The New 2020 Chevy C8 Corvette's interior is befitting of a supercar, even though it will start at under $60,000

Corvette interiors were never anything to write home about. Sure, they improved from generation to generation in terms of materials quality, design, as well as fit and finish, but there was nothing especially remarkable that put them ahead of other sports car interiors. This has now all changed with the all-new mid-engined Corvette C8 which features an interior that makes the C7’s interior look like a spiced up Chevy Cruze.

Chevrolet has really worked hard to make the interior of the new C8 feel like a big step up from the C7. And it’s succeeded, so much so that the C7’s interior now looks downright old and nasty compared to it. It not only looks more premium, futuristic and striking, but according to the manufacturer, it provides superior comfort and practicality too. In this context, by practicality I mean it has more cubbies where you can store small items in the cabin, not its overall cargo capacity.

At the time, back in 2014, the C7 Stingray’s interior was a notable step up from the C6 too, with its wrap-around, driver-focused design and considerable improvement in quality (especially assembly and perceived quality), plus the available fully digital gauge cluster that at the time was quite a novelty.

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Corvette interiors have therefore, to my eye at least, been incrementally improved in all areas, from one generation to the next. With the C8, though, I feel that its designers wanted to make a bigger statement with the interior - it no longer just had to be an interior that’s in place so that you don’t see the rear side of the body; it is a statement in and of itself, and I’ll try to elaborate on why I think that’s the case.

Take that steering wheel, for instance. It’s still unquestionably a Corvette steering wheel, but it now only has two prongs, as well as a flat top and bottom. It is a dramatic change, but one which the designers made in-keeping with the car’s ethos that has been built up over the generations - it looks unusual, but it goes really well with the rest of the interior. In fact, now that I’ve seen this new flattened wheel, I don’t think a more traditional round one would work with the design.

Want more design drama? How about the long strip of buttons that looks like it’s three feet long - all of the car’s climate functions are concentrated in that one long strip. I counted a total of nineteen buttons grouped for driver and passenger - the top buttons are for the driver and the bottom buttons are for the passenger. And there aren’t many additional buttons except for the ones used to put the car in drive, reverse or park, the stability control button, the nose lift, the window controls, the home button for the infotainment and the buttons located to the left of the steering wheels that control the HUD - those are pretty much all the buttons I was able to spot in the interior, although there are more on the steering wheel, for cruise control, volume and navigation through the gauge cluster menus.

I also appreciate the look of the tablet-like infotainment screen that appears to float one inch above the dash. Many screens are placed in such a way that they look like they’re floating - there’s an entire trend there - but the one in the C8 just seems so well integrated and I especially like how aggressively it is angled towards the driver, so much so that, at least from the press photos, it looks like the passenger will have a hard time seeing what’s on the screen.

I’d also bet Chevrolet took inspiration from supercars that cost three times as much as the new C8 - this shows in the boldness of the dashboard, the intricate design of the seats, the super-sporty steering wheel and just the overall ambiance.

I think the interior is hugely successful in the way it looks (maybe even more so than the exterior) because it looks like the interior of an exotic, but at the same time it’s also clearly a Corvette. That was a hard thing to pull off, but in this case, the designers and engineers who came up with it really outdid themselves.

2020 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray interior dimensions