2020 Chevrolet Corvette scheduled for July 18 debut

Chevrolet has finally acknowledged the car's existence.

The mid-engined, eighth-generation Chevrolet Corvette is the worst-kept secret in Detroit, but there is one piece of its puzzle that has continually escaped us: its official introduction date. It's no longer a mystery. Chevrolet announced it will introduce the long-awaited model during an event scheduled to take place on July 18.

The company made the announcement by plastering the date "07.18.19" on both sides of a camouflaged pre-production prototype and driving it through Manhattan. There's no word yet on where the event will take place, and the firm didn't comment on what has delayed the car. However, citing "well-placed sources," Hagerty recently reported that Chevrolet engineers still haven't eliminated all of the electrical issues that delayed the model the first time. They're due to an all-new electrical architecture that other upcoming General Motors models will also use.

The second, more serious issue is that high-performance variants of the car are too powerful for their own good. Engineers dropped a twin-turbocharged V8 engine tuned to deliver between 900 and 1,000 horsepower into a prototype, and watched in horror as it twisted the aluminum spaceframe, fracturing the glass hatch that covers the engine. Dialing down the power isn't an option, so Chevrolet needs to make the eighth-generation Corvette stronger.

Finally, the anonymous sources explained designers and test drivers don't agree on one key aspect of the car, but they couldn't provide more information. "It could be a visibility issue, some ergonomic shortcoming, or a cockpit design problem," Hagerty wrote. Chevrolet hasn't commented on the report.

Chevrolet must be relatively close to solving the problems if it has scheduled the car's unveiling. Production of the eighth-generation Corvette will begin in Bowling Green, Kentucky, towards the end of 2019, and the first examples will reach showrooms in early 2020. Pricing will start in the vicinity of $100,000.