Since the mid-engined Chevrolet Corvette launched, two things about it bugged me (aright, three things, but one’s fixable with a good alignment): While the exterior styling’s still a bit bulky in my eyes, the biggest usability issue was the giant button-topped wall separating the driver and passenger. Laying out everything in a vertical line wasn’t the most logical arrangement, and the height of the fixture put some serious space between the occupants. For 2026, Chevrolet is fixing that by replacing the wall of buttons with, well, buttons.
See, this isn’t an exercise of cramming everything into a screen, but rather one in choosing button selection and locations that make more sense. With that in mind, the climate control hard keys now sit beneath the infotainment touchscreen, letting Chevrolet drop the partition between driver and passenger and replace it with a grab handle. That new grab handle also comes with a USB-C charging port for the front passenger’s cell phones and other devices, a handy touch. Unfortunately, this does mean that heated and cooled seat controls move into the touchscreen, but at least they’re always top-level tiles, and pretty big ones at that.
Speaking of moving things around, hybrid E-Ray models now get a steering wheel-mounted button to force charging, while the mode selector on all models switches from a bulky rotary knob with its own palm rest to a toggle switch near the gear selection buttons. This has freed up space for Chevrolet to move the wireless smartphone charger from the rear firewall to the center console, meaning you’ll no longer have to be a Cirque du Solieil performer to wirelessly charge your phone. At the same time, screen real estate has increased with a 12.7-inch infotainment touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a 14-inch digital cluster, and a new 6.6-inch screen to the left of the steering wheel for auxiliary gauges and performance pages, like g-force and lap times. Oh, and the volume knob is now backlit to make it easier to find in the dark. For context, here’s the wall of buttons in the old interior.
And here’s the new interior. While I love buttons, finding the correct ones with the old layout was challenging, and this new simplification and relocation seems like a perfectly reasonable move to make the Corvette nicer to use.
Speaking of quality-of-life improvements, the Corvette seems like a great four-season daily driver. It has a composite body and an aluminum spaceframe, and short of ground clearance limitations, it seems built to weather the up-and-down weather and occasional brightness of salt belt winters. The sort of weather where a transparent roof is nice at times, but every so often, you’d be wishing for a shade. In an effort to add a bit of flexibility, Chevrolet is offering an electrochromic hardtop for the Corvette coupe, with a variable-tint glass element for natural light, but not too much natural light.
At the same time, it wouldn’t be a new Corvette model year without a few new color and trim options, notably the gorgeous Roswell Green Metallic paint, the demure Blade Silver Metallic, body-color sills coming standard on the E-Ray, and interior choices including a grey with orange accents, a bright blue, a chocolate brown, an asymmetric red-and-black, and sueded everything.
Oh, and there’s one more new party trick worth mentioning called PTM Pro. A new mode in GM’s Performance Traction Management system, it effectively disables traction and stability control but keeps ABS and some front axle management stuff on E-Ray models for the oversteering heroes of the Vette community.
All these little changes seem to add up to a more usable, compelling Corvette that dials up the pragmatism in the pursuit of making America’s sports car more comfortable to live with. Plus, that green paint option looks pretty stellar. So, what do you think about Chevy’s interior makeover?
Top graphic credit: Chevrolet
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I like almost everything about the C8 except for the interior, because it essentially puts the passenger in a sidecar and makes the driver look like a Dick. It’s like saying to them; “No, all the controls are mine, you get to sit over there on the other side of this wall and stare at the glove box.”
It’s a big enough turn-off that I would never buy one.
Note to Chevrolet: Remember when Vettes had a shared dashboard? There’s a reason.
I know a lot of people don’t like C8’s but I do, especially given how incredible it is for the money. I like C7’s too. My criticism of the C8 is the lack of a manual. But then I look at the manual take rate for most cars and I realize that even when they are available they rarely sell more than 10-20%. I think we are to blame, sadly.
I’d still take a C7 with the 7 speed stick over the C8. The C7 just looks cooler, and it has that manual.
Still don’t like it. Both the interior and exterior are overwrought and busy. But the burning question is, how do you open the doors if the power goes out?
The have a mechanical release
I was being slightly sarcastic, but is it easy to find in an emergency or is one expected to locate and rapidly leaf through the owners manual or worse case the menu systems on the display screens.
The carbon fiber trim look is not a good one.
I like the interior update, I was ok with the old version, the value is unparalleled and compelling. All that aside, I am a slightly afraid I would kill myself in a C8 AND I find myself wanting to tone down the exterior design to make it less angular which seems to say more European. But clearly a Corvette that looks like a Euro design is just not a Corvette. So maybe I need some therapy (is Adrian licensed?), but that said, if you find yourself in the two seat sports car life space AND you want to go beyond the GR86/Miata thing it’s a Cayman or a C8, the value prop on the C8, when you look at real world pricing, is just off the chart.. Damn I am conflicted, but the pain is exquisite..
I liked everything about the C8, except for the wall of buttons. It looked like the car telling the passenger, “No, you are not allowed to touch the radio!”. So I consider this an improvement.
I don’t see that as being a downside, but maybe I need to do a better job of choosing my passengers.
