The Chevrolet Corvette.Courtesy of manufacturer
The mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette Stingray was launched amid a wave of enthusiasm in 2019. It was the everyman’s Ferrari, an off-brand Lamborghini, at a price – around $70,000 – that seemed almost attainable for all the daydreamers out there.
Five years since its debut, at a time when grocery bills are always double what you expect and interest rates remain painful, the Corvette now seems increasingly like the only rational choice in a luxury sports car market where prices are now absurd.
Take the Porsche 911, for example. After the Corvette, the 911 is Canada’s second-most-popular luxury sports car. A bare-bones 911 Carrera cost $104,000 in 2019. By 2023, the same car was going for $121,000, according to CarCostCanada. And, brace yourself, next year’s new 911 Carrera starts at $150,000. If you want a paint colour – any colour, because only black or white is included as standard – it’ll cost extra. This is assuming you could find a dealer willing to sell a base-model 911 Carrera and not upsell you into a pricier model. It seems like only yesterday (2020) that the 911 Turbo S went for $230,000. It’s now $300,000.
Chevrolet CorvetteCourtesy of manufacturer
The Corvette Stingray’s price has crept up too; the 2024 model starts at $90,833, but even loaded with luxury options it barely cracks six figures. As Porsche prices skyrocket, now is the ideal time to push aside any snobby beliefs and give the Corvette a chance. I’m glad I did, because it’s not the crude American machine I expected – far from it.
Even muffled by a helmet, the gargantuan 6.2-litre push-rod V8 makes a thundering, somewhat flatulent, and totally bombastic noise that permeates a driver’s whole body while accelerating down the back straight at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ont. The V8 sings though an optional performance exhaust, which has the added benefit of upping power and torque to 495 horsepower and 470 lb-ft.
By volume, the V8 engine is more than twice as big as Porsche’s three-litre motor, and it sounds as if it could chew up the German flat-six and spit it out as aluminum confetti.
Lamborghini, Ferrari and McLaren all have (or will soon have) turbochargers muffling the engine noise in their comparable supercars, but Corvette’s V8 remains au naturel, without turbos to dampen its aural delight. Near this price point, only the V10 in the Audi R8 could match this spine-tingling ferociousness, but sadly, that car – and that engine – are now dead. The Corvette stands alone.
The speedometer flashes past 237 kilometres an hour along the back straight before I stomp on the brakes.
Through the corners, this doesn’t feel like any Corvette that’s come before. It’s lighter, tighter and more delicate. The car exits turns with a smear of oversteer as if it’s pivoting around the driver. The steering and chassis have a newfound precision that rewards smooth inputs on steering, brake and throttle. Committing to one of the track’s high-speed corners is a leap of faith, but do so and you can feel the Corvette balancing on the edge of grip and carving a beautiful line. It helps that the wheels on our test car were set up with the track alignment, which any Corvette dealer can do.
The 670-horsepower Chevrolet Corvette Z06 on track at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ont.Matt Bubbers/The Globe and Mail
This story was supposed to be about the new 670-horsepower Corvette Z06, but the regular Stingray made a bigger impression over a handful of laps simply because of its unbeatable value. Yes, the Z06 is sharper, delivering much more feel and feedback through the steering and seat, and it’s almost on par with a $400,000 McLaren 765LT in terms of measured performance, according to testing by Edmunds. But the Z06 costs $159,327. That’s roughly $60,000 more than the regular Stingray with a few added performance options, but the Z06 is not $60,000 more fun, unless you’re a dedicated track rat. It’s a clear case of diminishing returns.
It’s little wonder the Corvette is by far Canada’s most popular luxury sports car so far this year, with a 40-per-cent market share, according to data from IHS. The Vette’s closest rivals are the Porsche 911 with 25 per cent of the market, and the smaller Porsche 718, with 6 per cent.
The lingering question is how? How did Corvette create a thundering mid-engine V8 thrill ride for half of what you’d pay for a high-performance Porsche 911 and a third of what you’d pay for a Ferrari or McLaren? Sure, the Corvette’s exterior design is a bit crude, but it still makes everything else seem like a rip-off.
“I don’t want to name specific cars, but we did have a Ferrari that we mapped (targeted) to each one of these [Corvettes],” said Adam Cameron, engineering group manager at General Motors of Canada Co. As part of GM, he said, Corvette can tap into the big company’s extensive testing facilities, engineering resources and economies of scale. “If I’m contracting steering systems [with a supplier] and I contract four models plus a Corvette, there’s a better price point on those,” Cameron said. Smaller companies like McLaren or Aston Martin can’t do that.
The interior of the Chevrolet CorvetteCourtesy of manufacturer
But, unlike a McLaren’s exotic carbon-fibre monocoque chassis, the Corvette is built around a metal tub. “It helps get to a [lower] price point,” Cameron said, “but compromise is the wrong word for it, because we’re targeting the same torsional stiffness, bending stiffness, vehicle mass.” (Owing to its use of lightweight carbon-fibre, the McLaren 750S is roughly 180 kilograms lighter than the Stingray and triple the price.)
Cameron said there’s “a bit of an underdog mentality” within Corvette’s engineering team, knowing they’re competing against Porsches, Ferraris and McLarens. “Those are the biggest names in the industry that we’re gunning for, in terms of the performance of the vehicle, but at a much lower price point. And we can build that car; that car is out here today.”
It’s doubtful any Porsche, Lambo or Ferrari buyers will put aside their prejudices and take the underdog Corvette for a test drive, but if they did, they’d surely come away as surprised as I was, and no doubt start to wonder just how much those exotic brands are padding their profit margins these days.
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