It probably comes as no surprise that automakers spend more than a passing minute taking decent photos of their new cars. Admittedly, we've some official launch photos that may have barely taken a minute, but generally speaking, it's more than just parking in a cool spot and busting out a camera. Thanks to the official Instagram account for the GM Design studios, we get a taste of what Chevrolet does for major launches like the Corvette.
At least, we see what went down with the 2024 Corvette E-Ray. It debuted in January of this year, but as we see on Instagram, launch photos were staged long before the bitter winds of winter came to town. One post highlights a daytime shoot on a winding road through a forest, and for the E-Ray, simply driving a dry road apparently wasn't enough. A truck was brought in to soak the surface with water, and there's even a smoke machine for effect.
The other location is a night shoot and doesn't look quite as involved. By that, we mean there's no obvious smoke machine cranking away and we don't see a water truck directly, though the road is clearly wet.
In each post, we see video footage of the actual photo shoot along with a selection of official images that were the result. There's certainly some post-production still happening after the fact, but there's no denying the positive outcome of using the practical effects for the shots.
Chris Arace, part of the Global Creative Visualizaton Team, is the bearded man with the camera shown in GM Design's post. Arace's knowledge, experience, and creative eye into the process that culminated in some properly gorgeous photos (along with the work of photog Andrew Phillips, whol is shouted out in the comments).
Are all photo shoots for new cars like this? That's obviously a question for each automaker to answer, but it's worth noting that the Corvette E-Ray is a very special vehicle for Chevrolet. In the 'Vette universe, it's the first with an electrified powertrain, the first with all-wheel drive, and it's the quickest-accelerating model of them all. Such an occasion certainly warrants extra attention with some snazzy images.
That leads us to wonder what might be in store for the next Corvette trim to debut. We believe it's the ZR1, based on aggressive-looking camouflaged prototypes and a leaked report from 2021 that, so far, has been pretty darned accurate. That report also mentions up to 850 horsepower in the ZR1, courtesy of a twin-turbocharged version of the 5.5-liter DOHC V8 from the Z06. That would make the ZR1 the most powerful – and almost certainly the fastest – production Corvette in history.
And that sounds like a recipe for another complex, stylized photo shoot from the GM Design crew. Until then, absorb some interesting electric Corvette info of a very different kind in Motor1's Rambling About Cars podcast, available below.
