Bargain beast

STINGRAY: DON’T PAY ANY MORE FOR MUSCLE

If Dacia made a sports car then this is what it’d be like. But Dacia doesn’t and Chevrolet does and it’s called the Corvette Stingray. Why the Dacia comment? Because the car that we’re testing costs £82,150, has a 6.2-litre V8 engine that produces 475bhp, does 185mph and looks breathtakingly cool.

We drove the new Corvette Stingray in America before lockdown and loved it.

It’s the eighth generation Corvette, which is why it is referred to as the C8, but the first built with an engine in the middle and, crucially for UK car enthusiasts, it is the first Corvette that comes in right-hand drive. The car we drove was a coupe, but now we’re driving the car in Europe in convertible form.

Actually, all Corvette Stingrays are convertibles because even the coupe has removable panels that can be stored in the boot. If you don’t need the full wind-in-the-hair experience, that car will cost £77,150. That’s in 3LT spec, mind, accept slightly fewer bells and whistles and you can drive away in a Corvette coupe for £74,200.

Slip into the Stingray’s bucket seat and you could almost be in a fighter plane. You’re cocooned in the seat with a large centre console to your left. There’s a touchscreen for sat-nav and entertainment but you still have plenty of buttons and knobs. There are over a dozen switches in a long line on the centre console and while driving, I could remember what half of them do.

In front of you is a flat top and bottomed steering wheel with a few controls in its centre. The Stingray isn’t available with a manual gearbox but there are paddles behind the wheel to manually control the eight-speed dual clutch automatic transmission. The engine is oldschool and directly related to the famous small-block Chevrolet V8 first built in the 1950s.

It’s a straightforward engine that features pushrods and two valves per cylinder. It’s strong, reliable and powerful for its weight and size. And it features cylinder de-activation that cuts the motor down to four cylinders on part-throttle.

The Chevy V8 sounds great even at idle and ticks over with a characterful shake. At full throttle it sounds fantastic. There’s no trickery of funnelling sound into the cockpit or synthesising it via the audio system: the harder you press on the throttle the more noise it makes.

Just under 500bhp doesn’t sound like much these days. Hybrid hypercars are now producing over 1,000bhp and even the “cheapest” Ferraris and Mclarens have engines that produce over 600bhp.

But the Corvette Stingray oozes character. It’s going to feel big for UK roads but the ride is comfortable.

You will find it relaxing on a long drive; there’s so much torque and the throttle response is so quick that there’s little need to rev the big V8.

I’d settle for the coupe version because it looks a bit better at the back and the convertible loses the

see-through panel that allows you to look at the engine. That means I’d pay £77,150.

There just isn’t a car like it for anything like that money. A BMW M4 is as expensive and an Audi R8 almost double. And forget Mclarens and Ferraris.

There’s only one problem buying this car and that’s the waiting list which stretches to 2023. Nothing to do with semiconductors, it’s simply down to the fact almost 300 enthusiasts have ordered it. Wise people, in my opinion.