General Motor’s reveal of the mid-engine 2020 Corvette C8 caused quite a stir in the automobile industry. Since then, there have been rumors and speculations regarding what General Motors will come up with next. One such rumor is the possibility of the car company coming up with a mid-engine Cadillac based off of the 2020 C8.

As exciting as that sounds, new reports have indicated that we should not expect it to come true.

Where it all began

At the end of last year, there were reports from GM Authority of a prototype of the 2020 Corvette C8 that had what looked to be a newly shaped key fob that had several familiar buttons at the front and a Cadillac logo on the back.

The appearance of the key fob made some speculate that the 2020 C8 will not be a Chevrolet model but a Cadillac one instead. This proved to be false. Others though speculated that there would be a Cadillac version of the C8, which seemed more likely.

To add to this, during the reveal of Cadillac’s CT4-V and CT5-V, Mark Reuss, the President of General Motors, did not deny the possibility of seeing a Cadillac based off of the C8 Corvette. Responding to Muscle Cars & Trucks with a ‘we’ll see.’

Another report citing anonymous sources from the car company stated that instead of Corvette being a standalone model, it could actually become a separate brand of vehicles. The brand would contain a wide variety such as a Corvette SUV, Corvette crossover, Corvette sedan, and possibly a Corvette-based Cadillac.

The reports further speculated that the Cadillac could make use of the C8 platform to come up with a Cadillac sports car version. Seeing how the Corvette now implements a mid-engine layout, it wouldn’t be difficult to have the Cadillac make use of the similar mid-engine design as well.

The key fob explained

While the latter reports are still circulating, General Motors recently came out to explain the mix-up that happened with the key fob. According to reports, the confusion resulted from GM deciding to move the mid-engine 2020 Corvette to its new electronic architecture known as Global B.

The Global B digital electronic architecture is a new system that according to GM, provides better processing power and connectivity than what the outgoing system is capable of achieving. The system will be fitted into future projects and will handle the vehicles’ all-electric propulsion, autonomous driving and safety systems, as well as some of the infotainment features.

The architecture will also be responsible for delivering over-the-air updates to the vehicles and transferring signals between the vehicles’ components efficiently and quicker. Currently, only two vehicles have been fitted with the Global B architecture, the CT5 and the C8.

This, however, was not the plan to begin with. General Motors decided to integrate the Global B architecture into the 2020 C8 halfway through the development of the car. This caused complications among the engineers working on the Chevrolet, and added a further six months to the vehicle’s development period.

The sudden shift explains the key fob mix-up. Since engineers had not yet got around to creating a key fob specific to the Corvette, they repurposed the key fob used with the Cadillac CT5 because both the CT5 and the C8 would be using the similar electronic system.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, the explanation seems to put one of the rumors to bed and cool speculations about a Corvette-based mid-engine Cadillac being developed. However, there are still some rumors persisting. If it were to happen, at least engineers already have one piece of the puzzle figured out.