General Motors Files Trademark for Zora in Mexico

By Keith Cornett on July 2, 2024

Photo Credit: Glenn Paulina, KGP Photography

While the 2025 Corvette ZR1 has every one's attention as we await for its reveal on 7.25.24, General Motors has been busy working on a future model that is expected later in the C8 Corvette line-up.

It's widely believed that the C8 Zora will the most powerful Corvette ever created as it will feature the (expected) ZR1's twin turbo V8 plus the E-Ray's front electric motor for a Corvette that has somewhere around 1,000-hp from the factory. Spy photographers have recently caught Chevy engineers testing the cars against a Ferrari SF90 Stradale in public.

Now we have another Zora-related piece of news to share and it comes from GM Authority. According to them, General Motors filed a trademark for “Zora” on June 3rd with Mexico's Instituto Mexicano de la Propiedad Industrial (IMPI). The filing suggests that the trademark will be used for “vehículos de motor y sus partes estructurales,” or motor vehicles and their structural parts. The registration's serial number is 0119853169269.

Checking back through our Trademark archives, we remembered this story from 2018 that GM has already trademarked the Zora name in a number of different markets that included the United Kingdom, European Union, China, Japan, Korea, and Australia. While this could be just a precautionary measure to protect the Zora name, it's clear now that GM is moving forward with the Zora model and that it will most likely be another C8 model available for export.

As for its USA trademark, General Motors first received the rights to the Zora name via an assignment in 2014. GM reregistered the name in December 2018, and again for a third time in June 2022.

The Zora name refers to Corvette's first chief engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov who helped turn the underpowered 2-seater into a proper sports car. Zora pushed the Corvette to compete against the world at racetracks like Daytona, Sebring, and Le Mans, and he was the first to champion a move to a mid-engine configuration as far back as the 1950s. Zora led the Corvette engineering team through his retirement from GM in 1975.

As for when the Zora will arrive, we just learned that the upcoming ZR1 model will indeed be arriving as a 2025, and so the Zora could come as early as 2026. As we've said previously, GM could also be looking at launching a new a Grand Sport model which they also trademarked in 2022.