This is one of the most interesting leaks we've seen in a while and, like the recent EPA and German patent applications we've seen, it has a strong flavour of authenticity.
Allow us to explain…
Now that the seventh-generation Chevrolet Corvette coupé has been presented to a (largely) admiring world at the Detroit motor show, speculation has turned to the convertible version, due out late this year as a 2014 model, and which has not thus far been seen in public without its full camouflage kit, in which it looks like a cross between a TVR Tasmin and a Beluga whale.
Everybody figures the front will look just the same as the hard top; there have been a few really outrageous guesses as to what form the rear treatment could take, but nobody really knew.
Until now.
What you see here are very detailed renderings of a convertible C7 Corvette; the front is almost identical to the coupé, while the rear has a neat boat-tail effect and a tiny spoiler over the (mandatory in the US) high-level third brake light.
But what's more significant is where they came from: although GM has denied straight out that these pictures are the real deal, according to Motor Trend they appeared first on the website of scale model company Maisto.
Lead times for die-cast moulds being what they are, quality model-makers such as Maisto wouldn't survive unless they could get highly accurate renderings of important new cars long before public release - under strict conditions of confidentiality, of course - and if that is in fact the case, somebody at Maisto is probably please explaining to the marketing mavens at GM right now.
TOO REAL TO BE REAL
We have no way of knowing whether these renderings are genuine or not, but all the details gel and there is nothing here that would not fit within the established parameters of the coupé version.
The only thing that mitigates against them is that the rear treatment of actual production convertibles from GM in recent years has not been this neat and coherent. In other words, these rendering may be too real to be real.
What do you think - are the bowtie guys capable of building a convertible this clean and tidy?