Vehicle Description
From the moment that rumors surfaced that the engine in the next
C8-generation Corvette might move behind the seats, the presumption
that the car would be a breakthrough, a revelation, and a
revolution has followed it like a moon shadow. Now it's here. And
it does look more like a Ferrari than a Corvette, with the same
cabin-forward proportions as every hyperfast, megadollar exotic on
the market. And we've driven it extensively. So, has Chevrolet
built a supercar for the massesan American Ferrarior simply a
better Corvette? The answer is yesbut with an asterisk. It's
complicated. Untangling our feelings about the C8 Stingray starts
with examining its performance, which definitely lives up to
expectations. With 60.6 percent of its mass over the rear tiresthe
C7 Stingray had a roughly 50/50 front-to-rear weight
distributionthe C8 is ferocious off the line. Note that our heavily
optioned test car weighed 3647 pounds, 195 more than a 2019 C7 Z51
we tested. With the dual-mode performance exhaust that's included
in the Z51 package, the 6.2-liter LT2 V-8 in the C8's tail makes
495 horsepower (base cars without that exhaust make 490). That's up
35 ponies from the C7 Z51's engine, which keeps the
pounds-per-horsepower ratios of the two cars virtually equal.
