Looking at premium sports car brands, as well as other high-end carmakers' SUVs and the success they’ve achieved, it only makes sense that Chevy would be working on a Corvette SUV. Even Ferrari caved and built the outstanding, and very expensive Purosangue after the huge success of the Lamborghini Urus. So while Porsche paved the way with the Cayenne two decades ago, other German Brands such as BMW, Audi, and Mercedes followed, and the rest is history.
The Chevrolet Corvette is a true all-American Sports car that encompasses what the American car enthusiast value. It delivers the goods at a competitive price. It just takes one look at some of its competition to see the great value for the money the Corvette brings to the table. There is no reason to think it would be any different with a high-performance Corvette SUV, and that is why Lamborghini with its Urus, should be very concerned. In fact, all major sport SUV brands should fear the upcoming Corvette SUV, especially because it would likely blow the competition away. As much as purists would loathe the idea of a Corvette SUV, others would argue - what took Chevy so long to bring a Corvette SUV to market.
The Heart Of The Corvette SUV Could Be The Same As The Corvette C8
To put things into perspective, a Chevy Corvette 1LT with a mid-mounted 6.2-liter direct injection naturally aspirated V-8, and an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission has a starting MSRP of $65,895. That’s a sports car that leaves nothing to be desired when compared to some of the best the industry has to offer in its category. But it’s significantly cheaper than most of its competition, much like a Corvette SUV would also hopefully be. The estimated MRSP for the 2024 Lamborghini Urus is $235.000. Now, when thinking about the Corvette SUV, the consensus is that its starting MSRP would be in the low $70.000, and up to $100.000 on the top trim model. That would make it quite a bargain, and the Urus is not even close to being the most expensive performance SUV around.
One could also argue the performance gap between the Urus and a Corvette SUV could justify this price difference. The 2023 Urus packs a 4.0 liter, twin-turbo V-8 that makes out an impressive 657 horsepower @ 6,000 rpm and 627 pound-feet of torque. Assuming the base model Corvette SUV would employ the same 6.2-liter naturally aspirated V-8 from the Corvette C8, the Corvette SUV would be left behind in performance, for sure. The 6.2-liter from Corvette produces 495 horsepower @ 6,450 rpm and 470 pound-feet of torque at 5,150 rpm. While the Lamborghini Urus goes from 0-60 MPH in just over three seconds, the entry-level Corvette SUV would probably do the same in the low 4s. Not bad at all, but definitely behind the Urus also reaches a top speed of 190 MPH.
How Much Of The Urus Is A Lamborghini, After All?
One thing to consider, however, is that the Lamborghini Urus features two turbochargers on its ‘small’ 4.0-liter engine. The numbers it puts out could be reaching a borderline here and there in terms of stress to the engine, and it would not be advisable to try and milk more ponies out of this already re-engineered VW engine the Lamborghini Urus has. On that note, it’s certainly worth pointing out the Lamborghini Urus might be less of a Lamborghini than its usual customer might think it is. Just recently, Mat Watson from the YouTube channel Carwow showed what’s under a Urus and found a bunch of components from VW and Audi. See for yourself in the video below.
Now, Chevy’s parent company, General Motors, already employs a supercharged variant of its 6.2-liter engine on the Cadillac Escalade-V. And being of a larger displacement unit and a very well-built one for that matter, it easily makes 682 horsepower and 653 pound-feet of torque, numbers that would beat the Urus and leave the Corvette SUV near the top of its class. So, simply employing this already existing supercharged engine that has already proven itself on a full-size SUV that is the Cadillac Escalade could be a cost-effective solution to put the higher level trims of the Corvette SUV in a position to smoke the Lamborghini Urus, both in Performance and by an even wider margin, on price.
The Performance Of The Corvette SUV Could Be Even Better Than The Urus
As if that wasn’t a good enough solution, one could resort to third-party companies such as Hennessey Performance that could boost that Chevy engine to 708 horsepower all that while offering a 3-year, 36,000-mile limited warranty for the upgrade. The regular Corvette doesn’t use this supercharged engine from the factory for practical reasons. The car is light, RWD, and already boasts excellent performance. The supercharged Cadillac version of that engine with all that extra horsepower and torque would be overkill, and the traction control would be working overtime to keep those rear wheels from digging a hole through the ground every time the driver hit the gas pedal. But, alas, each customer knows what he or she wants and the Hennessey upgrade is available for C8 owners should they desire all that craziness.
The Corvette SUV, on the other hand, would offer AWD as is a standard in the segment and would be able to deal with that extra horsepower and torque easily. It would actually need it to compete in terms of performance with the Urus and other high-end SUVs from other brands. On top of all that, the Corvette's design looks gorgeous and the possibilities to make an even better-looking SUV that falls right in place with its audience are vast. This is indeed an opportunity Chevy shouldn’t pass up on.