I hadn’t driven a normal C8 Corvette before our latest YouTube review. I had seat time in a Z06 at Willow Springs and rode passenger in an E-Ray, but never put street miles on America’s mid-engined cross-plane V-8 sweetheart. Finally, five years later, I got to try the thing. I’m impressed.
Firstly, it is a true sports car in a way most Corvettes struggle to be. The C5, C6, and C7 were all good sports cars, but never great. Yes, they hit performance metrics and laptimes, but the joy of driving was somewhat lost on those Corvettes. They were brutal, with heavy inputs and little finesse.
Corvettes were sledgehammers rather than razor blades—Which is why they always struggled against other sports cars. The speed was never in doubt; it was always the sensation and shades of driver interaction that made the Corvette Other. Big, brutal, and unapologetic aren’t often used as sports car adjectives.
The C8 is the opposite of other Corvettes. Not just in its mid-engined layout, or dual-clutch only gearbox, but in its tuning philosophy and approach. It’s more sports car than ever before, tuned for the finer joys of driving. It’s the first clean-sheet Corvette in three generations, the complete child of GM’s talented chassis team. There’s depth to the C8 that I can wax lyrical about here. But you should watch our newest video instead. Enjoy.
