C8 CORVETTE PROVES DREAMS DO COME TRUE
The Corvette just blew up the supercar world. As in absolutely, completely blew it to smithereens, as I would’ve said as a kid. Mark down July
18, 2019, as the day the world of high-performance automobiles changed forever.
True mid-engine supercars (and not some overhyped drag racer — I’m looking at you, Challenger Hellcat) are no longer out of the reach of a middle-class Canadian. If you’re on a budget, no longer must you make do with some watered-down, four-cylinder Porsche with less horsepower than a Toyota Camry. Never again will anyone have to sell their soul to Bay Street to sit ahead of an internal combustion engine. That’s because, among all the other bombshells General Motors president Mark Reuss and his gang of merry Corvette engineers dropped in Southern California, is the fact that pricing for the new, much anticipated C8 version of the Corvette will start at $69,998.
Yes, under $70,000. Yes, in Canadian dollars. No, the engine is not an extra-cost option.
That means that 70,000 devalued loonies will buy you a mid-engined supercar with stunning good looks that can accelerate from rest to 100 km/h in just three seconds, and will, on Canadian winter-friendly all-season radials no less, generate up to a racer-like one “g” of lateral acceleration in corners.
In fact, let’s take a look at what 70 large gets you elsewhere in the sports car marketplace. For $3,895 less than the new C8, Porsche will sell you a mid-engine 718 Boxster. The only problem is that a $66,100 Boxster is powered by some wheezy little four-cylinder engine with but 300 horsepower that requires a very family-sedan-like 5.1 seconds to scoot to 100 km/h. Yes, its engine is in the right place, but its pistons are simply not willing.
For $6,200 more, Dodge will sell you a Challenger SRT Hellcat, and at 717 hp, its supercharged 6.2-litre V-8 certainly is more horsepower than the Boxster. The only problem is that, even for the Hellcat version of the Challenger, its engine is altogether in the wrong hemisphere of the chassis and despite all those fire-breathing horses, it still needs almost half a second more to accelerate to 100 km/h. Nor do I think I need to remind you that any Challenger, even one with what its brochure calls “competition suspension with active damping,” handles like a water buffalo on roller skates.
In fact, peruse any showroom floor you want and there is just nothing anywhere that can compete with Chevy’s miracle Corvette.
The other big sport car new this year is the similarly priced Toyota Supra. Swoopy styled it may be, but it remains two pistons, about 160 horsepower and an entire chassis configuration away from true exotica. The Shelby GT350 version of the Mustang? Well, it does boast 526 ponies and a flat-plane crankshaft. But, my Lord, Ford is still going on about it having independent rear suspension as if it’s a big deal and it actually costs $5,605 more than the base C8.
Acura’s NSX? Well, the Honda is technically more sophisticated — it’s powered by three electric motors and a twin-turbo V6, after all — and its engine is where God and Colin Chapman intended. But just try to get one for under $200,000.
If you want to get really silly, compare the new mid-engine ’Vette with its real competition, Ferrari’s 488 and Lamborghini’s new Huracan Evo. Both, of course, are rear engine and exotic. Both might actually be just a smidgen faster, too. But $70,000 will barely buy you their custom-fitted leather luggage set and a two-tone paint job. OK, I jest (though just barely), but you could buy a new C8 for yourself and three of your closest friends for what it will cost you to get into a new 488 Pista and you still wouldn’t have a car that’s nearly as gorgeous or even sounds as good, because besides being a stunner, the new C8 will be the last supercar powered by a naturally aspirated V-8. In the history of sports cars, never has so much been offered to so many for so little.
The problem is that the Corvette sales will not save the North American auto industry. GM needs to show it can generate the same focus, and the same drive, the same corporate resolve on every car, truck or SUV it produces.