges remained to fool any potential spies.
‘Blackjack’ played an integral role for Chevrolet engineers due to the C8’s move to a mid-mounted V8 rather than the traditional front positioning used by previous generations of the Corvette for more than 50 years.
In addition to the Commodore Ute bodywork, ‘Blackjack’ also featured wider wheel flares, a big wing at the rear featuring hollow wooden stands to aid cooling for the mid-mounted V8 and the aforementioned Corvette passenger section.
GM employees hand-built ‘Blackjack’ in 2014 at the Warren Technical Centre in Michigan using many components from the C7 Corvette, but also a dual-clutch automatic transmission or known as PDK by its source, Porsche.
The Corvette has been a popular choice worldwide and was lauded upon its launch five years ago ensuring ‘Blackjack’ did its job.
In fact, initially GM built 16 test mules at the start of C8 development, but this grew to 100s and ‘Blackjack’ remains one of the kept by the American manufacturer.