The Chevrolet Corvette is at last on its way toward realizing Zora Arkus-Duntov’s dreams of embarrassing exotic cars, though going mid-engined has required a few traditional styling touches to fall by the wayside. The C8’s proportions aren’t quite as natural as its front-engined cab-aft forebears, and its exhaust tips are just kind of forgotten in the corners of the rear bumper. No longer do they exit out the sides like the C2, or down the centerline like every Corvette from the C5 to C7. If that doesn’t sit right with you, it doesn’t have to, because there’ll soon be an aftermarket center-exit exhaust for the C8, and it sounds even better than it looks.
This throwback comes from Aerolarri, a small Idaho-based firm that retails a small range of performance parts for the C8, Carscoops reports. Its center-exit exhaust setup is constructed from three-inch, mandrel-bent stainless steel piping, which exits out four-inch tips joined via TIG welds. The setup is said to bolt up to the C8’s factory cats and includes “valve simulators” to prevent check engine lights, though it’s apparently not a straight bolt-up; as its hangers require making minor modifications to the C8’s diffuser.
Footage of the prototype exhaust proves it markedly louder than the stock pipes, not to mention visually more in line with Corvettes of yore. If further blending of old and new is to your taste, Aerolarri says it’ll offer a variety of tip options, from the blued steel shown above to carbon-trimmed chrome or even full carbon fiber.
Aerolarri says the final product won’t protrude as far as the prototype when it hits the market, and when it does, it’ll command a tall price for such short pipes. It’ll start at a near-as-makes-no-difference $3,000, and that’s before you add any of those fancy tips or a quieting race muffler for tracks like the volume-restricted Laguna Seca. That’s a heck of a lot of money, but it’ll be of little consequence to C8 owners who paid way over sticker for their Corvettes. Yes, that’s still a thing in 2021.
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