C8 Ditches Chrome Wheels
For as long as I can remember, you could always get your Chevrolet Corvette with a set of chrome wheels. Always. Everyone was so focused on whether or not they could that no one stopped to ask if they should. (The answer to that is nobody should.) With the new, C8 Corvette, they are no longer an option. Thank God.
While perusing the new Corvette's option sheet yesterday, Car and Driver noticed a glaring omission, both figuratively and literally: The chrome wheel option was missing.
Tadge Juechter, the Corvette's head engineer, confirmed the news. News that the Chevrolet C8 Corvette's wheels were going no-mo-chromatic was confirmed to us by head engineer Tadge Juechter, who flatly told us during a discussion of the mid-engined Vette's wheels that there will be "no chrome available." The new Corvette's shiniest wheel option will be a "polished" rim design. It's no secret the chromies were a particular fan favorite of the, uh, geriatric crowd. Chromies that could blind people aboard the International Space Station or thereabouts if the sun hit them right. Chromies that went with white New Balance sneakers like peanut butter and jelly. So, you see this? THIS?
This is no more. Pour one out for the retired dads everywhere.
Chevrolet is aggressively distancing itself from the aging Corvette fanbase, this much is clear. It moved the engine. It won't make a manual. And now, it's even taken away the chrome.
It doesn't seem like sales will hurt at all, though, because the mid-engine Corvette is already nearly all sold out
Source: Kristen Lee - Jalopnik
Posted 8/3/19