Tuning shop plans to turn C8 Corvette into a supercar homage to Cadillac
In March 1902, Henry Ford walked away from his Henry Ford Company investors, leaving his former financial backers to dissolve the concern. The engineer brought in to appraise the old equipment, Henry Leland, convinced the investors to form a new car company and back him instead. Hence, six years before Ford gave the world the Model T, he inadvertently gave the world the Cadillac Automobile Company in August 1902. That makes 2022 the 120th anniversary of the brand that once called itself “The Standard of the World.” We don’t know if Cadillac has anything planned for the year, but U.S.-based tuner Competition Carbon does. As Carscoops picked up on, the aftermarket shop specializing in Corvette and Lamborghini mods intends to turn a current C8 Corvette into a supercar homage to Cadillac called the C120R. There will be two versions of this creation, one of them a V12 roadster.
All we have are Instagram captions and photos to go on at the moment, one of those photos tagged with a list of Competition Carbon’s partners in the project. One of the names is Kasim Tlibekov, who specializes in creating body kits for all manner of cars, another is Group A Motoring, which makes and sells body kit parts for six Japanese automakers. In a post on the Group A Instagram page, a Competition Carbon caption informs us the C120R is its “2022 SEMA project! Inspired by [2002] Cadillac Cien Super Car Concept (100 Anniversary), we redesigned and updated to our modern world after 20 years.” On the same post, Group A writes that this bodykit is “prob the first complete rebody C8 project, already at 3D Printing.” So, yes, despite the name, the body kit is worked up in SLA resin, not carbon.
As for the kit’s looks, the rationale for its intensity makes sense after looking at the Cien. The twin-duct hood dipping below the vectored front fascia, the reshaped side intakes, the flying buttresses over bulked-up and squared rear fenders, all come straight off the Cien, pictured below.
The adjustable rear wing and the roof scoop are new. That scoop would be one of two engine cover treatments for the car. The first has eight cutouts, and we suspect the car that Competition Carbon brings to this year’s SEMA show will use the Corvette’s 6.2-liter V8. However, another of the tagged names is Hartley Engines, a small engine builder out of New Zealand. There’s apparently another C120R already planned for the 2023 SEMA show, that one packing an open top above and a V12 behind. A post on Hartley’s Facebook page from 2018 shows off a 5.0-liter Hartley V12 based on a Toyota 1GZ V12 with between 700 and 800 horsepower. The caption says the engine is about demonstrating capability and the configurability of in-house products, and “We see this engine platform as a perfect fit for a small exotic car manufacturer, someone wanting to build 10-20 unique cars, that [wants] to partner with our brand and have exclusive rights to our unique engine.” The next iteration was a twin-turbo version with road-ready manners that could do 1,000 horsepower, which showed up on the dyno in 2020. The scooped engine cover is likely to get over that V12’s high-top intake.
Signature wheels wrapped in Toyo tires keep the metal parts off the ground. Usually.
We also presume Competition Carbon plans to release this as a road car, assuming it gets built. If so, we await more info on where the headlights will go, and license plates, too.