I would normally whine about the screen-based seat controls, but let’s be honest here: No one is driving one of these in the winter anyway so my usual gripe about using touch controls with winter gloves on don’t apply. The most extreme conditions the heated seats will generally see is keeping someone’s tush comfy on a cooler late summer day when they have the roof open.
Also, I love the dedicated new screen for extra gauges. I’ve used Torque to do that in one of my cars, but having it built in (and not a literal tablet taped to the dashboard like mine) is a nice improvement.
Sorry if people don’t want to hear it but the change the center console really needed was a manual transmission. If you are going to get smoked by depreciated Teslas that the prior owners were too embarrassed to be seen in anymore you might as well get a proper transmission.
this is the answer. Sports cars are now about engagement more than pure performance. Lean in to engagement.
This 100%. You can’t out-accelerate an EV, so just deliver a full driving experience instead.
Bonus, even the latest manual Caddies with the supercharged V8 also benefit from no AFM/DFM, so less likely to fail on you over time. Hopefully Corvette follows suit.
Amen, I would actually consider one for my mid-life crisis if they come out with a manual.
A namuel would make the C8 even slower!
When I saw the pictures of the button wall, I thought it was sort of neat. Once the C8s started hitting dealers and I got to sit in one, I found the wall to be rather annoying. Despite some functions going into the touchscreen, overall this is an improvement.
Also, that Roswell Green is incredible!
Rumor has it that color is tinted with the blood of aliens…
I came in here fully expecting to hate the loss of the button wall, but your description of moving the buttons where they make sense almost sold me on this being 100% improvement…but the seat heat/ventilation and a couple other climate controls are on the touchscreen. Not a fan of that. Maybe a net improvement overall, but I would prefer a smaller screen and a couple more physical controls.
Not that I’m buying one of these any time soon. Or probably ever. Maybe a C6 or a C7 in a few years.
Still not sold on the design but that green looks really slick
I really like that wall of buttons. I guess this means in fifteen to twenty years I’ll just be using 2026 as the cutoff in regards to which well-depreciated C8 I’ll be considering.
What a downgrade.
I suppose it’s nice that Chevy changed the interior – tho it looks even more complex and over-designed to me.
It’s a shame they didn’t address the over-designed exterior – Gawd that’s an ugly car.
Mr. Regular will be devastated to hear that the Corvette is losing its
HVAC HAPPY TRAIL
HVAC HAPPY TRAIL
Run your thumb down my HVAC HAPPY TRAIL
I liked the button wall because it was unique and weird, but from a usability perspective the update is better. And it looks really nice, despite being quite busy in there.
One thing I noticed on the 26 is that the passenger side temperature control is on the other side of the grab handle. Hard to reach for the passenger and possibly out of their site line!
As a 2023 C8 owner, the wall of buttons is no big deal. Some have rocker switches which you can use without looking at them. One of for fan speed the other for temperature! This seems more like a patch on the old design, and is not as fluid as the old. It seems they did a great job on functionality which will make the C8 even easier to live with. Wonder when the next gen V8 is coming!
Was there also a plethora of interior and exterior color combos on your C8? The new options seem very cool
No not as many. I went with black exterior because I wanted a mono color exterior. Didn’t have the money to color match or I might have gotten the bright blue! I went with a two tone interior, black with red accents/ black and red seats. I purchased red tape for a thin red stripe on the black wheels with red calipers! The green exterior looks amazing on the 26. Also a lot of amazing colors for the interior!
I love asymmetrical design, particularly in an interior. Mopar did something similar with an appearance package on some Darts, Chargers and Durangos with black and blue.
I’m not a Corvette guy but I may be going shopping for some New Balance with this update.
ABS only mode and an extra “Oh-Crap” handle? Count me in!
Seems like an indisputable win to me.
Interesting that the wall is still there, just bereft of buttons. They really want to keep that whole “passengers need not concern themselves with anything in this area” vibe. I guess I appreciate the driver-centric approach.
Really makes you wonder if they’ve got something running through there they designed the button wall around and now runs through the grab handle….
You think they’d have used the opportunity to open things up. The problem wasn’t line of buttons, it was the separation/division of the cabin.
I haven’t even sat in one so I don’t know how it feels, but yeah from the pictures it always seemed odd.
I’m pretty sure there’s no functional purpose. I’ve been in enough interior designs studios where “driver centered interior” just means asymmetrical complex shape that wraps around the driver, without much consideration of what that driver actually needs to do and access when they’re, ya know, driving.
On the PTM Pro, so is it not just the same as pressing and holding the TC button until it’s all off? Like is it just a press operation now?
If it’s like the Drive Modes on the Blackwing, there’s a dial or screen control to switch between various modes. I would assume the Pro mode is among them, although you may need to acknowledge some disclaimer about increased danger with systems off.
This is a solid design choice. As anti-screen as I tend to be, I realized that at least 80% of Vette owners were just getting sick of telling their wives to stop touching the damned buttons on the one Sunday a month that they’re both in the car together for their therapist-recommended PLEASANT DRIVE.
In the very car that caused the biggest argument in the marriage? Talk about the opposite of therapeutic.
My wife would say she’s getting car sick and needs to drive…